Sanjeev was too shy to speak

And it’s on a level with his Still Game shopkeeper character Navid suddenly offering customers a genuine discount.

We all know the actor/writer to exude confidence, a performer who can front live radio or shine on stage at the 12,000 seater Hydro alongside his Still Game chums.

And he can produce a convincing snot and tears performance when appearing in River City as the cuckolded husband.

But when we talk ostensibly about Sanjeev’s new BBC Scotland pop up radio show and his early musical influences, you soon realise the record which is his early life is rather scratchy.

“I was a really shy kid,” he recalls, revealing a wry smile.

“For example, there weren’t any girls in our school until Primary Seven, and I remember when they arrived. We had mass in the morning and the girls, only fifteen out of ninety kids, were paraded in front of us like a random Miss Universe contest.

“I didn’t know what to do. I was already shy, having grown up in a house of boys.

“There were a couple of girls who would deign to speak to me, probably because they thought I was asexual and non-threatening, but I couldn’t speak back and that continued all through secondary school.

“Perhaps there was this subconscious thing in my head if I spoke to a girl she would think I fancied her. That would sully the whole thing.”

He adds; “There are certain advantages to growing up in an Asian household, but also disadvantages. I couldn’t ask my dad for (relationship) advice.

“He met my mum off a photograph. He’d never been on a date, gone to the pictures with a girl.”

The Kohli family – his parents a teacher and a social worker - and two older brothers arrived in Glasgow from London in 1974 and added shops and property to their interests.

Like many Asian parents they sent their children to Catholic school. (Perceived to produce better results).

But one result was Sanjeev, the youngest of three boys, felt a fish out of water and not just because he was “brown.”

He was bussed from Bishopbriggs to St Aloysius School in the city centre, where the youngest Kohli became a de facto Catholic. “I even went to extra mass to try and fit in.”

He did, but it wasn’t easy. Little things became big things. Kohli didn’t have the shared musical experience of his schoolmates. “Growing up in an Asian household you don’t have your mum and dads Beatles and Stones albums as reference.

“We had Sikh devotional songs and Bollywood hits. There’s nothing wrong with that, some of it is right funky, but it meant I had to find my own music on the radio.”

Which wasn’t in synch with schoolmates’. School became something of a solitary existence. “There were guys I sort of chimed with, but I don’t think they liked me too much. They were into Dungeons and Dragons and I wasn’t so they would sort of disappear at lunch time.”

Young Kohli loved football. But his school didn’t. “Yes, it was a rugby school,” he says, the disdain in his voice loud and clear.

“There was no school football team until Fifth Year. It’s part of stupid middle-class Glasgow. The school didn’t want us playing a working class game.”

Sanjeev had long been a comedy fan, having discovered the likes of Monty Python via Fawlty Towers, but he didn’t have a comedy soul mate at school. “Thankfully, my brothers shared my comedy passion as well.”

Sanjeev’s life changed when he took his clutch of Highers to Glasgow University, switching from Medicine to Mathematics. (Later gaining a First.)

“For the first time I felt that people were listening to what I had to say.”

Including females. At 19, he met his first girlfriend and was now listening to soul and hip-hop and dance.

And friends saw him as funny, which resulted in a phone call from former Glasgow University student Uzma Mir. Mir was now producing a new multicultural show for Radio Scotland.

“She thought of me because I was into comedy. I said ‘I’ll come and audition for you, but it’s your funeral.’ And I did, and radio rescued me from a career as a mathematician.”

Kohli became a comedy writer, working for the likes of sketch comedy Chewin’ The Fat. Since then, he’s co-written Radio Four corner shop comedy success Fags, Mags and Bags. And acting work has increased. More recently he appeared on ITV drama Cold Feet. But was it not a little disappointing to be cast (again) as a shopkeeper?

“If Cold Feet come calling you answer,” he says, “but I get you. When I was offered Navid initially I was worried about taking on the role, the viewers thinking ‘Oh God, he’s playing a shopkeeper.’

“But I looked at the way the boys (Ford Kiernan and Greg Hemphill) had written Navid I realised he is never the victim, in fact he’s the only person in the show who drives a Merc. And there was one scene in which Navid has to go to Jack and Victor’s flat and it was written, ‘Navid prowls like a lion.’ Ford explained that, saying, ‘Well, you’re Billy Big Bollocks. That’s what you would do.’ And he was right.”

Kohli, who has two girls and a boy with wife Fiona, would love to see more Asian actors represented on television. But not unconditionally. Goodness Gracious Me, (which he wrote for) was a coming of age series. “It was like ‘Fly my beauties, fly’.

“But then came Citizen Khan, which I felt was a big backward step.” He adds; “Look, I wish it all the best, but there are writers of colour who are telling much more interesting stories.”

He says he is hopeful his radio show Fags, Mags and Bags will become a live stage show sometime soon. He has another drama in development. And Kohli is going up for acting roles.

Yet, while Sanjeev Kohli’s confidence has grown over the years, it doesn’t inhibit self-awareness or deny reality. “Six years ago I did worry,” he admits. “It was a time when I thought I couldn’t get arrested and Still Game had finished.”

He adds; “It’s not that I wanted to become a doctor or an accountant or a Maths lecturer, but for a wee while I did crave that sort of stability. I think what got me through that period was being a dad, just having to be there for the kids.”

When he speaks of River City it’s endearing he considers himself a trainee actor. “It was great for me to be able to learn that form of acting. So you watch from the trained actors and see how they do it, the likes of Dawn Steele and Andy Gray and Frank Gallagher.”

He adds, smiling; “I tried to raise my game although it’s up to the audience to decide if I have or not. On one scene I confronted Dawn (his wife, who was having an affair) and I had to cry. I thought I’d be using the tear stick because I’m not a trained actor but I didn’t have to. But I sometimes watch myself and think ‘Christ, what’s that plank of wood doing on set?’”

• BBC Radio Scotland Music Extra is a pop-up digital service that will broadcast 24 hours a day until November 30. Sanjeev Kohli presents Drivetime, from 5-6.30pm.