Welcome to India - Season 1 (2012)

'Welcome to India' is an observational documentary series in which ordinary Indians take us by the arm and show us how their world works. To us, in the West, they make their living in extraordinary ways, which also make the most of every resource available: from a shipbreaker who dismantles ocean going ships with a handheld acetylene torch, and the gold panner who makes a good livelihood from the tiny particles of gold dust he retrieves from Calcutta's drains; to the feisty and ambitious lady who's building a waste bottle sorting empire on a railway embankment. These are incredible and visually arresting stories on one level, but are told by the characters themselves with such warmth and humanity that we immediately understands what makes them tick. In fact, they're just like us, and while that's all the more impressive, it also means that we could, indeed, learn a lot from their way of doing things.