India's 26th state was born in November 2000. But its history goes back thousands of years — to the ancient kingdom of Dakshina Kosala, birthplace of Rama's mother Kausalya, site of the oldest known paintings in India, and home to forest communities who have lived in relationship with this land since before recorded history.

Chhattisgarh is the rice bowl of central India, the land of thirty-six forts, and the state with the third-largest forest cover in the country. It holds 15 percent of India's iron ore reserves. It contains Bastar — one of the most biodiverse, culturally extraordinary, and politically contested landscapes in all of India.

Ray takes you through it all. The Kalachuri dynasty and the ancient Buddhist city of Sirpur. The tribal rebellions against British rule that resisted colonial authority for decades. The Bhilai Steel Plant and the Soviet-Indian industrial partnership that created a city from nothing.

We meet Guru Ghasidas, who walked village to village telling the most marginalised people of Chhattisgarh that they were equal to everyone else. We meet Teejan Bai — expelled by her community for singing, married at 12 — who became the world's greatest exponent of Pandavani and took the Mahabharata to stages in Japan and Europe. We eat Aamat — the wild, sour, forest-flavoured soup of Bastar. We stand at Chitrakote, the widest waterfall in India. And we watch the Bastar Dussehra — 75 days of ritual, the longest festival in India.

New episodes every Tuesday at 7pm. Next week — Goa.