Hello I'm Kirstie Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For Wright's reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1984 and the presenter was Roy Plumlee. Our cast away this week is the writer, Vedmeta.

VED Meatar. The writer, Ved Madhmatar.

Is music important in your life?

Yes, actually, after I lost my sight, at that time I was four, this was in India and it was thought the only thing I was fit to do in life

was to become a musician.

Most blind people in India at that time were beggars or stayed with their relations like wounded

animals and so my musical education was taken in hand when I was very small.

What were you taught to play?

Well, actually, I wasn't taught to play much because all the instruments in India have very sharp strings,

or often many of them at that time were thought of sharp strings and my father

feared that I would develop calluses on my fingers and would have trouble reading

Braille so I didn't have much of a voice but a terrific effort was

made to teach me singing successfully? Well I was quite a good singer I think but

when I reached my early teens I lost my good a good voice. Do you find music helps inspiration? I mean if I dares aren't flowing

do you put on music to clear your mind? Well, for me, writing is little like dreaming.

If I know a piece particularly well,

so that it's almost second nature to me,

I'm apt to put it on the gramophone and just let my mind drift and all kinds of

associations of which I wasn't aware of would suddenly surface and I find that quite helpful. I wouldn't say that it's in any way a direct

inspiration at all. It's just a sort of an aid to memory. What was your plan in choosing

...