Satish Kumar

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is a man of peace. For the last thirty two years he's produced a magazine that argues for the virtues of non violence and ecological awareness, and against speed, size, and the relentless pursuit of the individual.

Presenter0:45

The growth of the magazine resurgence from a home spun newsletter to a quality production mirrors the life of its editor. He was born in India. At the age of nine he became a monk, devoted to a totally ascetic way of life.

Presenter0:58

He left the Order at eighteen to become a follower of Gandhian principles, and in nineteen sixty two he set out with a friend to walk from Gandhi's grave in New Delhi to the four nuclear capitals of the world Moscow, Paris, London, and Washington. The walk established him as a pioneer of ecological humanism and friends of many like minded people Bertrand Russell and later Yehudi Menouin and Prince Charles to name but three.

Presenter1:25

We have become human doings rather than beings, he says. Slow down. You will go further than you ever imagined. He is Satish Kumar. So slow is beautiful, Satish, but um it's d difficult to achieve in a society that's taught itself that speed is the essence and frankly it's a lovely thought, but it's hopelessly impractical, isn't it?

Satish Kumar1:48

It is impractical as we live today.

Satish Kumar1:52

But

Satish Kumar1:54

Where has speed led us?

Satish Kumar1:57

We have gone, gone and gone, and yet personal happiness, the family life, friendship, all the qualities for which we hunger are nowhere. Time makes perfect. When you give something a bit of your time, then whatever you are doing, whatever you are making, will be better. You can't write a beautiful poem in a hurry. You can't make a nice loaf of bread in a hurry. You can't do anything well in a hurry. So if you want to do something well, we have to slow down.

Presenter2:27

I think you want

Presenter2:30

It's interesting you mentioned baking bread. I think it's true, isn't it, that uh it it takes the average woman, according to the statistics, fifteen minutes these days to prepare the evening meal. I mean, I presume that's m b b because instant food or ready meals are used. You can't rush the baking of bread, can you, if you bake it?

Satish Kumar2:49

You can

Presenter2:49

And it's a

Satish Kumar2:50

Great shame that we live in a Christian society where Jesus Christ says that the loaf of bread is my body itself. It's a kind of a symbol of spirituality. And we have turned that into stale bread, sliced, packaged,

Satish Kumar3:10

What a kind of society we have created where the basic stuff of life, which is bread, and very few people in England now know how to bake bread or have time how to bake bread. And I think in next five to ten years I hope that there will be a great revolution in consciousness and and Britain will be much more self sufficient in food.

Satish Kumar3:34

We shall see.

Presenter3:35

Yeah.

Satish Kumar3:35

Uh

Presenter3:36

First of all, have a record from you. What is your first

Satish Kumar3:37

My first record is John Byers.

Presenter3:39

Yeah.

Satish Kumar3:42

I met Joan Byers and what impressed me most was her love of life. And in our industrial structures and speed life, we have lost that gratitude to life. So I would like to start my music, first piece of music will be John Byers, which appreciates and thanks to life.

Speaker 44:05

Gracias a la vida, que melladado tanto, medio dos tusero,'ecuando los avero.

Speaker 44:16

Perfecto di tringo, lo megro del blanco, y en el alto sielo.

Speaker 44:24

Supondo esprillo que el las motes tú desal hombre que el droamo.

Presenter4:32

Joan Byers and Gracia Salavida here's to life. Take me back then, Satish Kumar, to nineteen sixty two, when you were a man of twenty five in India and you set out with a friend to walk for peace to Moscow, Paris, London, and Washington, the nuclear capitals. Where did the idea come from in the first place?

Satish Kumar4:49

One morning I was in a cafe drinking coffee and reading a newspaper, and I read.

Satish Kumar4:57

That a ninety-year-old great philosopher of England, Bertrand Russell.

Satish Kumar5:03

was protesting against the bomb.

Satish Kumar5:06

was arrested and put in jail.

Satish Kumar5:10

When I read that news.

Satish Kumar5:12

I was absolutely stunned.

Satish Kumar5:14

So Bertrand Russell was our inspiration.

Presenter5:18

But it was a mad plan. You set out without any money, without any food, just two young men walking.

Satish Kumar5:24

That's right.

Presenter5:24

That's right.

Satish Kumar5:25

Cause we thought that if you have money

Satish Kumar5:29

You don't have trust.

Satish Kumar5:31

And trust is the root for peace.

Satish Kumar5:34

And fear is the root for war. So if we want to really try peace, we have to trust ourselves, we have to trust people, and we have to trust in God.

Presenter5:45

So you have to have faith in in the kindness of strangers, especially

Satish Kumar5:46

In fa faith

Satish Kumar5:48

Absolutely.

Presenter5:49

So you would

Satish Kumar5:50

We were fed and watered on. In some places we did not get food and we did not get shelter, but in that situation we said this is God given opportunity to fast and this is our great opportunity to sleep under the stars. But ninety five, ninety six percent of the time I would say we were fed and sheltered and looked after.

Presenter6:11

It was um in a town near the Black Sea, I think, that you met a couple of women who were to inspire your journey even further, didn't you? They they worked in a tea factory. That's like

Satish Kumar6:20

We used to have a flyer about our journey, so we gave that flyer to two young women who was just standing.

Satish Kumar6:28

In front of a tea factory.

Satish Kumar6:30

And one of them had a brainwave. She went out of the room and came back with four packets of tea. And she said, I want to d to deliver one packet to our Premier in Moscow, the second to the President of France, the third to the Prime Minister of England, and fourth to the President of the United States of America.

Satish Kumar6:52

and give them a message from me.

Satish Kumar6:55

What is your message? I was so surprised. She said My message to them is, that if you ever get the mad thought of pressing the nuclear button,

Satish Kumar7:05

Please stop for a moment and have a fresh cup of tea from this packet.

Presenter7:11

And did you deliver them?

Satish Kumar7:12

Yes, we deliver.

Presenter7:13

Delivered. But of course, by the time you got to the States, John Kennedy had been assassinated.

Satish Kumar7:18

That's right. We were very much hoping to meet him, but he was assassinated. So we delivered the final packet to the White House. And then in the end, we decided to end our journey at Arlington Cemetery, where John Kennedy is cremated. And so our journey was from grave to grave, from the grave of Mahatma Gandhi to the grave of John F. Kennedy, to show that if we have faith in violence, faith in the gun,

Satish Kumar7:50

It gun does not kill only the bad criminals or bad people, your enemies. Gun can also kill Mahatma Gandhi and John F. Kennedy.

Presenter8:00

Yeah.

Satish Kumar8:00

Record number two.

Satish Kumar8:01

My next record is Bob Dylan.

Satish Kumar8:05

Because

Satish Kumar8:06

Bob Dylan was a kind of symbol of that inner voice of peace, and so I have chosen Bob Dylan to be my second record.

Speaker 48:14

How many times can a man turn his head?

Speaker 48:19

And pretend that he just doesn't see

Speaker 48:25

The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind The answer is blowing in the wind

Presenter8:43

Bob Dylan and blowin' in the wind.

Presenter8:46

Walking, Satisha, is an enduring theme of your life. You began walking as a small boy with your mother in Rajasthan, didn't you? Where did you walk with her? How did you walk with her?

Satish Kumar8:57

My mother was a wonderful and wise woman, and she always walked.

Satish Kumar9:03

My father had a horse, and my mother used to joke with him and say, How would you like if the horse wanted to ride on you?

Satish Kumar9:13

So when I was four year, five year, six years old, I remember walking with her, and she would always show me the natural world, the bees and the and the trees, and the butterflies. So walking, my mother said, is a noble way.

Satish Kumar9:30

of living.

Presenter9:31

And the honey bee, I think, was

Presenter9:33

the perfect example for her of of of of the balance of nature. Exactly. Honey bee, what does it

Satish Kumar9:39

Do. It goes from flower to flower to flower, taking only a little nectar here, a little nectar there. Never ever a flower has complained that honey bee taken too much nectar away. And mother always used to say that we have to learn from nature rather than learning about nature. So my mother was she was my teacher.

Presenter10:03

Mm.

Presenter10:04

But your father, when you were four years old, died very suddenly, and obviously very shocking for a four year old. You couldn't really cope with his death, could you?

Satish Kumar10:13

That's right, because uh he had a heart attack. And when I saw him lying on the floor, dead, I could not understand why he is not moving, why he is not talking, and why everybody is so sad and crying. And so I asked my mother. So she tried to explain that death means end of life.

Satish Kumar10:34

And we all die, you will die one day, I will die one day.

Presenter10:39

It's a terrible thing for a four-year-old to hear.

Satish Kumar10:41

I was so shocked, I said, Mother, you will die. Then what will happen to us? She said, World will continue, but I will die. So I became so shocked by that. And then my mother used to go to Jain monks. So I asked one of the monks, Is there a way of bringing an end to death?

Satish Kumar11:02

And the monk said that the only way is to renounce the world and take the spiritual path.

Satish Kumar11:10

I said I will do anything to stop death.

Satish Kumar11:13

So the fear of death and seeing father dead was so profound and deep in my heart that I decided to become a monk. And I was determined, it was my own decision. My mother was sad to lose me, but she decided not to be an obstacle on my religious path. So she gave her blessings, and so at age nine, I renounced the world.

Presenter11:35

And became a monk. And I want to hear more about the way of life of the Jane monk in a moment, but let's pause there for record number three.

Satish Kumar11:42

My next record is Shubha Lakshmi.

Satish Kumar11:46

M. Shubha Lakshmi sings this song, which was favourite of my mother.

Satish Kumar11:52

So as we are talking about my mother, I would like this to be played.

Speaker 411:56

Vishaka Phyana Rahana Ji Nebya Vishka Phyana Rahana Ji Nebela Vivata Mira Mahasir Bhivata Mira Mahasire Paga Kukur

Presenter12:22

M. S. Supa Lakshmi singing Pag Gungharoo. Uncle Bells, I think they are. Gungharoo.

Speaker 112:27

Esla.

Presenter12:29

So, Satish Kumar, life as a Jain monk, it was harsh physically anyway. Just just g tell me about the realities of life.

Satish Kumar12:37

Uh, you'd leave home?

Satish Kumar12:39

And you never return.

Satish Kumar12:41

And you are a wandering monk. So I was bare feet and a begging bowl. So once a day I will go out.

Satish Kumar12:50

For food. And some people give you food, some people don't give you food. And whatever happens, you bless them all. Then, of course, Jains have this tremendous faith in nonviolence, but the Jains have taken it to its extreme and practised it to its extreme.

Speaker 112:57

Mm-hmm.

Presenter13:09

So they brush the earth before the eyes.

Satish Kumar13:11

So I had a kind of little broom in my hand twenty four hours, so particularly at night, if I put my foot down on the floor, I will brush the floor, so that no insects, nothing, no creatures are there.

Presenter13:24

And you hold a cloth in front of your mouth.

Satish Kumar13:26

Yes, because when you are speaking you may swallow some creatures in the air, or you may even harm the germs in the air.

Presenter13:34

But it becomes if well, I I don't want to use a pejorative term, but I have to say that sounds quite extreme it becomes worse when you hear about the kind of celebration of suffering, because at one point, as this young boy, you had to have your hair pulled out by the roots.

Satish Kumar13:50

That's right. But it gave me a kind of inner strength. It gave me, you can call it a kind of building of my character. I can go through any suffering now and no pain, no suffering, no difficulty will uh put me down or hold me back. And the freedom of fear can only come when you have experienced the difficulties and the pain and the suffering.

Presenter14:15

But in the end you wanted to escape. It was supposed to be a a life sentence, being a Jane monk, but you wanted to get out. Why?

Satish Kumar14:23

Yes, this is true, that once you are a monk, you are a monk for life. That was the vow I had taken. But I was again very inspired at this point in my life.

Satish Kumar14:35

at age eighteen, by Mahatma Gandhi. He said that

Satish Kumar14:40

We have to bring spirituality, practice of non violence, and truth in every day life. If we don't bring spirituality in every day life, spirituality is not good for me.

Satish Kumar14:51

And when I read this, I was so inspired, I said, I am doing just the opposite what Gandhi is saying. I am running away from the world, I am escaping from the world. So one night after midnight, when everybody was asleep, I decided to escape from the monastic order rather than escape from the world.

Satish Kumar15:11

Next piece of music.

Satish Kumar15:13

Now, because of my deep spiritual longing.

Satish Kumar15:19

I find John Tavenagh resonating to me.

Satish Kumar15:22

And he is one of the very few musicians who write his music with a deep spiritual longing. And so My Spirituality from the East, from India, and John Tavenagh from the West come together and so the next piece of music is composed by John Tavenagh.

Speaker 415:49

But in my live

Speaker 415:58

A cording to the

Speaker 416:10

My eyes are sweet.

Speaker 416:25

Each of us wear before the face of

Presenter16:40

Part of John Taverner's Nunca Dimit is sung by the choir of King's College, Cambridge, directed by Stephen Clebery. So on you walked, Satish, this time six years, ten thousand miles, I think, um, following a disciple of Gandhi involved in the redistribution of land in India. Now, how did that work?

Satish Kumar16:59

As you know, Mahatma Gandhi brought independence to India.

Satish Kumar17:06

But it was a political independence.

Satish Kumar17:09

It could not be.

Satish Kumar17:11

The situation in India was still very dire.

Satish Kumar17:14

and few people landlords owning all the land. That was the biggest cause of strife and violence in India at that time.

Satish Kumar17:24

And so one of Mahatma Gandhi's followers, Vinobabawe.

Satish Kumar17:30

took it upon himself that he will bring land reform, not waiting for the Government to pass the laws, but bring about a non violent transformation of heart, change of heart.

Presenter17:42

So asking people for land and then giving it to the boy

Satish Kumar17:45

To the poor, yeah. So he will go to the landlords and say, If you have five children, consider me your sixth child and give me one-sixth of your land because I represent the poor. And so I walked ten thousand miles with him. But he walked something like hundred thousand miles and he collected four million acres of land in donations for people.

Presenter18:08

From Maharajas, from

Satish Kumar18:10

some Maharajas, landlords, kings, wealthy merchants who had big land and so he managed to distribute land to the poor in large chunks. So it was a great

Presenter18:23

And it was after that walk that you set out on your very own walk, the peace walk we were talking about earlier, and then eventually came to settle here in England. And I want to talk to you about that next. But let's pause for record number five.

Satish Kumar18:36

Now

Presenter18:36

Yeah.

Satish Kumar18:36

Uh

Presenter18:36

Yaudi Menu in

Satish Kumar18:37

Became one of my first friends when I came to live in England.

Satish Kumar18:43

uh together with E. F. Schumacher.

Satish Kumar18:45

And Yehudim Benouin became a subscriber to Resurgence.

Satish Kumar18:48

and he bought an electric car, he was a spiritual person, and he worked with Ravi Shankar, who himself is very much concerned with Gandhian and peace and spiritual values.

Satish Kumar19:02

So them bringing West and East together and me coming and living in England and making friendship with Yehudi Menouin is so inspiring that I would like to choose a piece in which Yehudi Menoun and Ravishankar played together at the UN on Human Rights Day, which is very inspiring.

Speaker 419:30

Save it, see, baby, face, face, baby.

Presenter19:51

Ravi Shankar and Yehudi Menuen and Raga Pilu.

Presenter19:56

One good reason for settling here, Satish, was that you were offered a job, the editorship of of Resurgence, and you were persuaded to stay in that job by the man who coined the phrase small is beautiful, EF Schumacher, Ernst Schumacher. He was an economist, he said. He was an economist from Oxford. He was a

Satish Kumar20:10

He was an economist from Oxford. He was a very good famous economist. Why was he such an influence on you?

Satish Kumar20:17

He was such an influence because he wrote an essay called Buddhist Economics.

Satish Kumar20:23

Now first time ever, I think, a Western economist put those two words together, Buddhist economics. And people asked him what Buddhism has to do with economics. And Schumacher jokingly said that economics without spiritual values is like sex without love.

Satish Kumar20:42

So, you need to have, according to Schumacher.

Satish Kumar20:47

Machine a technology which aid human hands rather than replace human hands.

Satish Kumar20:53

And so he was not against technology. But this idea that technology will free us from labor and give us leisure time, we will have time to read and write and walk and paint and have friendship, where is that scenario? Where is that utopia? We have not

Presenter21:11

And you certainly practised uh what you're preaching now and what you were preaching then and what you picked up in in in in all of these ways because you set up a a small school in the early eighties in the Devon village where you live and it's become a model, hasn't it, for others around the land. How does it differ, tell me, the small school from an ordinary school?

Satish Kumar21:30

It differs in the sense, first of all, in every human life we need food, we need clothes, we need houses. But no school teaches you how to cook, how to mend clothes, how to build a house, how to repair a house. So 50% of our time we spend where children are learning gardening, cooking, building, these practical things. And then other 50% they learn about philosophy or science or mathematics or French languages, etc. And you teach silence. We teach silence. That's right. Because many of our problems in the world are there because we don't know how to be still and how to be silent and how to sit quietly in a room and how to wait. It is important that spirituality, academic education and practical life skills are brought together if we really want a holistic and a comprehensive development of a child.

Presenter22:30

And and later on, a few years later on, you helped found um a college of further education at Dartington Hall in in in South Devon, I know, where again it's an extension of the same, isn't it? It's ecology, philosophy and spirituality, but also these these practical tasks. And I understand that occasionally business men come on short courses and they're taught to sort of clean. I haven't got them cleaning lavatories even, I think.

Satish Kumar22:53

Yes, yes, yes. The thing is that they do change their ways of thinking. So it is a real effect. I mean, we get letters from these business people how they are changing their business practices. And cleaning their own offices. And cleaning their own offices, exactly. And even cooking s their own bread.

Presenter22:53

Yeah.

Satish Kumar23:11

Number six. Now my uh sixth uh record is um John Lennon.

Satish Kumar23:18

And we are so filled with the poverty of imagination that we think we cannot have the world which is peaceful and ecologically sustainable and a business which is ecologically sustainable. So we have to first step is we have to imagine. And that's where John Lennon comes in.

Speaker 423:39

Imagine there's no heaven.

Speaker 423:45

See if you try.

Speaker 423:51

No hell below us

Speaker 423:58

Bubba's only sky

Speaker 424:04

Imagine all

Presenter24:06

To Lennon and Imagine.

Presenter24:09

As I say, you practise what you preach, Satish, in the way that you live and work. You live in a small village. You and your wife, June, grow your own vegetables. You cook slowly. Yes. You used to send your children to your small school and you produced the magazine Resurgence at Home. It's a kind of cottage industry, but it's grown from, I think, a circulation of a thousand when you began to ten thousand today. And its contributors don't get paid.

Satish Kumar24:33

That's right, because

Satish Kumar24:35

People are writing for resurgence because they have this passion for

Satish Kumar24:41

communicating their profound ideals and ideas. They think that research is not just a commercial money making machine. It is a magazine which is concerned with imagination, with quality, with values and with spirituality.

Presenter24:59

And it would be difficult reading it to argue with very much of it. But what would you say to the the average

Presenter25:08

Properly worldly businessman who thinks that, yes, it's all right, but on the other hand, what you're advocating to a certain extent is is self-indulgent. It may not be hokun, but it's self-indulgent. It may make you feel good, and the people around you feel good, and the people who write for you feel good, but it isn't realistic, because we have to create wealth in order to share it, to redistribute it.

Satish Kumar25:29

No, the the the problem is that we have thought of wealth.

Satish Kumar25:36

as money.

Satish Kumar25:37

And money is not wealth.

Satish Kumar25:40

Wealth is nature.

Satish Kumar25:42

The forests, the rivers, the land, the animals, the human capital. If we destroy all that and we have billions and billions in the bank, then where are we? So we have to separate this idea of true wealth and money.

Presenter25:59

But it's money that can help cure world poverty and hunger and disease. You know, people in the developing world who need electricity and who would benefit, whose lives would be made better, who would become less ill electricity, for example. You know, costs money.

Satish Kumar26:16

It's a good thing as far as it goes because it can facilitate all those things you have mentioned. But ecology is a greater all-embracing context. This is where John Lennon's song of imagination comes in, because we are at the moment driven by fear and inner insecurity, and we cannot imagine that there can be a beautiful lifestyle which is comfortable, which is just and fair, and which is good. Because ecological lifestyle is not the lifestyle I'm living is not an uncomfortable or a kind of utopian lifestyle. It's a very practical and it's a kind of lifestyle which is comfortable. So without waste.

Presenter27:00

So but it's not wasteful It's helped by the fact that you make money, whether it's by selling your magazines and people who buy them have had to make their money or whether it's by being paid by Schumacher College which was set up by an American heiress. You know, money

Presenter27:15

It backs up all of these things and allows you and people who live like you to live as you do.

Satish Kumar27:19

Yea, money has a place, but it should be put in its place.

Presenter27:25

Equal number seven.

Satish Kumar27:25

So my seventh piece of music I have chosen is George Moustaki, and it's a French song where he's saying that I am never alone in my solitude and with my solitude. And what we have forgotten in our world is we always want company, we want to be doing something. Sometimes being in solitude and in silence gives you a kind of nourishment to the soul. So I have chosen this Ma Solitude.

Speaker 427:56

Esij de preferre la mour, du notre fortisan.

Speaker 428:04

El Seva la Monterny Four.

Speaker 428:09

I don't know what cook money.

Speaker 428:12

Don't

Speaker 428:15

Je no suit, je missell.

Speaker 428:20

Love it.

Speaker 428:23

A solitude.

Presenter28:24

Georges Moustaki and Ma Solitude. Um it would be easy to believe that this was an appropriate destiny for Usatish solitude on a desert island, but I get the impression that you too are quite a gregarious being, aren't you?

Presenter28:38

Yeah.

Satish Kumar28:39

If you begin your day

Satish Kumar28:41

with a period of silence.

Satish Kumar28:44

It's like

Satish Kumar28:45

uh putting a sort of foundation for the rest of the day.

Satish Kumar28:49

And so a sort of solitude and meditation is an essential.

Presenter28:55

Uh Oh.

Satish Kumar28:55

For

Presenter28:55

My life

Satish Kumar28:56

Yeah.

Presenter28:56

What's also been essential for your life are is walking, as we've said. And you walked you went on a pilgrimage when you're fifty, because that's what you believe that you had to do, and you walked around the holy places of of Great Britain. You went uh on another walk when you were sixty. You're seventy next year. Ha are you plotting another walk?

Satish Kumar29:14

Yes, I am. I am. At the moment I am thinking to make a pilgrimage to nature in Italy. So I am thinking of that. Because walking itself is a meditation. But when you are walking and touching the earth, it is a deep relationship and you know that you depend on the earth. So I make my declaration of dependence on the earth.

Presenter29:38

Yeah.

Satish Kumar29:38

Uh

Presenter29:38

Death.

Satish Kumar29:39

And not fear death. Because my through my life I have come to the conclusion that there is no death because we are going to be part of this evolution for billions of years to come. So it's a kind of changing bodies rather than end of body. So I have made peace with the death in that way.

Satish Kumar30:02

Last record. Leonard Cohen of Canada. He was one of my great inspiration and he combines poetry and singing with spirituality. So when we are talking about life and death and the vision of evolution and cosmic existence, I cannot imagine anybody better than Leonard Cohen singing that spirit to me.

Speaker 430:28

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river.

Speaker 430:36

You can hear the boats go by

Speaker 430:39

You will spend the night beside her.

Speaker 430:43

And you know that she's half crazy But that's why you wanna be there

Speaker 430:50

And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China and Japan.

Presenter30:57

Leonard Cohen and Suzanne. Now, Satish, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Presenter31:04

Yeah.

Satish Kumar31:04

Uh

Presenter31:04

I

Satish Kumar31:04

I would like to choose Ma Solitude.

Satish Kumar31:08

Because on Desert Island Disc.

Satish Kumar31:12

I will have to really be happy with my solitude. And the voice and the spirit in that song is so inspiring as well as sweet and reassuring that I will be quite happy on that desert island.

Presenter31:33

What book would you like to take in this?

Satish Kumar31:34

Now I this has been a difficult question and I have been thinking there are lots of things I would like to choose from. But then in the end I decided uh on the collected works of Mahatma Gandhi.

Satish Kumar31:45

because he has been one of the most uh fundamental inspiration in most of my life. So if I can have Gandhi with me, he will always keep me company.

Satish Kumar31:57

And a luxury.

Satish Kumar31:58

Now on Desert Island Disc I would like to start a little garden. Even it's a desert, I would like to start a little garden. So if you could allow me to have a spade, it may be a necessity as well as a luxury. I'll be very happy.

Presenter32:11

Yeah.

Satish Kumar32:12

Yeah.

Presenter32:12

Satish Kumar, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs. Pleasure.

Speaker 132:25

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.