It’s fair to say that sport is in my blood. I hail from a family of sportspersons in Dehradun. My grandmother Celine played hockey for the country. My grandfather was a long distance runner in the army, my father Philip ran marathons for Delhi. (Jyoti lost her mother, when she was 13, to cancer.)

You will laugh if I tell you what some of my childhood ambitions were. My childhood hero was our maali (gardner), I spent all my time running around him in our garden. Then I wanted to become a bus conductor. My brother would be the driver and I would be the conductor. At one point, I even wanted to be a serial killer, after I watched this Hollywood movie Se7en, in which a serial killer begins murdering people according to the seven deadly sins (a grouping and classification of vices within Christian teachings).

It didn’t end there. I also wanted to become a baker, an air hostess, a lawyer and also a veterinary doctor. I was obsessive about each option, deep diving into it.

I love pursuing my passions, but I hate social media attention. (In 2016, Jyoti was a part of Nike’s ‘Da Da Ding’ viral video along with sportsperson turned Bollywood actors Deepika Padukone and Rani Rampal, aimed at urging India’s next generation to break conventions and define their own success by bringing spot into their lives.)

I have no interest in marketing myself. I am not someone who likes to be in the limelight. I don’t enjoy the whole social media posting, tagging and all of that. I want my social media to be limited to people I know and comfortable with.

People often ask me to take photos of me doing exercise and post it on social media, but who takes photos of themselves doing exercise? It’s such an alien concept to me.

(Jyoti Ann Burret is a former Indian football player. She plays for Hans WFC. In conversation with Sangeeth Sebastian, writer and founder, Vvox, a sextech platform. The interview is a part of an AKADialog initiative to capture the lives of newsmakers.)