All language subtitles for Exploring.Indias.Treasures.with.Bettany.Hughes.S01E02.The.South.1080p.HDTV.H264-DARKFLiX

I'm being led somewhere I've never
been before,

so I'm completely in
the hands of my guide.

But I'm incredibly lucky,

because I think what I'm about
to see is miraculous,

and certainly wonderful,

because the village up
ahead of me have been preparing

a celebration for over a month,

and if things go well,

then I'm promised that I'll have

the chance to experience
the presence of a god.

I'm exploring India's
cultural treasures,

guided by its leading experts...

Hello.

There is so much to discover here,

as far as the horizon can see.

...revealing world-class
historical riches,

and game-changing human stories...

...a mountain railway that connects
ancient and modern...

...unique, enduring wonders

of medieval art
and architecture...

So you're at best on the history.

That's an incredibly
beautiful thing.

...and a 500-year-old abandoned city.

This is the most
extraordinary place.

It would have been fantastic
inside there,

it would have been buzzing
and thrumming with life.

These are some of
the greatest treasures of India.

Southern India,

with its extraordinary cultural
and graphical diversity.

Here landscapes have made history.

I've been travelling to India
for decades,

on the trail of
the inspirational ideas

and the pioneering philosophies

that emerge from the subcontinent.

And now I'm here to try to explore

how this incredible landscape
around me

has impacted on
the culture of India through time,

and also how that culture has
impacted the wider world.

Our first treasure is
the lost city of Hampi

in the heart of southern India.

I've been told that at
the top of this hill,

1,700 feet above sea level,

IS an awesome experience.

Oh, it's just so majestic.

So what you're looking at down there

is one of the world's greatest
abandoned cities.

There are over 1,600 monuments

spread out over 16 square miles,

that's 40 square kilometres,

and loads of it is still waiting
to be explored.

Hampi, named after Pampa,
a local river goddess,

was re-branded Vijayanagara,

City of Victory, from 1336,

the capital of a powerful
new empire.

Visitors have actually been coming
here for centuries.

There's a Portuguese horse trader
called Domingo Paes,

who climbed up this hill,

but he said that even up here he
couldn't see it all,

because bits were hidden behind
these ranges of hills.

But despite that,

he said it seemed to him
to be as big as Rome,

and a very beautiful site.

By the 1500s,

this was the second largest city in
the world,

but within a century

it would be a deserted ruin,

reclaimed by nature.

I want to get to the bottom of its
intriguing history.

There's a man called Arjun Bhat,

who's made this place his
life's work,

so I'm hoping he's going to decode
it a bit for me.

Hey.

Nice to see you.

It is my pleasure.

Oh. Bettany.
How lovely to meet you.

My name is Arjun.

This is the most extraordinary
place. It's so huge.

Yeah. There is stones everywhere,

granite structures as far as your
eyes can see.

Yes. There is so much to discover
here.

Every day I get excited,

like I'm listening to

some new information for
the very first time.

This was once a culture at the
cutting edge

of urbanisation
and new technology,

with a diverse population

of over 500,000 people,

making the most
of their natural environment.

So, it's a very romantic place here.

I imagine there must be

a very practical reason why they
built the city here.

Yeah, for sure. If you look around,

these boulder hills provided
a natural line of defence.

And the river itself, you know,

also difficult to cross.

But the river provided for
resources to bring

a grand city and sustain
a large population.

Its sophisticated water supply,

from dams and aqueducts,

to stepwells and running water,

made Vijayanagara an envy of
the world.

It's Abd-al-Razzaq isn't it,

that Persian scholar who writes

so beautifully about this place
in the 1400s,

and you can tell he's just

completely blown away by what
he finds.

Yeah, he must have walked into
a paradise.

We are in a semi-arid dry desert,

and it's been transformed
through irrigation,

and that's why, you know,

a city has flourished here in
this spot.

Arjun leads me to a hidden corner,

overlooked by hills that are home
to sloth bears and leopards,

to give me a sense of the scale
of this place.

So, this is a marketplace

that is almost a kilometre long.

And each of these would have been
a shop,

so imagine the population that
they are catering to.

And there are seven of these

within the city of Vijayanagara.

This is just one.

Do you hear a lot of the things that
were traded here still?

Yeah, brocades from China. Yes.

Spices from the Malabar Coast. Yes.

Horses from the port of Hormuz. Yes.

Yeah. There's one account that says
that it's really difficult

to get through the streets,

because there are so many people,
and so many elephants,

you know, herds of elephants here,

in this absolute throng of a
kind of international crowd.

So, who exactly were the people of
Vijayanagara?

700 years ago the Hindu rulers
of Hampi

extended their kingdom over most
of southern India,

combining military might with
the patronage of scholars,

poets and artists,

and they did nothing by halves.

That's unbelievably impressive.

This Ganesha is carved just
out of one granite boulder.

Yeah, this is the largest monolith
of Ganesha.

When you come to India you're struck
by the fact that

the gods and goddesses,
and spirits and demigods,

a lot of them are half human,
half animal.

Does that tell you something about
the psyche of belief here?

Yeah. There is divinity in every
possible form.

We are all part of the one
consciousness, or one nature, yeah.

Why has Ganesha been put right at
the entrance to the city here?

So, he's considered as
the ruler of obstacles,

so you'll often see
Ganesha at entrances of homes.

In this case you're right in
the entrance of Hampi.

The first deity you see is Ganesha.

So, there's definitely
a message there, isn't it?

It's kind of saying, this is a city
where anything is possible.

Yeah, everyone's welcome,

and all things are made
possible here.

Inside the 15th-century
Vijaya Vitthala Temple complex,

on the northern fringes of the city,

the chariot-shaped shrine

of the demigod Garuda,

finely carved from pure granite,

is a symbol of Hampi's
sophistication.

And nearby sculptures offer a vital
clue to the kingdom's success.

This is a kind of divine
wedding hall,

and it's protected by all these
warlords dressed in different dress.

And the fantastic thing is,
it shows you just how multicultural,

how multi-international
the influences were here.

So, these are locals,
and we know they're locals,

cos they've got a man bun,

and they have got fantastic
Tamil jewellery on

the bracelets round their arms.

And then here,

he's dressed as
a Muslim Turkic warlord,

with that fantastic turban

and the curved,
kind of scimitar sword.

Vijayanagara's true eclectic
identity is becoming clear,

and then Arjun tips me off about
another place to explore,

tucked away in a banana grove,

a tomb to one of Hampi's
great generals,

with Islamic features,

like pointed arches,

flanked by something even
more revealing.

Now, this looks like
a really typical Hindu temple,

but have a look at this.

So, this is a prayer niche,

and it's facing Mecca,

so because we're here in
India it's facing west,

and that tells you that
the building I'm standing in

is a Mosque.

So, what we're getting is this
really detailed,

intriguing picture of
a kingdom that's attracting

and harnessing talent and influence

and ideas from right across
the subcontinent.

But these cosmopolitan glory days
were destined to end.

In 1565, after centuries of turmoil,

Vijayanagara finally succumbed

to a coalition of neighbouring
powers invading from the north.

We're told that the atrocities were
many and ferocious,

and huge areas of
the city were burnt to the ground.

Eventually, when the kingdom fell,

the looting here carried on
for six months.

The empire never recovered.

Southern India was torn apart by
warring dynasties.

Unity wouldn't be restored
for another 400 years.

This was a culture who knew how
to work with

the resources of nature,

and also how important it was

to invite in new people across
their borders

and boundaries.

It's a reminder of the power
and value of harmony.

Harmony's a really interesting word,

because if you look at it in
a number of languages,

in Latin and in the kind of

base tongue of many
Indian languages,

it's not a soft word,

it's something really active about
fitting and fixing,

and mixing together,

and it tells us that we're actually
at our strongest,

at our most harmonious,

when we're allowed not to be just
the same,

but all to be different.

I've travelled to
Thanjavur in Tamil Nadu...

HORN TOOTS LOUDLY

...360 miles south-east of Hampi.

From the 9th to the 13th century,

this was the centre of one of the
subcontinent's

greatest ever empires,

ruled by the Chola Dynasty.

Our next treasure is
the exceptional art

and architecture they left behind.

I'm making my way somewhere that was
built to be

an incarnation of the centre of
the world,

a kind of axis of all the earth,

So you can expect it
to be pretty imposing.

This entire temple is made
of granite,

so it's just extraordinary
the detail

that they've managed
to coax out of the stone,

and what you've got to think is
that this is a thousand years old.

This temple, the Brihadeeswara,

or Great Shiva,

broke all records when it was
completed in 1010 CE.

It's vimana, this central tower,

was the tallest structure in India,

and one of the tallest in the world.

We're told that
a four-mile-long ramp was built

to raise this 80-tonne capstone.

Worship's continued in this
spectacular treasure

for over a millennium.

CONCH SHELL BLOWS

And I find myself here on
an auspicious day,

celebrating the fertility of
the land.

So I'm made to feel especially
welcome.

Hello, lovely to see you.

My name's Bettany.
What's your name?

Sathi. Andali. Sathi and Andali.

So, what do you do today?

THEY ALL CHAT AT ONCE

So, what these lovely ladies have
told me,

they've come on a
special festival day

and these lovely red necklaces
are a sign

that they've come here to the
temple,

and they're going to go away
with better luck.

Everybody's got them, they're
beautiful, they're beautiful.

It's so lovely to meet you.
GIRLS: Thank you.

Thank you so much.
GIRLS: Bye.

About 10,000 pilgrims make their way
here every day,

30,000 during festivals.

The builder of the ambitious complex
left clues on the walls

in ancient Sanskrit
and Middle Tamil.

Thousands of lines

dating from
the temple's foundation.

Doctor Bavani,
a lifelong champion of Thanjavur,

and one of India's leading
inscription experts,

has offered to help me interpret
the evidence.

What does it say?

SHE SPEAKS SANSKRIT

And live,
she decodes the Sanskrit messages.

Ah, like a lion,

so he was like the king of the
jungle?

Oh, yes, yes.

Amazing.

This is not a shy man,
so he's saying he's so proud,

or he's so successful,

that he's conquered huge areas in
other people's territories

and he's going to wear their crowns

like a garland around his neck.

You get the sense he's quite proud
of what he did.

The whole complex,

built to emulate Lord Shiva's
mountain home in the Himalayas,

is tribute to its founder,

Rajaraja Chola I,

whose name means King of Kings.

The greatest ruler of
the Chola dynasty,

Rajaraja was the first to
unite peninsular Southern India,

and to conquer an overseas empire,

extending Chola power and influence

into what's now Sri Lanka

and Southeast Asia.

The natural resources
of his vast domain were employed in

the temple's construction,

and recorded on its walls.

So, all of this describes the kind
of entertainers

and performers who were here,

so there were sacred
parasol holders,

and musicians and drummers,

and we're told that 400
dancing girls

were brought in from another temple.

And then there's
a detail I just adore,

so there were 40 female
conch shell musicians,

and there are still women blowing
conch shells

here in the temple today,

so it's just this kind of direct
line of continuity.

It just makes you begin to
appreciate

how it just would
have been fantastic inside there.

It would have been just buzzing
and thrumming

and humming with life.

The temple's huge logistical supply
chain is also set out,

including the 54,000 bananas a year

offered to the elephant-headed god
Ganesha.

This was a seriously wealthy empire.

This writing here describes pearls
that were laced on strings

of pure gold.

"Pum" is the word for gold.

And we also know that
the kings taxed their empire,

so there was an enormous tax on
the trade of copper

and tin and gold,

from places as far afield as

the Caliphate in Baghdad,

and even China.

Hi, OK? Thank you.

Two of these metals, copper and tin,

were responsible for firing
a pinnacle of Chola culture,

iconic sculptures known as
Chola bronzes.

Swamimalai,
an hour's drive from Thanjavur,

has been producing Chola-style
bronzes for centuries,

thanks to alluvial soil from
the Kaveri river bed,

an essential ingredient in
the bronze casting process.

The original icons,

which once adorned the
Chola temples,

can now sell for millions
of dollars.

The trail to their living equivalent
has led me

to the Stapathy family workshop,

where each wonder is created

as a living, divine one-off.

Do you know how long your family
has been making these bronzes,

how many generations back?

So you're a vessel of history,

that's an incredibly
beautiful thing.

The three brothers who work here

use the ancient lost wax technique.

They sculpt the model out of wax,

and then encase it in that alluvial
river clay

before heating it.

The wax then melts away,

replaced by molten bronze.

That is why we use the phrase,

"breaking the mould"

because by the time he's broken this

there will be a unique statue
that will appear,

and there will be no other one
in the future

that is exactly the same.

So, I'm witnessing
the breaking of the mould.

Once a statue is completed as
a work of art,

there's one final step.

The Prana Pratishtha,

a ritual in which
the deity is invited

to take up residence within
the sculpture.

It's a transcendental moment

when the statue's eyes are

symbolically opened...

...its five senses awakened...

...and the object becomes
a living icon.

It's just so incredible to see,

because I know about the statues

from the ancient world that are
treated like this,

and they have garlands
of flowers put on them,

and so it's incredible
to witness this.

Thank you so much for letting me
see this.

Chola culture is a fascinating,

captivating treasure of south India,

because it shows how prosperity,

how worldly wealth

and the gifts of nature,

can be used to create art that acts
as a gateway

to experience the divine.

And also now, in the 21st century,

it gives us a window onto a
rich, sensuous,

confident, celebratory,

medieval world.

It's early morning,
and I've come to Mettupalayam,

a small station in Tamil Nadu,

150 miles from Thanjavur.

I'm on my way to our next treasure,

the landscapes and culture

of the Nilgiri Mountains.

Travelling by train is basically my
happy place,

so if you combine train travel

with heritage then I am in heaven.

But it's an interesting issue here
of course,

because a lot of the trains were
built by colonial powers,

so I'm just about
to meet somebody who's taking me to

an extraordinary heritage train,

and it'll be really interesting
to find out whether,

yeah, whether he thinks it's
more than just

a bit of colonial culture
and architecture.

Hi, are you Mukund? Yes.
How lovely to meet you.

Nice to put a face to the name.

It is, it is. And this must be it.

This is our train. Amazing.

The Mettupalayam, the steam train,

winds up through the Nilgiri,

part of the Western Ghats range,

separating Tamil Nadu from Kerala,

up to the town of Ooty.

It's Asia's steepest rail line,

and, I'm promised,
one of its most enchanting sights.

What's your connection to the train?

Well, I went to boarding school in
Ooty where I spent nine years,

and we watched it climb up and down,

you know, under this fog of smoke.

So it was very much

a part of our heritage
and my childhood.

I have to ask you this,
though, because this is a train,

it was a railway that was built by
the British,

and the railways were built
to extract resources from India,

and to obviously to kind of
move that governing class around.

So, is it OK to enjoy it?

Yes, I think that's true
generally of the railways

that the British built,

but I still think, by and large,

this is an outlier.

It was built for leisure,

it was built for cutting time down.

I don't think there are too many
days when it's not full.

People like the ride up.

TRAIN HORN TOOTS

First dreamt up in 1854,

this line didn't fully open
until 1908,

but by the time it was completed

it was a pioneering marvel,

boasting 16 tunnels

and 250 bridges.

I do get the sense though, for you,
it's not just

the kind of engineering magnificence
of this that you love,

it's something else?

Why is it so special to you?

I mean, it's special for a lot of
reasons.

It's the only metre-gauge
track in India.

It's the steepest.

It's the only rack railway,
for instance.

But to me, apart from all of this,

it's uniqueness is the fact that it
is so slow.

You know, it's the closest thing
to taking a walk

in the woods while you're
sitting down.

And you know, it's really
interesting because

neuroscientists say that we
love travelling by train,

because we can travel
and think at the same time,

so maybe it's a train of ideas this.

Absolutely, and there's a certain
intimacy to the journey.

I mean, just look outside.

It's just, you know,
trees almost at arms' length.

It's just beautiful.

And we're stopping.
Now we're stopping.

The train makes several stops
on the journey

at stations with names
like Runnymede,

Hillgrove, Lovedale,

where even the local monkeys know
the timetable.

That's my lunch.

So we're going to go up.

Fantastic. I think
I blagged my way up at the front.

GUARD'S WHISTLE BLOWS

So, this is basically an incredibly
important man.

He's the brake man,

because the locomotive's at
the back.

So he's the eyes
and ears of the train.

Elephant. Elephant.

Ah-ha.

Just here. Oh, there's elephant poo!

There's elephant poo!

THEY LAUGH

Look, can I show the...?

Elephants on the line.

And it's not just elephants.

These hills are part of India's
first ever biosphere reserve,

home to dozens of species
of protected animals -

even tigers - and endemic plants,

as well as some interlopers.

So, you're starting
to see this new kind of

plant on the hillside.

Is that tea?

And there are kind
of mixed feelings about it here,

because obviously it brings a huge
amount of economy to the area.

But it is an alien species.

You know, it was originally brought
from China,

so there's a kind of love-hate
relationship with the tea,

and, of course, with the fact that

the tea plantations were
imperial projects.

Udhagamandalam,
known affectionately here as Ooty,

is the line's final destination.

A hill station developed in
the 19th century

to escape the heat
of the Indian summer.

TRAIN HORN TOOTS

Thank you. Thank you.

Happy memories, yeah?

Yes, it feels like coming back home.

Ooty is now a popular destination
for travellers

and honeymooners from across
India,

drawn to the climate,

the scenery and heritage of
the Nilgiri,

a heritage which stretches
right back.

There's evidence from caves in these
mountains that there's been

habitation here since the Neolithic,

and actually early Buddhist
communities came

to these slopes in either
the 4th or the 3rd century BCE,

and started the practice of adoring,

of kind of worshipping some
of these wonderful trees.

But there's also a centuries-old
community that's still here.

These forests and grasslands

are the ancestral home of
the Toda people,

who traditionally live
alongside wild and domestic buffalo

in their hamlets called rounds.

I'm privileged to have been invited
to meet

a group of Toda women,

the torchbearers of their
society's culture,

at their home just outside Ooty.

How are you? Good day, how are you?

My name's Bettany.

I'm partly welcome because, like
them, I'm a lifelong vegetarian,

and I'm immediately envious
of their fabulous hairstyles,

twisted, I'm told,
with buffalo buttermilk.

The arrival of the train

and the development of
the hill station

up-ended the Todas' world,

but interestingly they preserved

an upbeat heirloom that documents
that collision.

SINGING

Beautiful, you can hear the rhythm
of the train.

Yeah. Yeah.

It sounds very positive,

because the train changed
this place.

It brought new people,
it brought different ways of life.

But do you still think
the train is a good thing?

It feels as though everything that
you're putting into the poetry

and into your songs is about how
completely a part

of the natural world of
the mountains that you are.

Ah, thank you.
Shall I take my shoes off?

Thank you.

It's inspiring to find that spirit
living on in the next generation.

Yeah, lovely, thank you.

Lovely to meet you,
I'm Bettany. What's your name?

Ah, OK. Amazing to hear those songs.

Does your generation sing those
as well?

Yeah, but do you think it's
something that can carry on in

the future in India,
this way of life?

THEY SING

The Nilgiri Mountains are
a wonder of India,

not just because of all this
extraordinary biodiversity,

and the engineering
innovations that they've inspired,

but there does seem to be
a kind of positive spirit here,

so everyone I've met and spoken to

is determined not just
to live life,

but to respect it

and to love the living of it.

Our final treasure is
the ancient culture

of the Malabar Coast and Kerala,

in the country's tropical
south-west.

Every year between October and May,

the sacred groves, temples and
ancestral homes of north Malabar

play host to extraordinary events.

I've been invited here

to witness something
incredibly special,

something that's completely unique
to this part of Kerala.

It's not just a performance,

it's a devotional dance

that some anthropologists think have
origins

right the way back in the Neolithic,

in the Stone Age.

I've just got to find my friend
who's told me to come here.

Reshma, Reshma, Reshma, hello!

Hello. How lovely to see you.

How are you? How was your trip here?
Oh, it was good, it was good. Hi.

Reshma has brought me here
to experience a Theyyattam,

a ceremony that stretches back
to pre-history,

combining potent, ancient traditions

and matriarchal rites,

with contemporary Hinduism.

"They ya" means god in
the local language here.

It's the same as our words like
Theo, like theology

and atheistic,
so it's the same root.

And "attam" means a dance,

so this is a god dance.

DRUMS BEAT

Thanks to Reshma I get
to meet one of the dancers

and his guru as he prepares
for his journey

from the natural to the
supernatural.

So, thank you for letting us
come here.

Why is he being made up?
What's happening to him?

HE SPEAKS IN LOCAL LANGUAGE

So, after the make-up,
when he looks into the mirror

he's seeing God, he's not seeing
himself,

and so he feels within his conscious
that he's God.

So, what does it feel like when
you become a god?

RESHMA TRANSLATES

HE SPEAKS LOCAL LANGUAGE

When he becomes the deity
he gets into a trance,

and he doesn't feel like
a human being at all,

and then he walks on the fire.

If it's burning him he doesn't
feel it,

because he's not there any more,
he's not in his body.

Gosh.

So, if they've been happening since
before recorded time,

do you think they're going to
carry on into the future as well?

RESHMA TRANSLATES

He says,
"As long as the world exists."

These dancers aren't playing
the role of gods,

they'll be physically inhabited,

possessed by the deities themselves.

In this case a much-loved
local goddess.

DRUMBEAT INTENSIFIES

The drummers are unbelievable.

Yeah, the drummers also get into
a trance.

Music is supposed to heal
people. Yes.

You can feel it, can't you? Yes.

Your heart just goes bump,
bump, bump. Definitely.

The ceremony goes on all night,

a staggering feat of endurance
for the spectators,

let alone the musicians and dancers.

PEOPLE SCREAM

And when it's finally over,

the entire community is brought
together before the goddess,

who sometimes speaks through
the body of the dancer.

HE INCANTS

Are you happy?
I'm very happy, I'm very happy.

I wasn't expecting a blessing,
what a lovely thing.

It's an overwhelming experience.

Reshma, thank you so much for
bringing me here. It was fantastic.

An incredible thing to experience
this, because it's like the sort of

boundaries between past and present
have completely dissolved

the boundaries between the
human and the divine.

After the thrill of
the night I'm back on the road,

exploring another fragment
of living history,

which, like the Theyyattam,

has roots reaching back to
the Stone Age.

So, I'm traveling into
Kerala's backwaters,

560 miles of lagoons,

lakes, rivers and canals,

which have long drawn traders from
around the world.

The most precious commodity traded
here was spices,

and we know that that trade
stretches back over 5,000 years.

Now, our evidence are tablets from
Sumeria

in the Middle East that date back
to 3000 BCE,

and they describe Kerala as
the garden of spices,

and those spices would be
transported

on boats pretty much like this.

Hi, is it OK to come on?
Thank you. Thank you.

These are Kettuvallams,

literally tied boats made
from bamboo

and planks of jackwood tied
together

with coconut fibre ropes

and painted in pitch produced from
boiling cashew nut shells.

They're unique to Kerala.

I've always wanted to come because

there's this sort of fabled port
called Muziris,

which crops up in the Roman sources,

and the author, Pliny The Elder,
writes about it,

and he says it was
the "Emporium of India."

And we never really knew exactly
where it was,

but recently they discovered
Roman coins

and Roman jewellery,
and amphorae here,

so we know that the Romans were here.

And it gets even better,

because we actually hear about
the Romans from Tamil sources,

so they describe them arriving
in large, beautiful boats,

packed with gold and cool,
fragrant wine,

which they traded for pepper.

Waves of visitors and
settlers have shaped

and fed into Kerala's vital mix
of cultures and faiths,

and to its amazing cuisine.

So these are just some of the spices,
I mean, we're familiar with these,

so cardamom and clove and pepper,
which was described as black gold.

And the brilliant thing about spices
is their name,

so it comes from the Latin species,
which meant something

that was traded that was
of particular value.

So, spices are literally special.

The ship's cook, Rahul, uses some of
Malabar's aromatic treasures

to whip up a quick lunch
for the team.

While Tanya Abraham comes
to share her expertise

on the cultural influence of spices.

It's so abundant here. I mean, what
you're just sort of surrounded by

with this beautiful flock of
birds just going past,

and the coconut palms.

You can just sort of feel
the fertility oozing

out of the land here. Yes.

Absolutely. The main reason
we have such

an eclectic cultural make up
in Kerala

is because of the trade that we've
had over centuries.

Jewish, Christian and
Arab populations

all made Kerala their home.

It was the spice trade that first
brought Arab Muslims

and Islam to India.

Arab traders took Indian spices
to East Africa,

Western Asia and the Mediterranean.

And then European colonial empires
extended those routes

to the Americas.

The Portuguese brought chillies from
South America,

and chillies have become such
an important ingredient

in our cooking today.

It is an incredible fact that,

because I think people always
associate chilli with India,

and particularly with southern India.

They don't think of it as an import.

The spice trade has had
huge, huge impact here.

This is who we are.

I mean, I can't imagine Kerala
without spices,

I can't imagine our food
without spices,

I can't imagine relationships
without spices.

It's the soul of the land.

And it shows how just ecology
and nature

and the natural world really
impacts human history.

We wouldn't have this history,
we wouldn't have these cultures,

we wouldn't have these religions.

We wouldn't have such harmony
between the people

if it was not for the spice trade.

The Malabar Coast of Kerala is
a treasure and a wonder

because it's the most brilliant
example of how really specialised,

unique environments can impact,
not just on local,

but on global culture.

The profusion of plenty and
bounty here has generated

really remarkable home-grown
traditions,

but has also tempted in traders and
invaders across the centuries,

who brought their own customs
that are now

a part of India's rich, diverse,
incredibly varied cultural ecology.

I'm extraordinarily lucky that
so many south Indians -

buffalo herders and pilgrims,
historians and artists -

have offered to share their
treasure-filled heritage with me.

Because India is a
cradle of civilisations

and a cauldron of the
human experience.

This is somewhere that
the millennia has helped

to ferment ideas and innovations.

Currents of culture that have merged
to create a wide

and wonderful river of history,

a river that nourishes India itself
and many others beyond.

I spoke to the Open University about
our exploration of India.

To watch this exclusive interview
and to discover more about past

and present global cultures, go to
the Open University's website.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media