On a full moon night in winter, the Great Rann of Kutch turns the ground to silver. A flat white salt desert stretching 27,000 square kilometres, reflecting the moonlight so completely that sky and earth become one. Come monsoon, it floods. Come summer, it evaporates. Come winter — the flamingos arrive in their tens of thousands.

Gujarat is a state of extremes. The longest coastline of any Indian state. The only place on Earth where Asiatic lions still roam wild. Home to two of the most significant Harappan cities in existence — Lothal, with the world's oldest known dockyard, and Dholavira, a UNESCO World Heritage city that managed water in an arid desert 4,500 years ago. And the state that gave India Gandhi, Sardar Patel, and the Dandi March.

Ray takes you through the full sweep — from the Bronze Age port of Lothal to the golden age of the Solanki dynasty and the exquisite Rani ki Vav stepwell; from Champaner's pre-Mughal mosques to Surat's role as the Mughal empire's greatest port; from the Bhuj earthquake of 2001 to Gujarat's rapid reinvention as India's most industrialised state. We meet Vikram Sarabhai, who imagined India in space and made it happen. We meet Dhirubhai Ambani, who left Gujarat as a teenager and built one of Asia's largest conglomerates. We meet Narsinh Mehta, whose 550-year-old devotional poem was Gandhi's favourite song.

We eat dhokla, thepla, undhiyu, and fafda with jalebi. We watch Navratri Garba fill a stadium with thousands of dancers for nine straight nights. We stand at Somnath Temple above the Arabian Sea. And we learn that in Gujarat, commerce and culture have never been in conflict — they have always been the same impulse.

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