My grandfather, Arthur Baskerville, he played and still plays a little bit piano and trombone, and so when I was a kid, I always heard jazz around the house, but I also went to his gigs, whether it be a Saturday brunch in my hometown Columbus, Ohio. We'd go and hear him play with some of the local musicians.
My parents were not poor, I mean we were a very average middle-class family of academics, but my grandfather happened to have built house literally next to one of Kolkata's largest slum.
Did I collect baseball cards? I've got 10 books full of plastic in my mother's house. All the Upper Decks, the Fleers, the Fleer Ultras. My grandfather brought me to the trade shows. I collected Marvel cards, too.
I have one. I may get another during the off-season, I might get my son's name but I'm not sure yet. The one I have is my Hebrew name, which I share with my grandfather, and it's not the best tattoo.
I've been called a moron since I was about four. My father called me a moron. My grandfather said I was a moron. And a lot of times when I'm driving, I hear I'm a moron. I like being a moron.
I started taking piano lessons when I was about 5, and there was always a lot of music in my family: my parents both play instruments, my grandparents were classical violinists, and my grandfather was actually a music professor and a conductor.
My grandfather and my father had wheat ranches, so we had quite a few trucks around and a lot of mules. Talk about horsepower - we had mule power.
My great grandfather from my father's side, Sir Akbar Hydari, was the prime minister of the Nizam of Hyderabad. He was instrumental in setting up the Osmania university. His wife set up the Hydari club for women so that they could play tennis, and she also set up the first girls' school in Hyderabad.
I read a lot, but in comparison to my family, it's nothing. I keep telling them, 'I'm the illiterate of the family.' My grandfather used to read five books at a time.
While my mother is from Jammu, my father was originally from Afghanistan, as my grandfather was the governor of five provinces there, including Herat.
