My father was in the army and I grew up in Agra, Secunderabad and Bangalore. School was quite uneventful except for a stint with the National Cadet Corps (NCC) for five years where I became a sharp shooter, represented Karnataka and even won national- level tournaments.

The first turning point of my life was signing up for AIESEC in 1991. I was part of a fundraiser for them and in charge of the music stall. That was the first time I handled a microphone. Through this event I met a radio jockey who encouraged me to try out radio. My radio stint lasted two years. At that time I was studying architecture and also dabbling in theatre. During one of my plays the sound engineer didn’t show up. It was live music so I took over. That got me three other shows where I handled the sound. From then on, sound and music became an inseparable part of my life.

I’m the kind who likes to give everything a shot so, in 1997, when MTV announced its VJ hunt I gave it a go. Initially I was scared of the competition but I decided to just enjoy myself and partied the whole time and, well, MTV was actually looking for non-pretentious, ‘real’ people — I landed the job.

In 2001 I met Pearl (who is now my wife). We went to Amsterdam, Barcelona and Ibiza and heard the most amazing electronica DJs. We decided it would be awesome to bring that expertise to India. This led to Submerge, a weekly event at the club Rock Bottom in Juhu. Soon, Submerge began to attract full houses. Now, I’m proud to say that almost every club plays pure House music. In 2007, events company Percept Entertainment approached me with the concept for an electronic dance music festival and that is how the Sunburn Festival in Goa was born.

I am now looking forward to my next exciting venture — the Submerge Supernova dance festival in Bangalore this year.

(As told to Amrita Mukherjee)