All language subtitles for Hiddenĺ.1080p.BluRay.x264-iLLUSiON-eng

India is a land of over one billion people.

An ancient world...

...it is forging a bright future.

It may look like there's little room for wildlife.

But away from the hustle and bustle...

...there are exotic kingdoms of rock and ice.

Dense jungles.

Great deserts.

And mighty rivers.

All bursting with life.

Here nature has been woven into people's lives.

Wilderness holds strong.

And the wild spirit of India thrives.

This...

...is hidden India.

Tucked away in these hidden valleys
this river appears serene.

But look closer and there is a different story.

These are smooth-coated otters.

The river is everything to them.

Their home, their hunting ground...

...and a place to raise the family.

This clan is made up of two adults
and three cubs.

Constant calls help them to keep in touch.

Rolling in the sand on the banks of the river
keeps their coats clean.

Strengthens family bonds,

and provides a bit of fun for the cubs.

But where a large family really comes into
its own is when it's time to find food.

They hunt as a team,
herding schools of fish in the shallows.

The cubs are still learning but practice
will one day make perfect.

India's rivers are bursting with life.

They provide so much for those animals
and humans alike...

...that they are held in great reverence.

The Ganges, the iconic river of India.

It runs 4000 kilometers across northern India.

Tracing its journey to the sea
reveals why it is so significant.

It supports over half a billion people...

...becomes a sanctuary for some of India's
most elusive wildlife...

...and for many it is the embodiment of the divine.

The Ganges is born in the Himalayas.

Here there is the Earth's largest concentration
of freshwater ice outside the polar caps

It is imprisoned in the 15,000 glaciers...

...that are hidden among
the most inaccessible mountains on earth.

Only the hardiest animals call it home.

Himalayan wolves, rarely seen.

They are an ancient branch of the wolf family.

Isolated by the Himalayas,
they've evolved shorter legs for climbing...

...and thicker coats for protection
against the weather.

The pack must be constantly
on the lookout for food...

...and this deep snow is impeding their search.

However their world is about to change.

The spring thaw is beginning.

Releasing the frozen water
from the grip of winter.

It is this thawing ice that forms
the source of the Ganges.

These beginnings are of huge spiritual significance
to the people of India...

...and are honoured with temples.

Here in the middle of the Himalayas is
the Dev Bhoomi or land of the gods.

The temples here have been silent all winter.
Conditions are far too extreme for people to live here year round.

Now the thaw has begun and the ancient
pathways cleared...

...this group of pilgrims are drawn back up,
the mountain to the sacred rivers beginnings.

All this noise has disturbed one Himalayan resident...

...who has stayed hidden all winter
beneath the blanket of snow.

The Pika.

He's known locally as the friendly mouse,
but is actually a member of the rabbit family.

He has survived the winter thanks to a stash of dried grasses
collected the previous summer.

With a return of spring, he's able to take
advantage of the fresh food on offer.

He has a short window of opportunity.

Pika have a high body temperature .

At night here it can drop below freezing...

...whilst in the middle of the day
it can climb to 25 degrees Celsius.

He'll overheat if he stays out
in the sun and must take cover.

Here in the day of Dev Bhoomi the spring melt
is now in full swing.

It said that the goddess Ganga was
called to earth to purify mankind...

...and cleanse the ashes of the death.

Ganga agreed to come but fell from
heaven with such force...

...that she would have destroyed the earth.

So another god Shiva caught the deluge
in his hair...

...distributing it into gentle streams.

These sacred streams cloudy with
minerals washed off the land...

...merge with others forming a river.

But it is not called Ganges until
it reaches here the village of Dev Pryag,

where the Alaknanda and Bhagirathi join.

This is the point where it leaves
its turbulent beginnings behind...

...slowing as it grows.

The pace of the river eases
however life around it begins to quickly.

Thousands of people across this
foot bridge every day...

...but it has a hidden danger.

There are bandits that
require a payment to proceed.

Rhesus macaques.

As natural climbers, these monkeys have
no trouble navigating the high wires of the bridge.

They are born opportunists and can't,
turn down the prospect of an easy meal.

Some travelers offer up payment freely.

Whilst others need more persuasion
or a helping hand...

...to give up their goods.

For the monkeys, it's easy living.

They've adapted well to the urban jungle.

As the Ganges continues its journey
through the foothills of the Himalayas.

Her karma waters now start to become a
home for more and more of India's wildlife.

Mahseer fish.

These huge carp have traveled from their spawning grounds
in the fast flowing waters upstream.

The rivers pace here is much less demanding.

A prize for any fisherman,
Mahseer face many dangers on their journey.

Here they can feast in relative safety.

Priests and worshipers from riverside temples
provide offerings to the fish.

That they see as manifestations
of the deity Vishnu.

So the Mahseer can grow fat on handouts.

The largest can grow to a meter in size
and weigh 50 kilograms.

Leaving the Himalayas behind, the Ganges
now flows into the plains of northern India.

Here it is met by the Chambal.

This river origins are not in the Himalayan snows...

...but the barren hills that edged
the Thar desert in the west of India.

It is home to over 300 species of bird.

Indian skimmers are year-round residents.

They hunt by using their sense of touch.

Trawling the shallows they wait till,
they're lower bill hits a fish before filling it out.

White egrets and spoonbills also find
plenty to eat from the riverbed.

Soon they are joined by visitors from far-off lands.

The bar-headed goose.

These migrants have traveled over
a thousand kilometers from as far afield as Tibet...

...to bask in these placid waters.

As the birds settled to roost,
an unusual creature is about to arrive.

The dark of night conceals one of
India's strangest inhabitants.

This is a female gharial...

...an ancient and extremely rare type of crocodile.

There are only 1200 left in the wild.

She's drawn to the banks of the river by
sounds coming from beneath the sand.

These strange calls are from her young
buried in an underground nest.

She has stood watch for 70 days guarding them
and waiting for this day.

While their long snouts can open the egg...

...the baby gharial need their mother's
help to dig them out of the sand.

Instinct drives them to the safety of the river.

Gharial are nocturnal hunters.

Their sensitive streamlined snouts snap shut
the instant they feel a fish.

Best not to stray too close.

The following day the youngs haven't been just far.

Their mother is a devoted parent.

She will stay with a young
for up to six months protecting them.

And when she leaves to hunt there are others
to take over guarding duties.

Both male and female adolescent guardian
will stay close to the family ...

...helping to keep them out of harm's way.

The further the Ganges travels from its source...

...the more demands are placed on it
by people and wildlife.

It's waters are a lifeline to over 500
million people.

Throughout its length, it holds great
spiritual significance.

Huge temples attract tens of thousands
of people every evening for rituals at the river's edge.

Bathing steps called ghats allow devotees
to cleanse their souls...

...and send blessings down the river.

At Sonapur the Ganges meets one of her
tributaries the Gandak...

...and grows to four and a half kilometers wide.

This is a spiritual place.

But also a place to do business.

Here is the largest cattle market in Asia.

For over a thousand years,
traders from far and wide have met on this spot...

...to trade livestock and flaunt their skills.

The biggest attraction is the working elephants...

...intricately painted to enhance their majesty.

For an elephant to look its best means a
cleansing bath in the holy waters.

Each morning the elephant and its mahout
will head down to the river for a good scrub.

Working with elephants is a 4000 year
old tradition in India.

But as India modernizes, sites like this
will become increasingly rare.

As the river flows through the plains,
the summer sun becomes a thief of water.

In the heat of the dry season temperatures
can rise to 50 degrees Celsius.

The rivers recede by up to a meter a month.

But what the sun takes away...

...it also returns.

The hot air rising off the parched land...

...creates an area of low pressure that draws
in moist winds from the surrounding seas.

This is the engine of the monsoon.

After the intense heat of summer
the heavens open.

Bringing much-needed relief to the land
and all living things.

80% of India's annual rainfall occurs
during the monsoon.

The Ganges bursts its banks...

...and the land is flooded.

Setting the stage on a misty morning for
a ritual rarely seen...

...that forms one of the strongest bonds
in the natural world.

This male sarus crane has come to
these flooded fields to feed.

He is as tall as a man.

Sarus cranes are
the tallest flying birds in the world.

He is not here alone.

Among the flock is his lifelong partner.

The monsoon marks
the beginning of the breeding season.

To reaffirm their bond they perform of dance.

The female leads and the male follow.

The cranes devotion to each other
is a symbol to Indians of pure marital bliss.

Their bond needs to be strong soon they
will have a chick to raise.

And it'll take two to do so.

The monsoon can continue for up to three months.

In the far northeast of India as much as
12 meters can fall in a single year.

It is the wettest place on earth.

The hills in Meghalaya are nearly 2000 meters high.

Catching the moisture rising off the planes.

The raging rivers created from all this rain
shaped the land.

Carving deep valleys.

These rivers would destroy any normal bridge.

But the Khasi people that live here
design their bridges differently.

These are living bridges.

The Khasi plant fig trees at the river's edge.

On one side their long flexible roots
gripped tightly to the bank .

On the other side, the Khasi begin to weave the roots
together to form a bridge.

The living solution to a natural problem.

Bridge construction spans generations.

The bridges begun today won't be finished
by these builders.

They will pass on their skills to their children to
the benefit of future generations.

Some of these bridges have been standing
for over 400 years.

The forceful rivers can weaken some of
the lower bridges.

But the Khasi have a backup.

The double-decker.

Now regardless of what the river throws at them,
they can cross safely.

Water running off the western end
of these hills...

...flows down to meet another
of India's great rivers.

The Brahmaputra.

For the millions who live along India's rivers, the currents carve
an ever-changing path through the landscape...

...destroying and creating in equal measure.

It's a challenge that the people of the
Brahmaputra River know all too well.

The land here is in a constant state of change.

Nowhere is this more evident than on the
island of Majuli, situated in the middle of the river.

For hundreds of years this haven has
hidden a unique culture.

Majuli has an ancient tradition
of masks making.

This sacred skill has been passed down
through the generations.

The masks enable aware errs to take on
the persona of animals and gods...

...re-enacting epic tales from ancient texts.

The masks made from bamboo and river mud...

...are imbued with so much personality
there's some fear to leave them in the dark at night...

...in case they attack each other.

Legend says the river itself urged
the people to learn the skill.

But today it is the river that poses the
biggest threat to the people...

...as it reshapes the land beneath them.

At its widest, the Brahmaputra stretches
to ten kilometres across...

...and over a hundred metres deep.

These water lands are so deep...

...that they support creatures
that are more familiar in the ocean.

Hidden beneath the water the rare and
elusive river dolphin.

The local name for this dolphin is the Susu...

...which is said to be the sound it makes
when it surfaces to breathe.

It is almost completely blind.

In these dark muddy waters, it relies on sound
using echolocation to hunt fish.

The local fishermen keep watch on the Dolphins,
because where there are dolphins, there are fish.

As the mighty Brahmaputra continues its journey
to the sea, it meets the Ganges.

The two giants fracture into thousands
of tributaries...

...to form the largest Delta in the world.

The river loses energy as it splits...

...causing it to release the mud
that it's been carrying.

In a peak of flood season, 13 million tons of sediment
is carried into the Delta every day.

In some places, it is five kilometers deep.

Out of these rich deposits grows
the Sunderbans forest.

10,000 square kilometers of wilderness.

A rich habitat full of life.

However there are hidden dangers.

Roaming this secret maze, are over a
hundred Bengal tigers.

Their stripes help them to blend
into the shadows.

It means all must be on their guard.

These spotted deer does take any chances.

But some of the other forest residents
don't seem quite as switched on.

This tiger doesn't seem to be interested.

It's in the Delta that the rivers merge
with the sea.

The water now absent flows with the tide.

There is one plant that thrives in
this fluctuating landscape:

The mangrove tree.

It filters out the salt in the water...

...binds the mud together forming a stable platform
and even has its own snorkel.

The mud has little oxygen so the roots
rise above it drawing in air.

Life here above water is full of opportunities.

As the waters recede, they reveal an animal that has
been hiding in its underwater burrow.

The mudskipper, a saltwater fish.

He has adapted to breathe air.

One of the ways he does this
is by storing water in his cheeks.

This keeps his gills moist enabling him to breathe.

He and his fellow mudskippers are now
free to invade the land.

When the tide retreated it left behind
silt rich in food.

With no other fish able to leave the water,
the mudskippers have it all to themselves.

Each has their own patch.

Crossing into someone else's territory
is not tolerated.

It gives a warning.

It isn't heeded but returned.

This leaves him no choice but to fight.

It's a battle of strength as he pushes
against the intruder.

He is victorious and remains the master
of his mud.

The tide is returning.

And he and all the other mudskippers
must now retreat to the safety of their burrows.

After the Ganges leaves the delta,
it completes its final stage.

Flowing into the sea.

A temple on Sagar island marks this holy place.

It is visited by half a million pilgrims
every January.

They bay that dawn as an act of
reverence to the sacred waters...

...in the hopes that they will wash their sins
into the Bay of Bengal.

As the rivers waters leave India behind
they continue to carry with them silt and minerals...

...eroded off the land from as far
afield as the Himalayas.

These fragments are washed back to the coast
giving India is white sandy beaches.

It's these soft sands that attract
a traveler returning to India's shores.

Under the cover of darkness, the female Olive Ridley turtle
makes her way up the beach.

She has traveled the length of India
over 3,000 kilometers to be here.

She could weigh up to 40 kilograms.

Her flippers are a paddle for swimming
let so the working.

This mass invasion is called the 'arribada':

the arrival.

They're here to lay their eggs.

Digging down, she creates a hole in which
she lays up to 150 eggs.

Over the course of three days,
200,000 turtles will lay their eggs on this beach.

Exhausted from all this activity,
she must now cover the eggs.

This is her final act as a mother.

She will never see her offspring,
they will be left to fend for themselves.

45 days later the first hatchlings
start to emerge.

Most surface under the cover of darkness,
but hatching continues into the morning.

The young have been calling to each other inside their eggs
coordinating their hatching.

Each one just five centimetres long.

Must now face a hundred meter dash
to the safety of the sea.

It's their first day on earth, and the odds
are already heavily stacked against them.

Romani kites.

They are easy pickings for them.

And crows waste no time now
the hatchlings are out.

But they have coordinated
their emergence for a reason.

The beach is flooded with baby turtles
the predators can't catch them all.

Closer to the water's edge
these hatchlings have a chance.

The predators are occupied.

But they have other problems.

Instinct drives them on.

The majority make it to the water but
this is just the beginning.

Only one in a thousand will make it to adulthood.

Hatchlings have entered one of
the richest seas in the world the, Indian Ocean.

The source of this richness comes from
India's sacred rivers...

...with no other contributing as much as the Ganges.

It has carried nutrients all the way from the Himalayas
four thousand kilometers away.

Along its journey it helped to feed millions...

...created sanctuaries for families...

...and the faithful.

But his final gift is the biggest.

The nutrients it carries into the ocean
kick start a food chain...

...that ends by supporting the biggest animal
that has ever lived:

The blue whale.

As India hurtles towards the future its
1.2 billion people demand a modern life.

And there is incredible pressure put on nature.

But despite all this some of the
world's most spectacular wildlife thrives...

...in a land where the gods live in
the snow-capped peaks

The rivers are sacred sources of divine inspiration...

...and animals are given reverence as symbols
of luck, strength and courage.

India's wild spirit will endear...

...it is not seen as separate to human life
but an integral part of it.

This is the true secret of hidden India.