Jan. 9: An evocative portrait of Calcutta as almost a paradise on earth emerged today when Pinky Lilani, who was born in Nizam Palace in 1954 and went to Loreto House School and Loreto College, was a guest on one of the most popular programmes on BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs.
Her choice of eight pieces of music which guests have to imagine taking to their mythical desert island reflected happy years being taken out for a drive, for instance, while her father sang Judy Garland's Over the Rainbow.
In such establishments as Mocambo and Trinca's in Park Street she recalled listening to Frank Sinatra's Strangers in the Night, As Time Goes By from Casablanca, and the instrumental from Edith Piaf's La vie en rose.
Another song she picked that was very popular at the time was Lata Mangeshkar's Lag Jaa Gale Ki Phir Yeh Haseen Raat Ho Na Ho.
In her Calcutta days, she also heard Ave Maria.
Pinky - her real name is Nusrat - recalled: "My grandfather (Khan Bahadur Dossani) was the port commissioner and at one stage sheriff of Calcutta. My father (Salim Nathai), who died in 2005 at the age of 78, owned the Orient cinema. He was a film distributor. He was also the agent for the Nizam of Hyderabad - my parents had their wedding in Nizam Palace on Circular Road. They lived in one of the bungalows in the palace grounds where I was born."
Pinky remembered "the Calcutta Club and the Calcutta Swimming Club and the Tolly Club and everything..."
At one point the presenter Kirsty Young wondered whether Pinky was not being too "wide-eyed and innocent" but her guest insisted: "When we were growing up Calcutta was the place everyone came to - even from Bombay."
The idea of the programme, which has proved enduring since it was launched by Roy Plomley in 1942, is for guests not to talk shop but to reveal some personal aspects of their lives through music and through a choice of a book and a luxury item.
For her book, Pinky chose Elif Shafak's The Forty Rules of Love which provides an insight into Sufism and Rumi's philosophy.
Her luxury item was Darjeeling leaf tea with which she starts the day - "I don't use tea bags".
Pinky is in elite company because among the 1,000 guests who have appeared on Desert Island Discs over the past 75, there have been only a handful of Indians - among them Ravi Shankar, V.S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, the Maharani of Jaipur, Vikram Seth, Madhur Jaffrey and Lord Gulam Noon.
Pinky, who now gives lessons in Indian cuisine to corporate clients and also holds award ceremonies for Asian women of achievement and women of the future under 35, has been honoured with an OBE and a CBE.
Perhaps her most remarkable achievement has been to persuade dozens of high profile English women - from Cherie Blair to Elizabeth Hurley - to come to her functions in Indian clothes. "Only Theresa May, who has come many times, never needed any help (with putting on a sari)".
Pinky said she never travels without a wok and her favourite dish to show to clients was "spicy Bombay potato" - "if it goes wrong I put in lots of coriander".
She learned to cook only after arriving in England and remembered on trips home to Calcutta being given a few tips by the family chef. "His biryani was legendary."
Pinky has probably done more for Calcutta tourism in 45 minutes than all the tourist boards put together. Maybe Calcutta will now witness a surge from tourists from the UK.
