Unlike my grandfather or my brother, I've actually been able to make some money at a racetrack.
The only politician in my family was my grandfather's grandfather, who was the mayor of Winnipeg from Jan. 1, 1917, until Jan. 5, 1917, because he lost the recount. So he was mayor of Winnipeg for four days.
When I was four or five years old, my grandfather showed me how to build things, paint, saw. Through years of fixing bikes, repairing lawn mowers, I learned how things work.
For all I know, my grandfather was a bank robber in Kilsyth.
My grandfather milked several cows twice a day and supplied the neighbours with dairy products. He liked to go visiting around the county on Saturdays, and he also enjoyed the neighbours when they came by once a week with their empty milk jars. He walked them out to their cars and hung over the driver's side window until they drove off.
My grandfather wanted to remind us that freedom of expression is the fundamental ingredient for democracy, and all the rest is detail. It is the scaffolding around which every other freedom is based.
As my Sicilian grandfather used to say, you get more flies with honey than with vinegar, right?
Mom was a smoker. My grandfather was a smoker. My aunts were smokers. My uncles were smokers. I don't know any smokers now, not even my mom.
My grandfather was a Tuskegee Airman. He flew with the 100th Fighter Squadron.
My grandfather, who was always keen to promote living artists, staged an unprecedented exhibition of Peploe's works at Kirkcaldy in 1928.
My Swedish grandmother was the daughter of a dairy farmer who lived near Hedemora. My Swedish grandfather worked as a clerk for the Swedish railways in the Stockholm station.
My house was a guest house of many Jaina saints, Hindu monks, Sufi mystics, because my grandfather was interested in all of these people.
My grandfather left Cuba when Castro came into power and literally left everything. He had two suitcases and two kids and showed up in New Jersey and waited for my uncle to meet up with him. Imagine - there were no cell phones back then!
My grandfather on one side was trained as a cabinetmaker but eventually worked as a coachbuilder and then built cars. I inherited from him a love of cars, but with no technical ability whatsoever, sadly!
My grandfather was the general counsel for the Washington Senators, and my dad grew up on Ted Williams' lap.
Yes, my grandfather worked with Thomas Edison on the electric car, and he sold electric cars at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris.
I was about 12 when I first encountered 'The Moonstone' - or a Classics Illustrated version of it - digging through an old trunk in my grandfather's house on a rainy Bengali afternoon.
As a young kid, I had a great background. My grandfather was a minister; I have two uncles that were ministers, and so I had that spiritual background. I accepted Christ early as a kid.
Several of my uncles are comedians. My father is a comedian; my grandfather was known for his jokes. It definitely runs in the family.
My grandfather started a school for the underprivileged in Chandigarh, and that is why we moved from Himachal to Chandigarh. It was a small school, where even I would teach while in school.
