My house was a guest house of many Jaina saints, Hindu monks, Sufi mystics, because my grandfather was interested in all of these people.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Our house was always full of grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins.
I shared a room with my parents until I was 7, and I lived with my uncles and aunts and my cousins and my grandfather... so the house was always full of people.
My grandfather went through a lot in his life.
I used to hang out with grandfather all the time because he used to pick me up from school sometimes, or drive me to my mother's, so I'd be with my grandfather a lot. I used to watch him write his sermons.
I was very fortunate that all my holidays I'd spend with my grandfather, experiencing a much more traditional way of life and listening to these wonderful stories, which I now feel are such an important part of Indian thinking.
My grandfather was a voodoo priest. A lot of my life dealt with spirituality. I can close my eyes and remember where I come from.
My family is very religious.
My father was a creature of the archaic world, really. He would have been entirely at home in a Gaelic hill-fort. His side of the family, and the houses I associate with his side of the family, belonged to a traditional rural Ireland.
I had grown up in a privileged, upper-caste Hindu community; and because my father worked for a Catholic hospital, we lived in a prosperous Christian neighborhood.
I was raised in a heavily Catholic family. Early and consistent encounters with mysticism.