I had a big brother so I always wanted him to hang out with me, but he wouldn't. So I always did sports and I always really liked it, but I just was never good at it.
I had five sisters and one brother, so having a big family is a given for me, but now being a father, and trying to be a good father, I already have my work cut out for me.
My father never liked me or my sister, and he never liked our mother either, after an initial infatuation, and in fact, he never liked anyone at all after an hour or two, no, no one except a stooge.
My father liked doing carpentry work, construction work, in the summer vacation. And so my mother designed a cabin, a log cabin, like a - it was like a Swiss chalet. I was twelve years old, and my father and I built it on a rocky point peninsula out into Lake Superior.
I liked my father's work. But above all I liked the idea of doing something concrete and useful. Building a house is a metaphor that I like, it's at the core of my life philosophy: starting from the bottom and reaching the top.
My dad has always played and coached, so that's what I knew. I played other sports but always turned toward soccer and had the same love for it as my father. They never forced me to play; I always wanted to. I was always around it.
I always liked doing all sorts of different things. As a kid growing up, I was always drawing and painting - always doing art. But I also loved movies and music, so as I started doing everything, I liked every aspect. It's not really that I am a control freak; it's just that is what I love.
When I was little, my older brother, Gary, was forced to read a book a week in fourth grade. The books he liked he threw on my bed when he was finished with them. This continued throughout my childhood and made me a reader for life.
I was attracted to cricket at a very young age. My father's elder brother Akram Siddiq saw the passion for cricket in me, so he pushed me, and then another uncle - father of Kamran, Umar, and Adnan Akmal - advised my father to work hard on me, as he thought that I will make it big in cricket.
I am very close to my brother Ramesh Babu. When my father was away for shootings, my brother would take care of me, and I am very close to him, and yes, Dad's always special. He used to call me and enquire about my film's progress. Whenever I deliver a hit, I can see a glow on my father's face.
But at the same time, my parents always encouraged my brother and me to be happy with what we were doing. My parents were athletes in high school; my mom and my dad were the stars of the basketball team, but they never pushed my brother and me to be anything we didn't want to be.
My father hated rock and roll - hated it. My first real argument with my father was over the Rolling Stones. And he never, ever liked rock and roll. He just liked me.
I don't dislike my peers because they're still around and remind me of what I'm doing. I never liked them anyway. I never liked U2, the things they've done over the years.
As a warning to parents, I mention that my father preferred me to my brother, which was very injurious to both of us. To me, as tending to produce in my mind a feeling of self-elevation; and to my brother, by creating in him a dislike both towards my father and me.
My father was a man of love. He always loved me to death. He worked hard in the fields, but my father never hit me. Never. I don't ever remember a really cross, unkind word from my father.
My passion is more specific, in the sense that I've always liked doing comedy. I've always liked doing music. I like acting. And apparently, you need those things in movies.