Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
An actress who is also a specialist in Indian cookery.
On the island
Eight records
Organ Concerto in B-flat major, Op. 4, No. 2
George Malcolm, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Neville Marriner
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.
Victor Silvester and his Ballroom Orchestra
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.
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.
Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan
When I left the hunger and the thirst for things Indian became Indian food was one, Indian music was another. 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.
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Colin Davis
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.
Violin ConcertoFavourite
Sanford Allen, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Paul Freeman
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.
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.
Funeral Sentences for the Death of Queen Mary
Philip Jones Brass Ensemble, conducted by Philip Ledger
If I'm on this island and the end is about to come, there's this really 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, to listen to this music and to listen to my husband's music and say goodbye with that.
In conversation
Presenter asks
3:05Whereabouts in India were you born?
In Delhi, I was born in my grandfather's house, it overlooks the Jamnah River. I'm from a family of Deleites, we've lived there for hundreds of years.
Presenter asks
4:41How did your fascination with acting come about?
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.
Presenter asks
8:54What did you know about cooking [when you first lived in London]?
Nothing. I was an absolute idiot as far as food was concerned. I love to eat. 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.
The keepsakes
The book
A blank book with a pencil and a sharpener
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.
The luxury
I would want to drink as the sun sets every day. It would keep me calm and cool and I could go to sleep then and not worry about the next morning.
Presenter asks
11:08How did you first meet [the director] James Ivory?
He saw my ex-husband Saeed Jafri in a play and 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.
Presenter asks
22:57How did you become a cookery expert and get invited to write it all down?
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 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 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.
“In Delhi, I was born in my grandfather's house, it overlooks the Jamnah River. I'm from a family of Deleites, we've lived there for hundreds of years.”
“I was an absolute idiot as far as food was concerned. I love to eat. 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”
“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.”