I grew up in Mumbai and went to Cathedral and John Connon School. I have two sisters, one elder and the other younger. My dad was an architect. I lost him when I was six. My mother played the role of both parents. My older sister had polio but she never let that bother her. Instead, she was forever getting into trouble at school. My younger sister was calmer. My elder sister and I were a bit wild and we gave our mom a hard time. We were always fighting with each other.

But there was one small problem. If you ever got into trouble in school, your school diary, containing the teacher’s complaints, had to be signed by your parents, in my case, by my mother. Obviously, I couldn’t go to my mother every day, so I would get my sister to forge Ma’s signature. So, in spite of all the fights, I had to be nice to her.

Once the police came to our school for a road safety patrol exercise and went to meet the principal. We made up this story about how the police had come to arrest the principal and it spread like wildfire. As a result, there was a whole spate of cartoons doing the rounds. I drew a cartoon on a piece of paper and was passing it on to my friend when, unfortunately, the vice-president of my school caught me. Needless to say, all hell broke loose. Ours was a Jesuit school and caning was common. Would you believe it if I told you that the vice-president actually told me, ‘‘I’m choosing which cane to use on you’’.

When I was a child I loved dreaming. I also took a keen interest in rugby, aero-crafts and aeromodelling. I grew up listening to ABBA but later graduated to the likes of Deep Purple and Santana. But at that time I had no idea that I would be a musician some day.

My folks had initially expected me to take up science after my I.C.S.E. because they thought I would follow in my father’s footsteps. Luckily, a letter from my school saying that I shouldn’t take up science saved the day. They were very supportive of my decision. In fact, although I did well in my I.C.S.E., I’m glad I followed my dreams instead of academics.