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Rediscovering the lonely planet

Menka Shivdasani

``Papa, Papa, there's a dinosaur outside the window!'' my five-year-old yelled the other day, grinning from ear to ear. She was right -- there were birds. She'd learned from the Discovery Walking with Dinosaurs series that one kind of dinosaur had indeed survived -- and that they were all around us.

Sushma Swaraj, our venerable guardian of Indian morality, has been on the warpath again, targeting FTV and all that is supposedly alien to Indian culture. It is, I suspect, a losing battle -- our baser instincts have a way of surviving no matter how we t ry to stop them. She has a point though -- after all, like she said the other day, how can there be fashion if no one's wearing any clothes! -- but maybe it's time for a gentle reminder that not all things foreign are bad. For one thing, good programming is often alien to Indian television -- judging by some of the local fare being dished out to us! -- and there's a lot to be said for the kind of shows that channels such as Discovery and BBC World have to offer.

This March, for instance (check it out on March 11 and 12 at 8 p.m.), Discovery has unique programmes on the 20,380-year-old remains of the woolly mammoth, excavated in Siberia. It was located under 4.57 metres of concrete-like permafrost weighing 22 ton s. The specimen, still encased in ice, was cut out of the ground, airlifted by helicopter and flown 322 km to the neighbouring town of Khatanga on October 17, 1999, where it was placed in an ice cave for further study. It was not the first time that a wo olly mammoth was found on the Taimyr Peninsula, though it was certainly the first time that its remains had been successfully excavated in a frozen state and kept frozen in a controlled environment for study.

It's fascinating what the scientists can tell you about a long-vanished past. Bernard Buigues, who organised this expedition, and his 37-member team from around the world have discovered that this Jarkov Mammoth lived to be approximately 47 to 49 years o ld, and the left and right tusks -- still well preserved -- weighted 47 kg and 45 kg with a length of 294 cm and 298 cm respectively. There were different species of mammoth in the Pleistocene or Ice Age and the woolly mammoth was the smallest of the evo lutionary lineage, standing less than 300 cm at the shoulder. The woolly mammoth lived during the period between 3,00,000 to 10,000 years ago, but a small population on Wrangel Island survived till as recently as 3,700 years ago.

While the mammoth in itself makes a riveting subject, the scientists' interest goes far beyond it; they are interested in the entire environment in which the woolly mammoth and the accompanying fauna lived during the ice age. They have collected remains of thousands of insects and other creatures that lived during that time. Through their studies they also hope to learn about the cause of death and why the species became extinct.

Later in the month, starting March 26, Discovery will also have a week-long special on South Asia. The South Asia Week airs from March 26 to March 31 from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m and early sleepers can catch all shows on April 1 from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. The shows include `In Search of Maneaters', which seeks the elusive man-eating Bengal tiger of the Bangladesh Sundarbans, `Lonely Planet: Sri Lanka and the Maldives', and `New Explorers: Searching for the Real Shangri-La'. It also looks at Sri Lanka where centuri es-old shrines are being restored and faithful followers are returning to sacred ruins. India figures in the context of the Gir forest, home to the last surviving lions of Asia.

The show that I'm going to find the most interesting will be the one titled, `Amazing Worlds: Pakistan'. The country, which is so near and yet so far, is described as one where the people are really ``travellers and nomads at heart'' and the show talks a bout ``the perfect illustration of Pakistani genius -- creating order out of chaos and beauty out of dirt''. It also describes the feudal system, which is a result of religious devotion and historical coincidence.

Discovery has sometimes been accused of merely focussing on the exotic aspects of our region, instead of going deeper beneath the skin. While it may be true that western audiences find this more interesting -- and Discovery's Kiran Karnik did tell me onc e that the shows had to sell globally because they were so expensive to make -- hopefully this is changing.

For starters, Discovery is trying to go beyond the idea of India as a place of ``elephants, maharajas and the Taj Mahal'' -- an image that the channel has certainly helped to cultivate! On March 16 at 10 p.m., there's an Amazing Worlds programme on this country, capturing ``India's spirit as revealed on the city streets''. From religious diversity to being the second-largest jewel and gem producer in the world, Discovery tells us, ``India has more to offer than most people imagine''. It should be a show that should make Sushma Swaraj happy.

The author can be contacted at menkashivdasani@hotmail.com

Picture: A still from `Walking with Dinosaurs' on Discovery.