Lost World of the Raj

To coincide with the 60th anniversary of Indian Independence, this three-part documentary series goes on a journey behind the scenes of British India under the Raj. The first episode recreates the era of the 1930s, when British expatriates attempted to create an idyllic version of English life in India. Using home movies (including the rediscovered family films of Mark Tully, former BBC Delhi correspondent) and interviews with people who lived it, a lost way of life is recreated.

It was a world in which families had a retinue of servants, rode into the jungle on elephants, and floated down rivers on inflated buffalo skins. This documentary includes an interview with one of the last surviving punkah wallahs who worked the fans for an English household in British India, and we bring back a couple, now in their late 80s, who were married in Lahore, whose first child was born in Rawalpindi and who have not been back since 1947.