Madhur Jaffrey

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights' reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty five, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

This week, our castaway is an actress who's also a specialist in Indian cookery. It's Madhur Jaffri.

Presenter0:38

But how could you endure loneliness for a long time?

Madhur Jaffrey0:41

Not easily. I don't like being alone but if I was forced to do it, I suppose I would endure it.

Presenter0:47

Is music important in your life?

Madhur Jaffrey0:48

Yes, yes, I happen to be married to a musician.

Madhur Jaffrey0:52

That's part of it, but I was raised on music, my family

Madhur Jaffrey0:55

comes from years and years of people who patronized music. In the old days they were patrons of music. I was brought up listening to the greatest masters in my own house.

Presenter1:05

Do you play an instrument yourself?

Madhur Jaffrey1:06

No, unfortunately I don't have that talent.

Presenter1:08

Do you play discs?

Madhur Jaffrey1:09

Yes.

Presenter1:10

You have a big collection.

Madhur Jaffrey1:12

Yes, I do. It's it's mostly my husband's collection. He does the collecting. He's so much better at it, but I keep adding to it.

Presenter1:18

Did you find it difficult to choose just eight to take with you for a long time?

Madhur Jaffrey1:22

very hard because you you have to

Madhur Jaffrey1:25

Think and rethink why some would help you if you're all alone. Others might be wonderful records, but for that long period you just have to think very carefully.

Presenter1:36

What was the first one that you chose? What title tiles?

Madhur Jaffrey1:38

Well, I thought here I am, suddenly landed on this island, terribly scared. I want something that cheers me and brings me a certain kind of peace. So I thought Handel, that will make me feel a little better. And so we have an organ concerto by Handel.

Presenter2:52

Part of the first movement of Handel's concerto in B flat, opus four, number two, for organ and orchestra, with George Malcolm and the Academy of Saint Martin in the Field, conducted by Neville Mariner.

Presenter3:05

Whereabouts in India were you born, Madhoo?

Madhur Jaffrey3:07

In Delhi, I was born in my grandfather's house, it overlooks the Jamnah River.

Madhur Jaffrey3:12

I'm from a family of Deleites, we've lived there for hundreds of years.

Presenter3:16

So it's a large family that you have.

Madhur Jaffrey3:18

It's a large family. There were about forty people when I was growing up. Very large, you might say.

Presenter3:22

In this big hush.

Madhur Jaffrey3:23

In this big house, coming and going, my grandfather and all his children and grandchildren.

Presenter3:28

Did you go to school in Delhi?

Madhur Jaffrey3:30

I did eventually. My father moved around when I was very little, but then we settled down with my grandfather in the same house.

Presenter3:38

School life in India must be a little complicated, so many religions, all of which have to be catered for.

Madhur Jaffrey3:43

That's right. In fact, the school I went to in Delhi was a missionary school, an Anglican missionary school for parda girls, girls with the veil. A very strange school, and half the girls in my class came in long burkhas with their heads covered, and took them off, and then came to class.

Presenter4:01

And mealtimes must have presented difficulty because difficulties are not.

Madhur Jaffrey4:04

Oh, I love them. I love that. That's the wonderful thing about India, that everyone not only comes from a different racial group or a different religion, but then their foods are different. So you arrive somewhere or the other. All of the girls would go and sit under a tree and open their lunch boxes. And there were these different foods. I mean, a Muslim girl would have

Madhur Jaffrey4:24

all kinds of meat. Beef Oh, beef There would be beef which we were not supposed to eat at home and she would have it, maybe cooked with spinach or something.

Presenter4:31

So you'd all swap bits around.

Madhur Jaffrey4:32

We'd swap. Some wouldn't eat certain things that the others had bought, but basically we were so excited with the swapping that went on.

Presenter4:38

Yogos are Hindu.

Madhur Jaffrey4:40

I'm Hindu, yes.

Presenter4:41

You had this fascination with acting. How did that come about? Had you been to the theatre often in Delhi?

Madhur Jaffrey4:47

Well, it started with the age of five. I played the part of a brown mouse in my school and they used to give us all hot chocolate in the interval. And I think I liked the hot chocolate, so I thought I should go on acting because you got a lot of hot chocolate. Oh, yes. And that's how it started. And I loved acting. I just loved standing on the stage and prancing around. And it just went on from there.

Speaker 44:53

And

Presenter5:08

Let's have you on X record.

Madhur Jaffrey5:11

It has to do with my my teens when I was growing up. Naturally, being in colonial India to begin with, there was a lot of English influence and we went to ballrooms and clubs and danced and my sisters did that and I just watched. And I was dying to learn how to do ballroom dancing. So my elder sister taught me. And the music that we played for for me to learn I remember we used to go up on the roof and the river was just across from our house and we would stand there and my sister would say, All right, I'll be the man, you be the girl and she would teach me how to dance. And it was invariably Victor Sylvester and his music. So I learnt rumbas and foxtrots and tangoes to this music on the roof. It was most romantic and lovely.

Presenter6:25

A romantic number by Victor Silvester and his ballroom orchestra, La Villain Rose.

Presenter6:30

You went to Delhi University. What did you read?

Madhur Jaffrey6:33

English

Madhur Jaffrey6:34

I wanted actually to go to an art school, but I was advised by my family not to and to get a BA because it would be more useful, and that's what I did.

Presenter6:42

Were there any university theatricals?

Madhur Jaffrey6:44

Oh, yes. In my particular college, which was Miranda House, I was responsible for the drama group, helped form it and

Madhur Jaffrey6:52

helped decide what to do and the first player

Speaker 46:54

What did you do?

Madhur Jaffrey6:55

I said we should do was to be Hamlet and I said I would play Hamlet which I did too.

Presenter7:00

Wish I did.

Madhur Jaffrey7:01

And we did all kinds of plays, like You Can't Take It With You and I played both men and women, whatever was going I played. And then ours was a girls' college, so we did things in combination with the sort of boys' college and a lot of Shakespeare. We did all kinds of plays, uh, debating, the usual things that you do in college.

Presenter7:20

Was it at that time that you decided you wanted to come to London to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art?

Madhur Jaffrey7:23

Intram.

Madhur Jaffrey7:24

I had been doing amateur theatre in Delhi, and I decided that I would apply for a scholarship.

Madhur Jaffrey7:31

And I did. I got a Government of India scholarship plus a British Council scholarship plus a few other scholarships, and that's how I was able to come to Radha.

Presenter7:40

Were you the only Indian girl?

Madhur Jaffrey7:41

No, I wasn't. There was uh at least one other Indian girl that I knew, and an Indian boy. There were quite a lot of us ex colonialists in Rada at that time.

Presenter7:50

And all the West End theatres to explore. That must have been exciting.

Madhur Jaffrey7:53

It was wonderful. I used to get the cheapest seats. I used to get those little stools and sit outside and get a cheap ticket and wait and then go and sit up in the guards. It was wonderful.

Presenter7:59

And then goes it up.

Presenter8:01

It was

Presenter8:03

What about digs? Did you find good digs easily?

Madhur Jaffrey8:05

Yes, yes. I lived with a young couple in Brent, and they were absolutely marvellous. Among the things that I learnt to do then was A, cook, B, babysit. They had a little boy, and they used to ask me to babysit for him. And once I remember they said, All right, now we are going to a uh film in Neasden, and you look after the little boy, and if there's any trouble, get in touch with us. They nobody expected any trouble. And the little boy, as soon as the parents had gone, started yelling and screaming, and I tried for half an hour to calm him down, and he wouldn't calm down. So then I called up this theatre in Neasden and I they put a little ad, or whatever they do, a slide came suddenly saying, Mr and Mrs. Gold, please come home.

Presenter8:42

Yeah.

Madhur Jaffrey8:46

Poor things they came running home

Presenter8:47

Clean.

Presenter8:50

This, of course, was the first time you had looked after yourself.

Madhur Jaffrey8:53

That's right. I loved it.

Presenter8:54

Now what about the cooking? What did you know about cooking?

Madhur Jaffrey8:57

Nothing. I was an absolute idiot as far as food was concerned. I love to eat.

Madhur Jaffrey9:01

But I knew I couldn't make tea, I couldn't cook rice, so I started at that stage writing to my mother and saying, Help, I can't cook, teach me, teach me And she started writing A letters. I still have all those A letters with recipes and I could remember the tastes of everything, but of course I couldn't cook any of those things, but I taught myself.

Presenter9:21

All Indian food

Madhur Jaffrey9:22

All Indian food, because that's what I missed. I missed it desperately.

Presenter9:26

Record number three.

Madhur Jaffrey9:28

Record number three is Elvis Presley, because around the time I was at Rada and young and very impressionable, Elvis burst on the scene and he was the most exciting phenomena. I mean the body, the voice, everything vibrated with sexual excitement and was really absolutely wonderful. I was awed by this phenomenon.

Speaker 49:55

You know I can't be fine Sitting home all alone

Speaker 410:01

If you can't call my rambler, then please please telephone and don't be cruel.

Speaker 410:08

Too high is true.

Speaker 410:12

Baby for you for me to make

Speaker 410:15

There's something I might have said Please let's forget my past The future looks bright ahead Don't be crazy

Presenter10:24

Elvis Presley singing. Don't be cruel. So you graduated at Radha. What happened? Did you go back to India or did you start to work in London?

Madhur Jaffrey10:31

The mecca of actors, or would-be actors, I should say, was America. This was the time when.

Madhur Jaffrey10:39

Marlon Brander was doing wonderful things, and one wanted to be there. That was the place to be. And so I made my my way to America, and I had to start by I was teaching pantomime, I was getting little jobs off Broadway, and I was working as a guide at the UN. It was a slow process, but that's where I was, after England.

Presenter10:59

How long did you stay in the United States?

Madhur Jaffrey11:01

Oh, then I sort of stayed on and on and on, basically, and I have not left since. I mean, that's where I live now.

Presenter11:08

But you did go back to India to work with the American director, James Ivory. How did that come about? Where did you first meet him?

Madhur Jaffrey11:14

He saw my ex-husband Saeed Jafri in a play and uh

Madhur Jaffrey11:20

wanted him to do the narration for a documentary that he'd done. And that's how we met Jim. Meanwhile we'd met Ismael.

Speaker 111:30

It's my merchant.

Madhur Jaffrey11:32

Also, and Ismail was a young student in New York at that time doing business administration, but bursting with ambition. And the first time I met him I I said, Ismail, what do you want? And he said, I want name and fame, I want name and fame And he's quite clear in his head what he wanted and he got it and uh we we met at that stage and we used to get together and think of

Speaker 111:47

It's quite clear in the

Madhur Jaffrey11:55

Schemes and plans what we would do together.

Madhur Jaffrey11:58

And one of the ideas we had was to do a film about a repertory company, because we had thought we wanted to make an Indian repertory company travel around in India and do Indian and Western plays.

Madhur Jaffrey12:09

So the idea of Shakespeare Wallace started then with this particular story, but they never kept to it. It became the story taken from the Kendalls.

Presenter12:18

That was already a refugee company.

Madhur Jaffrey12:19

That was already a repertory company. That was already there, already a repertory company. So James Ire and his mile merchant went to India and discovered the Kendall's diary and decided that that would be the source they would use.

Presenter12:31

And you played the Indian film star.

Madhur Jaffrey12:33

I played the Indian film star. It was very interesting. If you've seen Indian film stars, they're nothing like me. They are gorgeous. I mean, they're voluptuous and

Madhur Jaffrey12:40

Our glass figures, and I was scrawny always. And I remember when I arrived on the set, the first day of shooting, we were shooting in the hills. And not only was I thin and scrawny, but I had been throwing up all the way up to this hill station because I always get very car sick. And I arrived and was taken immediately to the set, and the Indian crew took one look at me and said, She's going to play an Indian movie star and it was so awful. I thought, Oh dear, they don't want me But then I did play it anyway.

Presenter13:12

And then you did a television film for James Ivery, or an autobiography of a princess.

Madhur Jaffrey13:17

Yes, that was with James Mason. They had a lot of documentary material on very early footage of India, Indian palaces, Indian rulers who had cameramen take pictures in the twenties and thirties. And they wanted somehow to make that into a film. And then they decided that they would write two parts, and James Mason played one and I played the other.

Madhur Jaffrey13:39

And these would be fictional characters that would be added on somehow into the documentary. And that was the film autobiography of a Princess, and I played the Princess.

Madhur Jaffrey13:48

And it was absolutely wonderful working with James Mason. I remember I was terrified. I thought this man from Hollywood is going to come and I won't be able to utter a word.

Speaker 113:52

I don't know.

Madhur Jaffrey13:58

and the first time I met him on the set.

Madhur Jaffrey14:01

He was thoroughly professional. He took off his coat, took off his scarf, and then started working with the props, as an actor does, trying to lift a glass or a cup, put it down, wait, see where he would put it down. And I thought he's a working actor he's no Hollywood star. And he was wonderful. He was really very, very sweet and very nice.

Presenter14:20

And the scenes between you and James Mason were shot in an actual London flat.

Madhur Jaffrey14:25

Yes, we we got a flat in Kensington, and our scenes were shot entirely on location in that flat.

Presenter14:30

How long did it take? You made it very quick.

Madhur Jaffrey14:32

Well, we rehearsed it one day, in sequence, as you would a play, and then we shot it in the next four days, all in sequence, and like a film.

Presenter14:38

Unlike a film.

Madhur Jaffrey14:39

Well, that was the m middle segment, the fiction segment.

Presenter14:42

The third James Iry film you made was Heat and Dust.

Madhur Jaffrey14:46

Well, actually, there's one more which I left out in the middle. It was called The Guru. It had Rita Tushingham and Michael Yorke. Oh, yes, and it's all right if you forget it. I think

Presenter14:47

One more left.

Presenter14:49

What's the fiscal

Presenter14:53

Two tours.

Presenter14:55

What is your plan there?

Madhur Jaffrey14:56

I played the Guru's first wife in that.

Presenter15:00

Yeah.

Madhur Jaffrey15:00

It is alright to forget that film. I think it's a little bit more than a little bit more.

Presenter15:02

Well I got three out of four.

Madhur Jaffrey15:05

Um so anyway, the fourth film with them was Heat and Dust, which we shot in Hyderabad, which is a wonderful old town. And for somebody like me that is a freak collector. I mean, I love antiques. I just like collecting all kinds of old photographs, old

Madhur Jaffrey15:22

Anything. So I had a small part in heat and dust, so I spent my time collecting, which was wonderful.

Presenter15:28

Very rewarding.

Madhur Jaffrey15:28

Very rewarding film for me.

Presenter15:31

Your fourth record.

Madhur Jaffrey15:33

My fourth record is Indian music. Of course, I was raised with the greatest of Indian musicians. My uncle was a great patron of Indian music, and Indian music has survived through the system of patronage. Of course, now it's dead. Very few people can afford to have these great musicians come to the house to play for them, but that's how I was raised. As a little child, I went to sleep in my mother's lap listening to the greatest of Indian musicians.

Madhur Jaffrey15:57

I took Indian music for granted while I was in India, but when I left the hunger and the thirst for things Indian became Indian food was one, Indian music was another.

Madhur Jaffrey16:08

And I began to listen to more and more Indian recordings, go to Indian concerts, and the record I've selected is a early Ravi Shankar Aliyak Parkha duet. It's the Rag Sindhu Bheravi.

Speaker 416:39

Uh

Presenter16:51

The Rag Sindhu Peravi, Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan.

Madhur Jaffrey16:56

Yeah.

Presenter16:56

Apart from James Ivory's productions, have you made other Indian films?

Madhur Jaffrey17:01

I'm making an Indian film now. It's a film called Sagar, which means the sea, and it's my first Hindi film, and it's one of those big budget, colossal films that is, I'm sure, going to be a great, great hit.

Presenter17:14

Very spectacular, very good.

Madhur Jaffrey17:15

Very spectacular, full of songs and dances and people dying and battles and guns and drama and comedy, everything altogether.

Presenter17:22

All together. And there's a special Indian production method. They don't make them all at once.

Madhur Jaffrey17:26

No, I've been making this film for over a year, and I've come to India many times. The system is that you do films in little lots. Most producers don't have the money to do it all together. So the system started that you

Madhur Jaffrey17:39

raised money for ten days. Then you shot the ten days and you showed that bit to various people and said, Do you like it? Do you want to give money? And they said, Yes, we like it. Here's more money. So you did the next ten days. So what the actors do is they give out their time in ten day lots. An actor can do twenty, thirty films at the same time, all in little pieces. I don't know how they remember that they're they're playing a what character one day. It doesn't seem to matter. Anyway, they come on the set, they're given their lines that day because they're written usually just the day before.

Speaker 418:05

Anyway, they come

Madhur Jaffrey18:12

and you learn them as fast as you can, and you do it that day, and then you go on and you do something else the next day, another film.

Presenter18:19

With no very clear idea what that scene's all about, you just do as you're told.

Madhur Jaffrey18:20

You do as you're told, it's up to the director to keep it all in perspective.

Presenter18:25

Yeah.

Madhur Jaffrey18:26

So every actor is doing several films and I have been going back to India again and again to do sagar. But it's going to be a great film. I think we should all go together with a lot of peanuts and munchies and watch it together.

Presenter18:36

Yes, indeed, I look forward to that one.

Presenter18:39

Let's hear your fifth record.

Madhur Jaffrey18:41

Well, once I came to America and married my second husband, who is an American,

Madhur Jaffrey18:47

He's a musician and used to play with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra at that time when I married him.

Madhur Jaffrey18:53

I began learning more and more about the kind of Western music that I didn't know so much about. I'd heard Beethoven's fifth, sixth, seventh, etcetera., in India but I began to hear music through his ears a little more. And the next piece of music is by Stravinsky.

Madhur Jaffrey19:11

It's Orpheus and it's the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by a friend, Sir Colin Davis.

Presenter20:17

The opening of Stravinsky's Orpheus, the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davies.

Presenter20:23

Mathieu, we heard about your pathetic attempts to cope with the gas stove in Brent.

Presenter20:29

Warming up baked beans until a recipe arrived from Mother. And now you're one of the most respected cooks in the world.

Presenter20:37

How did it all happen? I mean, what were the first steps?

Madhur Jaffrey20:40

Just doing, going into the kitchen and starting from scratch and learning from scratch. And I think it's not really all that difficult if you have somebody to guide you as I had my mother and her letters. I just took her letters and for example there was a recipe for potatoes and uh it had two spices and it was very simple and I followed my mother's direction. Turned out perfect. I ate it with black Polish bread the first time. The combination was very good.

Madhur Jaffrey21:06

I learnt one thing, then I learnt another thing and made two things, and I learnt a third thing, and I made three things, and the repertoire increased over the years.

Presenter21:14

Well, you've succeeded in making food very exciting. We'll talk about your cookery books in a minute. Before that, let's have your sixth record.

Madhur Jaffrey21:22

The sixth record is my favorite record because it's my husband playing. And this is a record that he did with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. It's uh a contemporary piece of music by a man called Roque Cordero, and it's a concerto for violin and orchestra, with my husband, Sanford Allen, the violinist, playing.

Presenter22:46

The opening of the concerto for violin and orchestra by Rocchi Cordero

Presenter22:50

The Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by Paul Freeman, Sanford Allen, the violinist.

Presenter22:57

Right, how did you become?

Presenter22:59

Cookery expert. You learn to cook.

Presenter23:02

Who invited you to write it all down? How did that happen?

Madhur Jaffrey23:05

Well, it was all rather strange. I had been cooking as everyone cooks, and I had just done Shakespeare Walla, the film, and won the Best Actress Award for it in Berlin, and I came to New York, and the producer, Ismail Merchant, who's just wonderful at flogging anything, he is very good at selling things, he decided that I should

Speaker 123:22

Very good at selling

Madhur Jaffrey23:25

do an interview with the food editor of the New York Times. And if he did a piece on me as an actress who cooks, that might sell the film. So I was got a call from the food critic of the Times and he said, Can I come and see you in your home?

Madhur Jaffrey23:39

Well, I had no home. I was living with the man who was to be my husband at that particular time, and I thought that would be awfully awkward. So I called a friend quickly and I said, Can I borrow your flat for a day? and I'll have this New York Times person come there. So I borrowed the flat and off I went and set my little things, my pot up, and the New York Times food critic came and he

Madhur Jaffrey24:00

immediately looked at the books, the cook books that were on the shelf, and his face fell, and he said, Oh, so these are the cook books you read and I I didn't know how to tell him they're not my books. Please don't judge me by these books. These are my neighbours' books.

Speaker 124:03

Space face.

Speaker 124:09

It works, please don't judge me.

Madhur Jaffrey24:14

So anyway, then he did a big piece on me in The Times and as a result of that I was asked if I would do a cookbook by a publisher and that's how it all started.

Presenter24:22

Now, to do a cookbook, an awful lot of research, a tremendous amount of testing the dishes.

Madhur Jaffrey24:28

Yes, it takes forever. When I was asked to do the cook book, they said, How long will it take you to do it? And I said, Hm, three months. It doesn't take long. I know how to cook. It took me five years to do the book, because by the time you measure teaspoons you can do that. For a lifetime it takes forever.

Presenter24:45

What was the title of the first book?

Madhur Jaffrey24:47

It was called An Invitation to Indian Cooking.

Presenter24:49

This was fairly simple, fairly basic.

Madhur Jaffrey24:51

Well, I did what I knew, and I called it a book about the food of Delhi, and that's what I knew then, and that's what I could cook, so that's what it was.

Presenter25:00

Was it because of that book that you were invited to do the series, the Indian cooking series, on BBC Television?

Madhur Jaffrey25:04

Yes, Indian cooking series or

Madhur Jaffrey25:07

That's right.

Presenter25:08

That opened up new vistas for for many English housewives.

Madhur Jaffrey25:11

It opened up a lot of new vistas for me too.

Presenter25:14

Yeah.

Madhur Jaffrey25:15

It is the most fortunate event in my life.

Presenter25:18

How many programmes have you done?

Madhur Jaffrey25:19

Well, those were eight programmes, but they had been repeated and shown endlessly, so people think I've been on for years and years, but it was just a series of eight programmes really.

Presenter25:29

You've published recently your your latest book, an enormous book that must have taken a vast amount of of research.

Presenter25:37

Vegetarian dishes of from the whole of the East, not just India. What is the actual title?

Madhur Jaffrey25:42

It's Eastern Vegetarian Cooking, and it did take me a long time, six years, to do that book.

Madhur Jaffrey25:47

But I enjoyed it. I traveled from Japan all the way towards Kuwait. I mean, all the way through Asia, working my way through, learning from people in different countries.

Madhur Jaffrey26:00

And I think it's my best cookbook, really. It's a wonderful book.

Presenter26:04

Your seventh record.

Madhur Jaffrey26:05

My seventh record, again, is a taste that I've developed through my husband. It's it's a jazz record by one of my favorite jazz musicians. It's Coltrain. And the the piece is My Favorite Things, based on the sound of music.

Speaker 426:48

Boop boop boop boo boop boop bow.

Presenter26:54

John Coltrane, My Favorite Things.

Presenter26:57

We've talked about your backlog of cookery books. There are some more coming up, aren't there?

Madhur Jaffrey27:02

Yes, there's one coming up next year, which is uh called A Taste of India. It's a again a big book on the regional foods of all of India, and there'll be a lot of pictures to illustrate the differences between the different states and their foods.

Madhur Jaffrey27:18

And I

Presenter27:18

A lot more traveling.

Madhur Jaffrey27:20

Lot more travelling, which I've just finished, actually. That's behind me.

Presenter27:23

Back to the desert island. There you are. Nice hot climate, but you're used to that. That wouldn't work.

Madhur Jaffrey27:28

No, that wouldn't bother me.

Presenter27:30

Are you a practical lady? Could you put up a hut?

Madhur Jaffrey27:32

Up a hut?

Presenter27:35

It would be advisable, wouldn't it? Keep the rain off.

Madhur Jaffrey27:37

Yes, it would be advisable.

Presenter27:39

Done it if you

Madhur Jaffrey27:40

Yes, I learned to fish when I was

Madhur Jaffrey27:43

Are four and five, because I grew up with cousins and my lot, my age group, was all boys. So they taught me cricket. I can play cricket. They taught me fishing. I'm pretty good. I I used to ask them to put the worm on to begin with, but then I could put the worm on myself by the time I was six. So I can fish. I'm pretty good at that.

Presenter28:00

So you'd be pretty comfortable on the island. Yes. And you'd keep up your boating practice.

Madhur Jaffrey28:02

Yeah, yeah.

Madhur Jaffrey28:05

Underhand.

Presenter28:07

Oh, surely your cousin's made you bolo.

Madhur Jaffrey28:09

No, no, no. I didn't bowl overhand ever.

Presenter28:12

Pretty sneaky on the handboat.

Presenter28:15

What's your last record?

Madhur Jaffrey28:17

If I'm on this island and the end is about to come, there's this really

Madhur Jaffrey28:23

Wonderful piece of music. It's a funeral piece written by Purcell for Queen Mary. I would like, as I'm fading away on this island,

Madhur Jaffrey28:34

to listen to this music and to listen to my husband's music and say goodbye with that.

Madhur Jaffrey28:39

So it's puzzle.

Presenter29:44

Funeral music for Queen Mary, written by Purcell in sixteen ninety five, the Philip Jones brass ensemble conducted by Philip Ledger.

Presenter29:54

You mentioned two discs just now as your favourites. Now we have to turn the screw and get you down to one.

Madhur Jaffrey30:01

All right, now if I'm alone, I think I'll opt for my husband's record, Sanford Allen's violin concerto.

Presenter30:09

Right. And one luxury to take to the island with you.

Madhur Jaffrey30:13

Well, I think it's got to be whisky, don't you think? I mean, I would want to drink as the sun sets every day.

Presenter30:18

The Sandana here.

Presenter30:21

I think it's a splendid practical

Madhur Jaffrey30:21

I think it's a splendid break. I think that that would do it. It would keep me calm and cool and I could go to sleep then and not worry about the next morning.

Presenter30:29

I'm not working.

Presenter30:30

Yes.

Madhur Jaffrey30:31

Particularly.

Presenter30:32

Buried in the sand.

Madhur Jaffrey30:33

Yes, thank you. I like that very much.

Presenter30:35

And one book, you already have the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare as a statutory issue.

Madhur Jaffrey30:40

Well, I think I would take a blank book and a pencil and a sharpener. I like very sharp pencils. And then I would keep a log day to day, including how to cook fish on the camp fire, including what happened, how I survive. And I would leave a note for the publisher saying collect the book at such and such a spot, and I would hope it would be a bestseller.

Presenter31:02

Well, let's hope so. And thank you, Madhua Jeffrey, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Madhur Jaffrey31:08

Thank you.

Presenter31:08

Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 131:16

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.