All language subtitles for Welcome to India 1of3 720p HDTV_Subtitles01.ENG

Don't you think it's astounding

that our planet
supports seven billion of us...

BABIES' CRIES

..and counting?

This programme
contains some strong language

Learning to survive in a crowded
world is our biggest challenge.

But there's one corner where we're
already well on our way to adapting.

Welcome to India.

Over one in six in the world
live here,

and to make ends meet,

more of us are moving to the city
than anywhere else on Earth.

TRANSLATION:

We're resourceful

and highly resilient.

It's just as well.

We need all our ingenuity
to create a space we can call home.

If you want to know how to succeed
in this new, unchecked urban world,

come and take a look over here.

Who DOESN'T like gold?

We'll show you how,
no matter how dense the crowd,

we can carve out a home
and build our future.

This programme contains
some strong language.

Come and meet a 23-year-old guy

who's come to the megacity of
Kolkata, looking to make it big.

Imran is known to everyone as Kaale
and lives in this crumbling house

in the heart of the city's
jewellery-making district.

Kaale has come here in search
of gold, and he's not the only one.

This old district is crammed
with over 800 workshops,

where goldsmiths create
the original Indian bling.

Gold jewellery has long been
the must-have adornment
for Indian women,

and doubles up
as an instant emergency fund.

It's our insurance policy,
but far better to look at.

If you add it all together,

Indian housewives hold 11%
of the globe's gold stocks.

That's more than the reserves
of the US, Germany, Switzerland

and the IMF put together.

With night-time temperatures
regularly over 30 degrees C,

Kaale and his friends prefer
the street to their stifling room.

He and his closest colleagues
get up at three to work,

while the city briefly sleeps.

Kaale and his fellow gold sweepers
have an agreement,

allocating them a couple of streets
each to scour for particles of gold.

The first step after sweeping

is this traditional
gold-rush technique.

The most closely-guarded part
of Kaale's alchemy

is carried out
on the roof above his room.

Now, if you want know how to make
gold out of dirt, listen up.

Take one bowl of sweepings,

reduce to a fine silt by panning...

..add a good slug of nitric acid,

before putting on the heat
for just a few seconds.

Next, give the acid and mercury
a thorough mix with your hand.

Once the mercury has attracted all
the gold, remove it from the pan...

..and return to the heat
to boil off the mercury.

Kaale's room is controlled
by one man, Naukada.

He's recruited the panners
for their specialist skills,

learnt in their home city of Agra,
700 miles away.

Kaale's not the only panner
frustrated with the price
he's getting for his gold.

Many of the panners are resigned
to their position under Naukada,

but Kaale has bigger ambitions.

With 1.2 billion of us here,

all looking to make
the best possible livelihood,

you've got to be very canny

at finding your niche
ahead of anyone else,

and that can mean looking
in the most unlikely of places.

Take Versova beach,
on the northern edge of Mumbai.

This barren strip of sand
hardly suggests big opportunity,

but 50 years ago,
new arrivals from Rajasthan

made a surprising discovery.

Anil's grandfather realised
that fresh water on a beach

made it perfect for growing
the desert crops from back home.

The sand-loving, bittersweet
vegetable fenugreek,

known as methi,
immediately flourished,

growing its tasty sprouts
in just three days.

A solid family business was born.

Today,
there are 32 methi farmers here,

many with four or five employees,

and they've been granted a licence
to cultivate this municipal beach.

Others have followed, providing
services to the growing community.

But the houses these recent arrivals
have built on the sand are illegal.

Father to one of the 40 families
calling the beach their home

is Rajesh.

He came here
after falling for his wife Sevita.

4-year-old Vaishnavi has
an 8-year-old brother, Harsh.

They've both been brought up
on the beach,

unlike their father, who grew up in
his well-to-do parents' apartment.

But then he fell in love.

Sevita is from a poor family
and has a limp from childhood polio.

This was so unacceptable,
Rajesh's father also made sure

his son lost the job
he'd secured him at Mumbai airport.

Rajesh now works from home,

so Sevita expects him to do his fair
share of the early-morning chores.

My son is going to school now. Bye.

Bye. Bye.

Sevita has a part-time job
as a cleaner

for a middle-class family
in the city.

But to earn a bit more on the side,

she deals in the beach's
home-grown speciality.

The family's main business, however,

is doubling up their home as
a local pub for the methi farmers.

The only drink on offer
is cane liquor.

Rajesh doesn't have a liquor licence

and his illegal business has
landed him in jail once already.

Too much.

Rajesh has few other options,

and so reckons the risk
is one worth taking.

Besides, right now
he has more immediate worries.

There's a rumour
that the local council - the BMC -

are preparing
for one of their periodic evictions

of the families
squatting on the beach.

We're certainly hard-working,

but having our heads down
doesn't mean we're cut off.

Keeping our eyes open
to the world around us

might just give us
that all-important edge.

In the jewellery district, the
gold sweepers take a close interest

in the global spot price of gold.

A shift in value has
a direct impact on their earnings,

though not in the way
you might expect.

With the price of gold
at an all-time high,

and fewer customers for jewellery,

there's far less gold dust
on the streets.

For Kaale, this means his dream
of escaping the landlord's
cramped dormitory

and setting up on his own
has got harder still.

But he has an idea,
and is up earlier than ever.

He plans to bypass his landlord by
dealing in a different kind of dirt.

The gold dust
washed off the goldsmiths' bodies,

and swept from their floors,

eventually ends up with
all the other muck - in the drains.

Working flat out for 20 minutes,

Kaale dredges enough sludge
to fill six bags.

They dredge three more drains

before Kaale and his friends
call it a night.

To shift the night's haul,

Kaale makes a call
to one of the large-scale refiners.

Kaale's plan to cut out his landlord
in the house seems set.

At last, the buyer, Javed,
does turn up,

but he's playing it very cool.

JAVED:

Once Javed's happy there's gold
in the mud, negotiations can begin.

If we've got a good business idea,
we're not the type of people

to let paperwork and the law
get in the way.

Over 90% of our working population
earn their money off the books,

generating two thirds of our GDP.

Ironically, that includes
selling knocked-off books,

something the entrepreneurs
where YOU come from
might not be so happy about.

Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs,

and Deepak Chopra, Life After Death.

Meet Salman, who earns his living
selling the books
to Mumbai commuters.

Salman works the prime retail space
of this busy junction

with a bunch of friends, who have
a strict profit-sharing agreement.

Salman started out
selling newspapers on the streets
when he was nine,

before spotting there were better
returns in paperbacks

turned out
by the city's top backstreet press.

Hi, sir. Novels?

Black marketeers like Salman
and the gang are easy targets.

Salman's friend Ajay ended up here

after an accident with a haymaking
machine back in his village.

Ajay consistently tops
the cooperative's sales rankings,

guaranteeing his popularity.

Salman and some of his family
currently sleep

in a municipal gardens
next to the junction.

PHONE RINGS

While Salman mainly sleeps out,
close to his work,

his mum lives at home,
just outside the city.

Like mums everywhere,
she worries for him and his future.

CHILD: Good night!

Let me take you to a secret place
across the mighty Ganges.

On this abandoned riverbank,

hundreds work in an underground,
yet highly organised industry.

Welcome to Kolkata's
very own gold rush.

This is where Javed's
brought the drain sludge

that he purchased from Kaale
in the jewellery district.

He and his family are major players
around these parts.

Javed's hopes of transforming
the sludge into cold, hard cash

relies on the skill
of his 20 employees.

Before the gold can be extracted,
the sludge must be prepared.

The sieving is supervised
by Javed's father Abdul,

head of the family firm.

The only mechanised phase
of the process follows.

See? This is very good, fine powder.

The finely-ground mud is ready
for Javed's casino.

This labour-intensive
wooden sluice technology

is straight
from 19th-century California,

using water
hauled by hand from the Ganges.

When conjuring gold from mud,
there's no beating the human touch.

A vigorous brushing

dislodges the precious sediment
from the grooves in the wood.

Air is blasted
into the charcoal-fired crucible

to force up the temperature
and drive off any impurities.

The solidified ranga bowls are then
heated to an even higher temperature

in a handmade oven for several
hours, to burn off the mercury.

A small disc of alloyed
silver and gold is all that's left.

Javed's brother Nabil refines it
piece by piece, using nitric acid.

A final smelting produces,
at long last,

pure 24-carat gold.

Earning cash is always
the top priority,

but making a home is also crucial.

It provides the stability
we hope will nurture

the success and wealth
of the next generation.

On the beach in Mumbai,

today is Rajesh and Sevita's
wedding anniversary.

It's nine years
since they moved here,

after their controversial
love marriage,

and even though money is tight,

Rajesh is determined
to buy Sevita a present.

Splashing out on a new sari means
that Rajesh needs more credit

to restock his pub.

He drops a call
to his local money lender,

who he already owes
a substantial sum.

The money lender relents
and lets Rajesh extend his loan.

Failing to keep up his repayments
now would have serious consequences.

Rajesh now desperately needs to get
the pub back up and running

and stimulate some cash flow.

Once dusk falls,

he can safely make his rendezvous
with his illicit liquor supplier.

Word has already got out

that the best-value bar
on the beach is back in business.

Rajesh's strategy is to corner
the no-frills end of the market.

With the customers
having drunk their pockets dry,

Rajesh calls time at the bar,

so he can present Sevita
with her surprise.

CHILD: # Happy birthday to you
Dear mummy, dear papa! #

But such harmony on the beach
could be short-lived.

The residents
of new luxury apartments

want squatters like Rajesh moved on,

and they're not alone.

Methi farmer Anil's family

built illegally themselves
when they first arrived,

but they've since been given
the right to remain,

and the growing competition
over space explains their antipathy
towards newer arrivals.

Kaale is still in the room he shares
with 15 other gold sweepers,

all under the control
of their landlord.

But he's just heard about a room
that's come available nearby.

Perhaps this is the moment he's
been waiting for to make his escape.

2,000 rupees a month
isn't unreasonable,

but on top of food
and other outgoings,

it's well out of Kaale's reach.

Somehow, he needs to radically
improve the returns

for his drain sludge.

Down at the sludge refinery
by the Ganges,

the workers turn up
at first light...

..while their boss Javed can enjoy
a more leisurely approach.

First things first -

breakfast.

Kaale has come down to the refinery

with fresh determination
after seeing the room.

He's realised that, as a newcomer
to the drain sludge business,

he must play tough if he's ever
going to be paid a fair amount.

There's a mounting panic among
residents of the beach in Mumbai.

There's word that the council are
serious about their eviction threat

and are sending over the bulldozers.

But Rajesh has seen it all before.

Faced with the risk
of losing everything,

most people aren't
taking any chances.

One of the council's security
guards is an old customer,

with no qualms over ordering
a drink from the illegal pub.

He's not convinced
by Rajesh's preparation

and tips him off that this time
the eviction IS for real.

Rajesh has an added problem.

If the cops find his booze
during the eviction,

he would quickly end up
back in prison.

Luckily for the future of
the family's home and possessions,

Sevita's rushed back
from her job in time to help.

Unlike Rajesh's upbringing
in a middle-class apartment,

Sevita grew up
in illegal settlements.

The money lender approaches
on his daily round.

In just two hours,

the houses of 40 families have
been reduced to a jumbled mess.

Kaale, in the jewellery district,

is again using the brief hours
of quiet in the middle of the night.

He's confident he's found a buyer

who will pay properly
for the sludge.

Kaale has a new plan to strengthen
his bartering position.

Instead of letting the buyer
come to him,

he'll take the sludge
to the buyer's own turf.

The race across town has paid off.

The new buyer, Akbar,
is still present.

But will he offer more
than the 5,000 rupees Javed paid

for this similar amount of sludge?

On the beach, everyone is busy
rebuilding their homes

in the exact same position
as before yesterday's demolition.

The cops didn't find Rajesh's booze,

and his dismantled house
survived unscathed.

Rajesh himself has been off
helping some friends,

leaving Sevita to reconstruct
their home alone.

But there's a priority
neither can afford to ignore.

Before the walls are even on,
the pub is back up and running,

providing the income so crucial
for servicing their debt.

Now Kaale's getting a better price
for his drain sludge,

renting a room may be within reach.

He's taking his dredging friends
along for a second viewing

of the place offered
at 2,000 rupees a month.

And on the beach,
there's a new contentment, too.

The BMC like to flex
their muscles occasionally,

but attention has now moved on.

For Rajesh and Sevita, life on
the beach is never going to be easy.

But, as adaptable,
resourceful survivors,

they will always be able to provide
a home for their family,

and with that comes hope
for a better future.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd