India: Episode One

70 years after independence Rajan Datar travels to two very different corners of India. Both are borderlands and both are largely undiscovered by tourism, one in the far west, the other in the far east. In this two-part special, and as part of BBC World News' India Direct season, he'll be exploring the diverse communities, histories and traditions that form the constantly changing map of India. He begins his journey in the far western state of Gujarat. There he visits a shipyard in the ancient port of Mandvi, that by building dhows today, continues the state's centuries-old sea trading tradition - the basis for much of India's historic wealth. He then discovers the barren beauty of the Rann of Kutch or white desert - one of the largest salt deserts in the world, where the nomadic Kutchis fiercely cling to their unique identity and traditions. He takes a tour to the border with Pakistan which has become a tourist spectacle in itself, before becoming one of the 20 million daily passengers crammed onto the country's national railway. Travelling south he visits the former principality, Junagadh, that thanks to an eccentric and obstinate Nawab, found itself in the middle of a still ongoing partition dispute with Pakistan, and finally catches up with the real Cat Women - the female guardians of the world's only Asiatic Lions - once threatened with extinction.