When I was growing up, I wasn't particularly great at anything. I was in my own world, and my teachers felt I'd never reach my potential. Even in sports, I'd only play team games because I felt I was not good enough to outshine anyone.
I never felt bright enough. I never felt confident. I felt that kid coming out of the council estate, like I was never good enough.
I guess...on one hand, I spent way too much time watching science fiction and reading science fiction when I was growing up. But a part of it is I also never felt much of a connection to the world in which I lived while I was growing up, and so, oddly enough, I think I felt a lot more connected to the worlds that I read about in science fiction.
Growing up, I never really felt like anything was my own. I moved a lot, and I never belonged anywhere.
I never want to promote an ad that makes women feel bad about themselves, because when I was young, I never felt rich enough or fashionable enough or good enough. I felt talked down to by luxury fashion labels. There was a disconnect. They made me feel we weren't right for each other.
I remember playing games and having tears roll down my face because it felt like it was never going to be good enough.
I never felt I was attractive to women. I felt I was attractive to men when I was growing up. And even now, if a woman fancies me, I find that a bit alienating.
I never felt like a boy or a girl, never felt I should wear this or dress like that. I think that's where that confidence comes from because I never felt I had to play a part in my life. I just always come as Shamir.
I played team sports, but I never felt like I fitted in that well, so this allowed me to be part of a community but to do it in my own way.
When I was a kid, I felt like I could do anything and play anything. I just felt super-confident. And then, once I started to play music professionally, maybe it's from being from a small town, but you grow up and then you're suddenly a big fish in a small pond, and I realized that there were a billion other drummers out there that could play as good as you or better, and everybody wants that job.
Growing up, I played every sport I could play, so I didn't have much time, but when I wasn't playing sports, I was definitely playing video games. But my mom used to tell me that I could only play video games for two hours a day and then they would turn off the Internet so I couldn't play online.
There is a growing interest in team ownership and promoting sports beyond cricket in India. I always felt it is important to encourage other sports, especially those that bring communities together and promote active lifestyles to Indian youth.
I never felt I had anything to hide. I never felt being gay was anything to be ashamed of, so I never felt apologetic. I didn't have issues with it, didn't grow up with any religion, so I didn't have any religious, you know, issues to deal with as far as homosexuality is concerned. So, I accepted it very easily. For me, it wasn't that big a deal.
I feel a whole country growing inside me, thousands of years, millions of people, stupid, crazy, shrewd people, and all of them me. I never felt like that before, I never felt that there was anything inside me, even myself.
My parents were very poor, but we never felt any sense of need or want. It was a very close, loving, tightly-knit family growing up, and I never felt any sense of deprivation or anything like that.
I would never tell anybody to give up hockey - the great sports we have here - basketball, lacrosse - rugby coming into its own - we've got so many great team sports, and I say hold on to them.
So many things in the world have happened before. But it's like they never did. Every new thing that happens to a person, it's a first... In that night I felt expansion, as if the world was branching out in shoots and growing faster than the eye could see. I felt smallness, how the earth divided into bits and kept dividing. I felt stars.