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In this programme we inhale the spicy smells of Kabul as we roam its crumbling streets, savour the subtleties of French cuisine as we explore the meaning of food and sample the secret Buddhist ingredient which might just change international politics for the better.



Afghan ambassador to Germany, Maliha Zulfacar, is also a professor of sociology who co-directed the documentary Kabul Transit about life in the Afghan capital. She talks about the moral scruples of holding a camera to people and conveying the complexity of human life in a city where the world's media reduces everyone to a set of images.

Indian writer Pankaj Mishra, is the author of An End to Suffering, The Buddha In The World. He believes traditional concepts of authority and national identity need a makeover and dicusses the relevance of Buddhism to today's political and economic dynamics in relation to Tibet. He thinks the Dalai Lama might show us the way.

And prizewinning French novelist Agnes Desarthe - whose first novel to be translated into English, Five Photos of My Wife, was nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize - spices things up with creative thoughts on her latest book Chez Moi, a profound and tender novel about a woman's troubled past and her enduring love of cooking.


In this programme, author Pankaj Mishra steps into the hot seat to present his 60 second idea.

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