I certainly don't stay out of the sun, and I also don't, as some of my critics have said, put on blackface as a performance.

The system of racial classification is fiction, and we need to thoughtfully evaluate whether perpetuating it rigidly or allowing fluidity across the spectrum best supports human rights and social justice.

I want to provide for my kids.

I think there's definitely a stereotype of white privilege, and that stereotype gets expanded to mean rich, not oppressed, not suffering, et cetera. And yes, it's a misperception.

An education is not so much about making a living as making a person.

I was a trial lawyer. At the same time, I was a teacher. I taught about the political and social content of film for American University. Then I left and became a teacher at the University of California at Santa Cruz. I taught about the political and social content of film, but I also taught a course in law for undergraduates.

My parents being Bengali, we always had music in our house. My nani was a trained classical singer, who taught my mum, who, in turn, was my first teacher. Later I would travel almost 70 kms to the nearest town, Kota, to learn music from my guru Mahesh Sharmaji, who was also the principal of the music college there.

My parents were born and brought up in New York City. My father was trained as an electrical engineer, and my mother was an elementary school teacher. They were the children of Jewish immigrants who had come to the United States from England and Lithuania in the late 1800s.