by Michael Wood
It is a pleasure also to thank the Maharajas of Jodhpur, Tanjore and Benares, their staff and secretaries for whom no trouble was too great. In Rajisthan, Munnu Kasliwal at the Gem Palace in Jaipur was incredibly obliging and knowledgeable. In the South I am grateful for their many kindnesses, and for the extraordinary access they gave us, to the priests of the Minakshi temple at Madurai and to the shrines at Tiruvannamalai and Tanjore; and the priests, oduvars and devotees at the lovely temple of Tiruvengadu.
To my many friends at Chidambaram, thanks yet again to the community of Dikshithars, to the Shiva-Shakti dance school, and to M. Nagaratinam and family for their loving kindness and for first initiating an outsider into the ancient traditions of the pathways of the Tamil saints. Lakshmi Vishwanathan in Chennai, as always, was a much valued sounding board!
In Benares thanks to the staff of the Rashmi Guesthouse which has been a home from home: it is hard to think of a nicer place to stay. The same goes for the Hotel Finaro in Allahabad, a haven for twenty years.
In Pakistan, my thanks to Umer Mumtaz for all his hard work and good humour, to J. Mark Kenoyer, and to Dr Muhammad Hassan at Harappa. It is a great pleasure to thank Zahoor Durrani once more and a real delight to be back in Multan again and see the Gardezis: Sultan, Hur and all the family. Thanks too to Imam Bukhari and family at the Jama Masjid Delhi; and the Devanasthapathy family at Swamimalai who showed us the ancient art of the bronze casters. Further afield, in Iraq, my thanks to Lt General Sir Rob Fry, and to Captains Harry Sherwood and Tony Aguilar from the US Army. In Turkmenistan Prof Tim Williams led us to Prof Victor Sarianidi and his wonderful team out at Gunur Tepe.
Last of all, I must express my thanks and deep respect to HH the Dalai Lama for sparing the time to talk to us about the historical legacy of Buddhism and to give us his unique insights into the life of the greatest Indian.
On the film-making side, our great production team in Delhi who fixed and enabled the whole project on the ground were Earthcare Films, and I cannot praise them enough: thanks to Madhurima and Krishnendu Sen Bose, Rahul Pal, Mohit Rastogi and Carolyn Syangbo and also to Jamyang Thinley and Kelsang Gyari from Middle Path who were unstintingly kind and supportive. Special thanks too to Sakeeb Ahmed, our second camera and camera assistant; a key and unflappable member of our team throughout. In Chennai our friend Sentharamarai Kannan organized our southern shoots with his customary phenomenal energy and flexibility; Koushik Chatterjee set up things in West Bengal and Rajasthan.
At the British end, Jeremy Jeffs did an incredible job both directing and shooting the series for which he deserves much thanks and great praise; and Rebecca Dobbs produced and oversaw the series, as ever our insightful and always enabling guru. Callum Bulmer recorded the sound and took many of the stills in the book; Gerry Branigan the editor did a wonderful job making sense of everything while adding his own lyrical perspective, ably assisted by Aleks Nikolic; while Sally Thomas, as always, did a stirling job managing the production. Howard Davidson wrote the beautiful and haunting music, sung by Jatinil Banerjee and recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. On the team over the eighteen months of shooting and editing were Sonali Chaudhury, Kevin Rowan, Stefania Buonajuti, Sheila Marshall, Amber Tufail, Jonathan Page, Fatima Rizvi Tamsin Ranger, Claire Cluskey, Genevieve Harrison, Aaron Young, Aleks Nicoli and Ed Radford. Post production all took place at ‘Envy’ managed by the incomparable Jannine Martin – special thanks to Bob Jackson for the stunning surround sound. Our office computer maestro John Cranmer also did the great maps for the films. Brendan McGinty did the stunning time lapses, Chris Krupa the terrific graphics and Paddy Mark directed the extra sequences; Jatinder Verma, Sasha Behar, Robert Mountford and Claudia Mayer at Tara Arts performed some of the legendary texts. Thanks to all, and to all friends of Mayavision, past and present, around the world in the 25th year of its life as a small and eccentric independent film company still producing quality programmes in a world where the big corporates rule. And farewell, too, to Bhaskar Bhattacharyya, a founder member of our company who died in India during the period of making this series.
At BBC2, a special thanks to Martin Davidson for his wise advice, his enthusiasm and his encouraging guidance, and to Emma Swain, Krishan Arora, Roly Keating and Jana Bennett for their support. In the States CPB saw the point, and were an invaluable support in starting the project off; and at PBS we relied on our old friends Leo Eaton, John Wilson and Sandy Heberer – thanks to them and all our colleagues in the US, including, Jennifer Lawson and Kathy Quattrone with whom we first talked over this series. On the book: my agent Lavinia Trevor, and Pru Cave, Lara Heimert at Basic Books, and at BBC Books, Linda Blakemore and Eleanor Maxfield achieved the almost impossible, guided by Martin Redfern who held his nerve to see the whole project through from start to finish in six months while we were still filming in India!
Finally, I must once more thank my family who have supported and enriched me through this demanding but exhilarating time: fortunately they all love India as much as I do. My wife Rebecca and I first travelled together in India twenty years ago and I cannot imagine a better travelling companion. Without her love, energy, insight and comradeship, none of this would have been possible. My daughters Jyoti and Mina, always sources of realism and good humour, kept things down to earth. To them my thanks go beyond words.
PICTURE CREDITS
The page references in this section correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created.
PICTURE SECTION ONE
Page 1: Top Callum Bulmer; Bottom Mayavision International
Page 2: Top left Art Archive, National Museum of Karachi; Top right National Museum of Karachi; Bottom Callum Bulmer
Page 3: Top Callum Bulmer; Bottom Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Ms, Marshall H. Gould Fund, Frederick L. Jack Fund
Page 4: Top Callum Bulmer; Bottom left Corbis, © Luca I. Tettoni
Page 5: Top Mayavision International; Bottom Corbis, © Adrian Mayer/Edifice
Page 6: Top Callum Bulmer; Bottom Bridgeman Art Library, Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris/Archives Charmet
Page 7: Top Peutinger Table by kind permission of the facsimile owner; Bottom Corbis, © David Cumming/Eye Ubiquitous
Page 8: Top right Bridgeman Art Library, National Museum of India, New Delhi; Bottom Corbis, © Lindsay Hebberd
PICTURE SECTION TWO
Page 1: Top and bottom Bridgeman Art Library, National Museum of India, New Delhi
Page 2: Top left Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge; Top right Corbis, © Charles & Josette Lenars;
Page 3: Top Michael Wood; Bottom Mayavision International
Page 4: Top Bridgeman Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Bottom Callum Bulmer
Page 5: Top left Bridgeman Art Library, Prince of Wales Museum, Bombay; Top right Callum Bulmer; Centre Bridgeman Art Library, Private Collection; Bottom Callum Bulmer
Page 6: Top Bridgeman Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Centre Bridgeman Art Library, Private Collection, The Stapleton Collection; Bottom Art Archive, India Office Library, London
Page 7: Top Bridgeman Art Library, Private Collection
Page 8: Top left Bridgeman Art Library, India House, London; Top right Michael Wood; Bottom Corbis, 218, © Jon Hicks
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781448141463
www.randomhouse.co.uk
This book is published to accompany the television series entitled The Story of India, first broadcast in 2007
10 9 8 7
/> First published in hardback 2007
This edition published in 2008 by BBC Books, an imprint of Ebury Publishing,
A Random House Company
Copyright Michael Wood 2007, 2008
Michael Wood has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
Addresses for companies within the Random House Group can be found on www.randomhouse.co.uk
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 846 07460 8
Commisioning editor: Martin Redfern Project editor: Eleanor Maxfield Designer: Linda Blakemore Maps: Encompass Graphics
