[MUSIC PLAYING]
NARRATOR: What is the secret of the snake charmers art?
Does this cobra really dance to his master's tune?
In this remote churchyard in West
Bengal lie the graves of two strange children.
Is it really true that they were brought up by wolves?
And in Goa, what has preserved the body
of Saint Francis Xavier from decay for over 400 years?
Mysteries from the files of Arthur C. Clarke,
author of "2001" and inventor of the communication satellite.
Now in retreat in Sri Lanka, he ponders the mysteries
of this and other worlds.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: My own adopted homeland of Sri Lanka
hangs like a teardrop from the southern shore of India.
To travelers, that great subcontinent just
across the sea from here has long
been the source of extraordinary tales-- snake charmers,
children brought up by wolves, and miraculous feats
by holy men.
In the wake of the travelers have come
scientists and skeptics attempting to find
the truth behind these stories.
What do they think of mysterious India?
[SNAKE CHARMING MUSIC]
Snake charming still fascinates and sometimes horrifies.
But what's this charmer's secret?
In the 19th century, Colonel Frank Wall,
author of this book, "The Snakes of Ceylon,"
was brave enough to investigate.
He conducted his experiments with cobras on the veranda
of his own house.
And his work is being continued by Romulus Whitaker.
ROMULUS WHITAKER: Snake charming has
been around for a long time.
And the obvious thing to everyone's sort of amazement
is that the snake is actually dancing
to music-- so they think.
We have stories such as a radio playing a certain tune,
and snakes coming into the house and just
on their own dancing to this beautiful sound
coming from the radio.
So with this many beliefs wandering around India,
and people actually believing this thing,
the snake charmer has no trouble at all convincing his audience.
I'm playing this sound, and the snake is dancing to it.
NARRATOR: No modern investigator has
dared to repeat Colonel Wall's dangerous experiment
and confirm his findings.
30 years of handling cobras have given Romulus
Whitaker the confidence to try.
ROMULUS WHITAKER: The purpose of this experiment
is that we're going to try to see
if this cobra will react to sound,
even when its eyes are covered up.
And the theory being, of course, that the cobra is reacting
to movement, and the snake charmer
waves his flute back and forth.
So we've gently covered his eyes up.
Back into the basket.
Let's let him calm down for a minute.
OK, he feels very disoriented.
And the only reaction we're getting
is that he wants to escape.
[BANGING PAN]
Well, no reaction to that sound.
Now, the snake charmer's flute is supposed to make him dance.
[SNAKE CHARMING MUSIC]
He seems still more interested in finding a place to hide,
and wondering what this is covering his eyes.
He's not spreading the hood, nor is he reacting in any way
to the flute or the pots and pans beating.
And now we'll take the blindfold off,
I think, and see what-- be careful-- not only for him,
but for yourself as well.
And now let's see the reaction to this.
[SNAKE CHARMING MUSIC]
Well, actually, it's the flute that he
likes more than the music.
He'll follow that just about anywhere,
including all the way around.
So basically, the snake, when he's not blindfolded,
is going to follow movement.
When he is blindfolded, if you touch him,
of course, he's going to react.
But he hasn't heard a thing.
[HORN HONKING]
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: Most things rot quickly in the heat
of India, especially bodies.
That's why funerals are usually held
only a few hours after death.
So the survival of the body of Saint Francis Xavier
is all the more amazing.
NARRATOR: Goa is a former Portuguese colony.
It's where the first Christian missionaries landed in India.
The Basilica of Bom Jesus is a place of pilgrimage,
not only for believers, but also for medical investigators.
The dead body of Saint Francis Xavier is entombed here.
Nearly 450 years ago, San Francis died.
But a gruesome mystery lives on.
Why, after all this time, has his body not rotted away?
Why can the flesh of his face, and even the veins in his feet,
still be plainly seen?
Saint Francis was a tireless missionary.
His journeys to spread the Christian gospel
took him from Goa to China.
Such was his zeal that in 1552 he
died, aged 46, of exhaustion.
His followers wanted to take his bones home to Goa as relics.
They buried him in a grave full of quicklime
to help his flesh rot.
But they were to be amazed.
FATHER VASCO DO REGO: Two months or so later,
when the body was disinterred, it was found
that was absolutely fresh.
And to prove the freshness of it, one of the persons
who disinterred the body made a wound just below the left knee.
And the blood flowed out.
NARRATOR: One year later, the still-fresh body
of Saint Francis completed the long voyage home to Goa.
FATHER VASCO DO REGO: In 1654, a French Jesuit called
Father Bayard came down to Goa.
And he examined the body in detail.
He left us a vivid description of it as he found it there.
And I'm impressed by the fact that he
says that his eyes are black.
That means he opened them to examine the eyes
as though they were alive.
He found the lips reddish and alive.
He found also the relative softness
of the body at the time.
Can we ever presume to doubt the authenticity of this report
which is sent to France informally 100
years after the Saint's death?
I think this is a wonderful testimony.
NARRATOR: At Goa Medical College,
Dr. Audi of the Forensic Department
is equally fascinated by the history
of Saint Francis' remains.
Dr. Audi and his colleagues plan to study
what's left of the saint.
In their work solving murders, they see many dead bodies,
but none as strange as this.
The file on Saint Francis' survival is still open.
DR. AUDI: Be careful.
NARRATOR: Inside the basilica, they
built elaborate scaffolding for a historic post-mortem.
DR. AUDI: [INAUDIBLE] We can see here there are hairs.
NARRATOR: Flesh remains on Saint Francis' skull.
Even wisps of hair have survived for centuries.
The doctors search for every clue.
The corpse was last on open show in 1953.
His decrepit state today owes more to relic hunters
than to rot.
They cut off an arm in 1614.
It's now in the Vatican.
The shoulder and the entrails went next.
Even some of Saint Francis' toes have been carried off.
DR. AUDI: The first one was actually
taken by a Portuguese lady.
In exuberance of feminine devotion,
she bit off one of the toes.
Three others fell off at different times.
Two of them are preserved in our sacristy.
I have here a silver reliquary in which
we preserve these toes.
They're relics of his body.
We treasure them reverently, because they belong
to the father of our faith.
NARRATOR: The scientists bird's eye view of Saint
Francis provokes fierce debate.
They know why the body is decaying now,
but how did it stay so fresh for 150 years?
DR. AUDI: After death, there are two processes
that are taking place.
Number one is autolysis.
NARRATOR: Dr. Audi believes that the quicklime used
in the original grave so dried the body that putrefaction
could not set in.
Thus, science explains the mystery.
DR. SEPAGO: The first sign of death is that the body stinks.
That's a notorious foul-smelling.
Everybody will [INAUDIBLE].
NARRATOR: Dr. Sepago, on the other hand, favors a miracle.
He maintains that all the reports of the time
speak of the body being moist.
DR. SEPAGO: The body should be disintegrating faster.
Did it take place?
DR. AUDI: No.
In my opinion, I would say this body-- the skin is completely
dry because of the quicklime which
has been put below and above this particular body
and put in the coffin.
DR. SEPAGO: And in my opinion, I feel that the lime was used
in order that the body should get decayed faster,
which did not take place.
NARRATOR: The scientists must agree to differ.
But Father Rego believes the case has a divine solution.
I can only say it's a miracle worked by God.
There are fixed laws of Nature.
There are laws that God himself has put in Nature.
But God can suspend his laws or go
against them, as here, he has suspended law
of corruption of a dead body.
Now why could he have done that?
How can we fathom the mind of God?
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: My friend, Professor Calafan Zakir
has spent many years investigating
the various magical performances and feats
that take place, or are said to take place,
in this part of the world.
Of course, the most famous of all these
is the Indian rope trick.
Now, have you ever seen it yourself?
PROFESSOR CALAFAN ZAKIR: No, Art, I haven't.
But of course, this, as you say, is the most fantastic
of them all.
NARRATOR: In 1938, a journalist from Bombay
published these extraordinary pictures.
He claimed they show the classic rope trick.
First, the magician tosses a rope into the air.
Suddenly, it becomes completely rigid.
His boy assistant scurries to the top.
Under the hypnotic gaze of the magician,
the onlookers swear the boy has vanished into thin air.
Sabre in teeth, the magician scales the rope.
The horrified audience sees the boy's severed
limbs fall to the ground.
But with a few magic words and a flourish,
the master reveals the child at the bottom of the rope, whole
again.
Not all performances of the rope trick are so impressive.
This magician called himself Karachi, but he was English.
The Hartfordshire rope trick was a piece of a flop.
PROFESSOR CALAFAN ZAKIR: In your wide travels,
have you ever seen it?
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: I've never seen it.
And you know anyone who has?
PROFESSOR CALAFAN ZAKIR: Well, I count among my friends
the smartest magicians in this country.
They haven't seen it.
None of them can perform it.
But we cannot discount this altogether,
because there are people who claim to have seen it
and actually photographed it.
NARRATOR: In 1917, Captain F. W. Holmes,
VC took this photograph from the veranda of his bungalow
in Pune.
And another soldier took this precarious picture.
In 1937, Lieutenant Colonel Cyril Streeter Dirtenlobee,
then serving in the Queen's own Royal West Kent Regiment,
arranged and filmed this demonstration
at Karachi army barracks.
The rope trick is not the only Indian mystery to have captured
the imagination of the world.
In October 1920, two little girls were discovered
near Calcutta by a clergyman.
The girls lived in this orphanage.
It's now in ruins.
But local schoolchildren are drawn to it
for a poignant history lesson.
TEACHER: You'll see this is the oldest house, I think,
in [INAUDIBLE].
This is an orphanage.
I lectured you on it earlier. And you'll see--
NARRATOR: The two little girls were said to have
been brought up by wolves.
Stories from the newspapers spoke of their animal habits,
of their fierce natures, how they ran around on all fours.
The Midnapore Orphanage was run by the Reverend and Mrs. Singh.
One day, alarmed villagers came to them.
They said they'd spotted children living
with wolves in the jungle.
Reverend Singh's daughter-in-law recalls the wolves' den.
It was deep inside a huge anthill.
MRS. M. M. SINGH: It was shaped like a Hindu temple.
And it had seven holes.
And these holes led to a tunnel underground
where this wolf family used to live.
NARRATOR: Singh was prepared to kill the children's
wolf parents to save them.
MRS. M. M. SINGH: And he hired laborers,
and they came with a spear, bow, arrow and shovel.
And they started digging a door.
And as soon as they began to dig the door,
the father wolf escaped.
Then the mother wolf came out.
She was very, very ferocious.
And the laborers had to kill her with a spear.
But they went inside.
They found the cubs and these children were bundled together.
And this is how he rescued the wolf children.
NARRATOR: The Singhs brought the two
little girls home to the orphanage,
but not to the human race.
They drank and ate like animals.
They hated to wear clothes.
They spoke no human language, and often
attacked the other orphans.
Fearful of bright lights, they liked to hide away.
They behaved more like wolves than children.
One of the very few people alive today who met the wolf children
is Mrs. Geeta Mallik.
She visited the orphanage when she was 14.
MRS. GEETA MALLIK: I remember we went one morning.
As we went there, the padre's wife--
she came forward and took us to the parlor.
And we sat there.
And then she said, I'll bring the girls.
But the child didn't like us.
We could see that.
She resented being looked at, actually.
And then my mother asked her some question,
what is your name?
No answer.
Do you like it here?
She says nothing, no answer.
She just growled.
She was just growling.
There was a courtyard.
And she rushed out to the courtyard.
There was a little chicken going.
And she caught hold of chicken and twisted its neck.
She was just going to eat it, when the padre's wife
rushed out of this meeting.
She rushed out and took the chicken
away, and caught hold of the girl, and said,
I must love her.
She's in that mood now.
Whatever she sees, she will bite.
NARRATOR: After only a year, in 1921,
the youngest wolf child, Amala, died of dysentery and fever.
Her sister was inconsolable.
MRS. M. M. SINGH: She wouldn't touch her food-- neither food
nor water or milk, for two, three days.
And at night, she would howl like a wolf, cry, scream.
And after dusk, she would run out of this orphanage.
But she couldn't find Amala.
NARRATOR: The older girl survived
only into her teenage years.
She died in 1929.
Now, the children are buried beside their adopted father--
together in death.
But in life, they had remained true to their first family--
the wolves of the jungle.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: India is the home of one of the world's
oldest civilizations.
Much of its history and culture is
recorded in ancient writings.
Yet the secrets of some of its greatest
technological achievements have been lost.
Rediscovering them has provided challenges
to metallurgists in particular.
NARRATOR: The ruined mosque of Qutab
Minar, with its iron pillar, is the site
of two metallic mysteries.
Tradition says that embracing the pillar backwards
will bring luck.
And tourists flock to try.
The first mystery-- why has the pillar
never rested in 16 centuries?
Scientists now know the secret lies in Delhi's mild climate,
and the chemical makeup of the metal itself.
A team from the National Physical Laboratory
is trying to solve the second mystery.
Dr. Ashok Kumar.
DR. ASHOK KUMAR: The earliest scientists have already
answered many questions.
It only remains now a mystery how was it made, especially
if we look at its age-- 1,600 years old--
and we look at its massive weight--
six tonnes of weight and such a long run.
That remains a mystery, and we'd like to certainly answer
how was it made, and what is the structure inside?
NARRATOR: A popular theory is that the ancient metallurgists
placed disks of molten iron, one on top of another.
Heavy hammering and more heat bound them together.
They formed the pillar like a tower of iron chapatis.
Dr. Kumar is using ultrasound to detect any joins
left by such a method.
The speed that sound travels through the iron
will tell him if the pillar's made of disks.
DR. ASHOK KUMAR: We put two transmitters
diametrically opposed to each other,
and measured the velocity.
And then kept one transmitter secured at one place,
and moved another one a bit higher,
and again measured the velocity, and then brought
this one a little lower-- lower than even
the previous position-- and again measured the velocity.
Now, these three velocities are roughly equal order.
If there was anything-- any joint here
between the two pieces-- this velocity
would have not been the same.
NARRATOR: Kumar concludes the pillar was built in one piece.
But how was this cast centuries before the invention
of large furnaces?
DR. ASHOK KUMAR: What we like to suggest right
now is that it was perhaps a mold in which the iron was
simply put-- the molten iron was put, allowed to cool down,
and hammered it from outside.
And then some more iron put in the mold,
and again hammered from outside.
And they continuously kept on doing for days and days,
until they could get to this shape.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: India's holy men
claimed to have a repertoire of more than 1,000 miracles.
But not everyone is happy with the influence
this can give them over superstitious
and gullible people.
NARRATOR: The weirdest parade in all of India--
it looks as though a host of holy men have come to town.
The posters promise a feast of miracles.
But appearances deceive-- that's the message of this man.
Premanand has dedicated his life to debunking
the holy men's repertoire.
They claim they can perform 1,500 miracles.
Pulling a chariot with hooks in the back is miracle number 25.
Dedicated to exposing godmen who cheat the poor,
Premanand travels India explaining their trickery.
PREMANAND: The next item is making tea on the head
of a beautiful lady.
NARRATOR: This is miracle number 95.
PREMANAND: [INAUDIBLE].
And the person has to be very careful that it
doesn't move their head.
People think fire is dangerous.
[INAUDIBLE] Then all they have to do,
they have to very carefully put it on it
so that it doesn't fall off.
NARRATOR: The trick is explained.
Wet dough hidden in the towel keeps
the lady's head from burning.
PREMANAND: [INAUDIBLE] secret.
The godmen [INAUDIBLE].
NARRATOR: In the evening, the village show begins.
PREMANAND: Ask him not to move the fire on the body,
but to keep the fire on the same place.
[CROWD NOISE]
NARRATOR: Nervous volunteers are chosen to take part.
PREMANAND: [NON-ENGLISH SPEECH]
My ambition in life is to see at least one miracle before I die.
I think that my experience has shown that I
may not be able to do it.
But if people can help me-- if they think they'll
come across any real miracle-- if they will tell me where it
is happening, and if it is a real miracle,
I will be dying peacefully, thinking
that my search has ended.
ARTHUR C. CLARKE: Well, perhaps in my attempt
to deflate these mysteries, I've offended enough holy men
to last a lifetime-- or if some of them are right,
several future lifetimes.
[MUSIC PLAYING]