With films like My Name is Khan and Karthik Calling Karthik in his kitty, composer-singer Shankar Mahadevan has his hands full with work. But it's not just work that drives this National Award winner. He has some equally diverse tastes and interests in life. Shankar tells CS about things that excite him as much as music:

Dish it out
After music, cooking is my greatest passion. Sometimes as a musician, I take music for granted, but cooking is an external thing that I am very curious about. Like you create a song from instruments, notes and tunes, you make a dish from varied ingredients, so they're quite similar. Cooking de-stresses me totally. I also love watching cookery shows and can prepare Thai, Indian and Chinese dishes.u00a0

Hoarding stuff
I can't resist buying electronics. Period. Just a couple of days back I bought a wireless keyboard, though I don't need it. My wife and I shop like crazy when we are abroad. We just have our breakfast and head straight to the malls. Invariably we end up having all our meals at the malls, and leave only minutes before they shut down! London, Dubai, New York and Singapore are some of my favourite shopping destinations.