Hugh Burnett looks at Mauritius ten years after independence.
About the size of an English county, the volcanic island of Mauritius lies in the Indian Ocean, some 1,200 miles off the East Coast of Africa.
Once completely uninhabited, its population today is approaching a million. Here, where the dodo died, is a polyglot population, largely Indian, deeply influenced by the years when-the French and British ruled.
Tonight's documentary takes a look at this remarkable island of coral reefs and sugar cane and meets some of the interesting people who live beneath the island's towering jagged mountains-one of the most jumbled social mixtures of cultures and ideas in the world.
Photography LAURIE RUSH, vinod VITHALDAS Film sound JOHN GATLAND , GEOFF CUTTING Film editor JOHN LEE
Produced by HUGH BURNETT