The second child of a small farmer with six children, I come from a village in Bihar on the border of Nepal called Belwa. I was there till the age of 17 and studied in a Hindi-speaking boarding school run by Catholics in a nearby district town.
I studied voice when I was at school, and I was in the chamber choir, and I studied music theory as well, so I guess a lot of it came from being taught at school.
I actually studied in college, for the three semesters that I stayed in school, I don't recommend that, but I studied theater, and in high school I was involved in the drama department.
I studied drama in high school, and when I was 18, I studied at the Actors Studio in New York. Then I moved to London when I got engaged to Bryan Ferry, and I studied at the National Theatre there.
The school at which you studied - design school, disruptive school, TRIZ school, user-centered innovation school, etc - determines the specific words you use.
Of course you cannot compare my Hindi with a Hindi-speaking person, but I am confident enough to hold a conversation in mixed Hindi-English.
Dubbing for myself in Hindi is a big task. I know Hindi. I can read and write Hindi, but I dont normally speak the language, and that is very important.
I'm not a television anchor for a Hindi channel or a radio jockey. So I may not be able to have a spontaneous conversation in Hindi. I'm a Bollywood actress, and I can certainly speak my dialogue in Hindi.
Mythology is studied in the school system because most of us come from it.
I grew up in East Germany, so we had to learn Russian in school... everybody hated it. I never thought it would come in handy... And being an actor, I've been able to use it quite a bit.
I studied economics. I studied industrial engineering. It wasn't until later, when I was around 26, that I really decided to go to film school.
Now I know Hindi, and I can read and write Hindi, but the problem is that I can't improvise when I am acting because I think in English, so I have to translate my thinking from English to Hindi, and therefore, I speak slowly.
For 'Dum Maro Dum,' I had a diction tutor, as I had to get rid of my Hyderabadi Hindi and learn Goan Hindi. It wasn't easy, because these two kinds of Hindi were mutually incompatible. I had to unlearn one kind of Hindi and then learn a new kind.
I studied music; I studied theater. I went to school for it, so I kind of treat it in that manner, that whether or not I can hang out, I've always been the one to go in my room and chill.
I studied acting for 10 years before I went for an audition. I studied with Lee Strasberg and Actors Studio teachers, and went to the High School of Performing Arts.
Until we got married, Radha didn't utter a word of English and now she won't speak Hindi. Her Hindi's pretty good actually - she learnt it while watching Hindi movies.