The Hindu Business Line : Discover India

Did you know that our ? ancestors? first walked out of Africa some 70,000 years ago, around the shores of the Arabian Sea and down into South India, and the first Indians' DNA was found to be from Tamil Nadu?

All this and much more about the world's oldest, most diverse and colourful civilisation has been captured in a six-part series titled The Story of India to be telecast on Discovery Channel every Wednesday at 8 pm, starting April 16. Each episode will be repeated the subsequent Sunday at 11 a.m.

According to a Discovery press note the series is a "chronological history of India and will reveal the wonders of India, the diversity and richness of its people, cultures and landscapes and the intense drama of its past."

In the first episode, historian and narrator Michael Wood takes the audience from the tropical heat of South India to the Gangetic plain, through Pakistan and the Khyber Pass to Turkmenistan, where new archaeological discoveries are changing the view of the migrations that evolved Indian identity.

The next episode covers the age of Buddha, the coming of Greeks and the rule of Ashoka. Searching for the power of ideas in India's history, Wood meets the Dalai Lama, who explains the relevance of Buddhism today.

The third episode takes viewers through the spice routes and silk roads, samples the earliest cuisine of India and makes its way by train to the great ancient capital of South India - Madurai.

The fourth episode relates the story of India in the Middle Ages, revealing how when the Roman Empire fell and Europe went through a dark age, India had a "series of great flowerings of culture", and highlights some achievements of medieval India. The next episode concentrates on the desert cities of Rajasthan and the Mughal cities of Delhi, Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, and the last one deals with the freedom struggle.

Life Desk