My older brother and myself always played together in bands, but we never knew we would be professional musicians.

I'm not a person who writes really abstract things with oblique references. I look at abstraction like I look at condiments. Give me some Tabasco sauce, some ketchup, some mayonnaise. I love all of that. Put it on a trumpet. I've just got to have the ketchup and Tabasco sauce. That's my attitude about musical philosophy.

I didn't have a philosophical understanding of music until I came to New York. I didn't understand how it applied to my kind and my generation. I thought it was just old people talking.

What I really have in my head, my imagination, my understanding of music, I never really get that out.

Kids feel like they have to puff up or shrink. These reclusive qualities begin to develop because you feel that who you are is going to either be accepted or rejected by your family and friends.

I belong to a family where I think we're all fairly treated, boys or girls. Although I have to work doubly hard just to be able to be recognised. That meant long hours, but the hard work paid off.

As a first-generation inheritor, the first mandate is to preserve our family wealth and hopefully increase it.

Before doing 'Midnight's Children,' I didn't really have a chance to explore my Indian side. The Indian side of my heritage was always present, but it did not particularly define my identity. Being English was more an identity-defining status. I was born and brought up in London. Yes, my father is Parsi.