Sanjeev Bhaskar was embarrassed to be an Asian

London, Oct 12 : Comedy writer and performer Sanjeev Bhaskar has confessed that he used to feel embarrassed to be Asian when he was a kid.

The 45-year-old wasn't ignorant of racism while growing up in west London and for a time tried to fit in by pretending to be white.

"I was kind of embarrassed about being Asian. When I was nine or 10 I was at the swimming pool and a boy came up to me and asked me what my name was," the Daily Express quoted him, as saying.

"I said: 'S-S-Stephen' and it was so utterly lacking in confidence. If I had said: 'It's Steve', they would have said: 'Oh Steve do you want to come and play?' But there was a question mark at the end of it," he added.

The award-winning star of 'Goodness Gracious Me' and 'The Kumars At No 42' discovered racism in the school playground when he was seven during "kiss chase" where he was allowed to chase the girls but not kiss them.

His family also had NF, for National Front, daubed on their front door.

"I was very much embarrassed about the fact that my mother did not wear skirts or that we had food that was very different. It took me some time to appreciate that I had this kind of fabulous wealth of experience," he told BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

ANI