Incarnations: India in 50 Lives

Original version

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

BBC Radio 4

Radio 4

Radio 4 (FM)

Documentaries

Factual: History

The history of India told through the lives of 50 phenomenal people.

BBC Radio 4 LW

Incarnations: India in 50 Lives: Visvesvaraya: Extracting Moonbeams from Cucumbers

Rajaraja Chola: Cults of the Imagination

Visvesvaraya: Extracting Moonbeams from Cucumbers

BBC Radio 4 - Incarnations: India in 50 Lives, Visvesvaraya: Extracting Moonbeams from Cucumbers

Sunil Khilnani explores the life and work of engineer Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya.

Sunil Khilnani explores the life of engineer, planner and politician Visvesvaraya, a frail bureaucrat who improved life for millions of Indians in practical ways.

Sunil Khilnani explores the life and work of engineer, planner and politician Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya.

Visvesvaraya was a frail bureaucrat who walked hunched, as if the burden of state-building literally pressed down on his shoulders. But in the popular imagination he turned an engineering degree into a superhuman world-fashioning prowess. He changed the Indian nation with practical and enduring improvements for millions of people, including innovations in sanitation, statistics, flood control, drainage and irrigation.

Austere to the point of dourness, but audaciously hopeful, Visvesvaraya sought to frog-march India into modernity.

Featuring Bangalore-based social scientist Chandan Gowda.

Producer: Martin Williams
Executive Producer: Martin Smith

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Incarnations: India in 50 Lives

Visvesvaraya: Extracting Moonbeams from Cucumbers

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 FM

About BBC Radio 4