Bombay Railway

It seemed ironic that on the night the BBC was coming under flak for its lack of integrity with regards to phone-ins they should be showing the first of a two-parter on Bombay (Mumbai) Railway.

This two hour film, split over two nights on BBC4, was sumptuous, informative, colourful, funny, sad, breathtaking, awe inspiring, jaw dropping film making at its best. Some of the numbers that were quoted by Bernard Hill during his narration were staggering: six million people travel by train in and out of Bombay each day, the last train of the day finishes its journey at 2:40 a.m and the first one of the day begins forty five minutes later, 10,000 people arrive in Bombay every day of the year looking for work, the population density of the city is one million people per square mile and by 2020 it will be the biggest city on the planet.

The city itself is a wonderful example of how people can co-exist with different religions, the head of parliament is a Muslim, the head of state is a Sikh and the head of religious affairs is an Italian Roman Catholic. The city clings onto its British legacy as well by taking the blueprint for a railway system and just improving on it.

The people that the film focused on had stories to tell that were engaging and gripping to watch from the man who worked in the timetable department by day and was a Bollywood wannabee by night to the driver who had hit more than 70 suicide victims during his career as a train driver. We met India's first female train driver and saw hundreds of students cramming before taking exams which would see just eight people get jobs as C category goods depot officials. It was also good to see the downside, the millions of people who live in slums just feet from the busy railway lines who are losing their homes as the railway expands, there was the self-made businessman who had escaped from the 'railway colony' but was ironically attempting to make his fortune by running the catering car franchise.

The end of the second programme which featured a Bollywood dance routine featuring the timetable clerk was brilliant. It's this sort of programme that the BBC should find more money for, forget petty ratings wars with commercial television get back to what you are good at - quality television programmes.