My dad was the eldest of 13 children. As an adult, he and seven of his siblings and their families lived on the same small street in a slum area of Bangalore in southern India. I was born in 1984 and have a younger brother and sister. I was always outside with the other kids. We played “leg cricket” – hitting the ball with our leg – in the street. There were often power outages and when they happened at night people would come out of their homes. We kids loved playing hide and seek during the blackouts. Most of the time, I didn’t sleep in my house. I slept at a friend’s place or at an auntie’s house. I’ve never had a problem sleeping, I can sleep anywhere. Sometimes my mother came to get me and bring me home and sometimes she didn’t.
Pickpocketing Grandma
Sandeep Kumar as a child in India. Photo: courtesy of Sandeep Kumar
I didn’t like going to school. I never liked to wear the school uniform, so I mostly went to school on Saturday mornings, when we didn’t need to wear one. The rest of the week, I’d go to school, but I didn’t go in the classroom. I was out in the field playing football and cricket. My sister was very good at exams and my dad praised her for doing so well, but I hated exams. Whenever I got in trouble at home, I went to my auntie’s house. I was naughty and as a kid, I used to pickpocket my grandmother. My mum stopped going to the parent-teacher meetings because she didn’t like hearing the teachers complain about me. So, my auntie went to the meetings in her place.
Daredevil era
Sandeep Kumar with his family. Photo: courtesy of Sandeep Kumar
My dad was a mechanic. He modified motorbikes and was a stunt master. When I was 10, he made me a kid-sized bike. My dad could see I wasn’t going to get much of an education, so he wanted to train me as a motorbike racer. In the holidays, I was a test driver for my dad. I did it at night when the roads were quiet. When I was 14, I skipped exams to enter my first professional race. I came fourth. In my next race I came second. After that I always came first or second.
