The Delta -
ganges with sue perkins

Sue's first stop is the ancient city of Patna, capital of Bihar state, along the banks of the Ganges. It was once the centre of the British Empire's lucrative opium trade. Now that the imperial drug lords have left, Patna produces something far more intoxicating - education. Sue visits the Women's Industrial Training College, a girls-only college teaching young women to be engineers. She hangs out with some of the students, and they tell her of their dreams to build bridges and drive trains all over the world. Leaving the smoggy streets of Patna, Sue heads out into the countryside, where millions of small farms are watered by the Ganges and its tributaries. India is a nation of small famers, and Bihar state is one of its most productive regions. Sue heads to Daveshpura, also known as the miracle village, to meet a farmer called Mr Kumar. South of Patna, the Ganges splits in two. Part of the river flows on through Bangladesh to the sea, but Sue follows the Indian branch, called the Hooghly, onward to the great city of Kolkata. This is Sue's second visit to the city. One of the highlights from Sue's last trip was meeting Geeta from the Hope Foundation and some of the street kids of Kolkata - one in particular that stayed with her was the rather naughty nine-year-old Rakhi. Sue catches up her to see how her life has changed since. All of life in Kolkata is crammed into its teeming streets, and Sue meets one of its most extraordinary communities - the Hijra. She joins them as they have been invited to bless a newborn baby. Sue leaves the glorious chaos of Kolkata and travels south to where the Ganges meets the sea, and she heads out with the forest department's tiger patrol to see what it takes to protect one of the world's most endangered cats - the Bengal tiger - in a country with so many people. Sue also stays on Bali Island, where people have to live and work right next door to a thriving wild tiger population. It feels like a million miles from the chaos

Episode Duration: 51 minutes and 18 seconds

Episode Number: 103

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About Ganges with Sue Perkins:

Comedian and presenter Sue Perkins traces the course of the Ganges, from source to sea, to tell the story of modern India at a crucial point in its history.

Beginning her journey high in the Himalayas at the river's holy source, Sue travels through the agricultural and industrial heartlands of the Gangetic Plain, visits the holy city of Varanasi and travels on to to the river's vast delta on the Bay of Bengal.

From the keepers of the sacred fires at the famous funeral ghats to the holy men of the mountains, the climate change refugees of the delta to the devout pilgrims at the source, Sue meets the characters that make up modern India and asks what the future holds for this great river.