I think it's an untold story. I came to India first 1995. What happened? What was the experience of removing the nation's status of very tiny kingdoms and fiefdoms all across this massive beautiful country?

What was the human cost of taking away hundreds and hundreds of incredibly rich kingdoms and cultures and peoples and family?

One point in Rajasthan we were driving off the beaten track and I saw that there was an old 13th century fault not decimal to Neem Rana but in Ruit.

We just came up to there and the top of it was a man sat there with a little fire cooking up a little thing of chai.

He was the Maharajas direct descendant. I just thought pure and tenacious journalists, there's probably a hundred Cyrus still in the regions.

On that hill, falling apart temples and fortresses, you just look and you'll see a carrot diamond or you'll see a carpet or a toy like that.

It's just in between the cracks. Tells a story.

Chapter 2. The Hunting Lodge

So on Monday between 11 and noon as dictated to me I called the number that Princess Sikina had left. It rang and rang and rang and then someone picked up.

It was not an ordinary conversation. The person on the other hand had a kind of clavoring voice.

I had no idea who I was speaking to. Princess Sikina, for secretary. This is what they told me that I should drive to the very end of the road, into the forest and stop the car.

Get out, walk away from the cars so the driver wasn't near me and wait there alone. And someone would come and get me at exactly 5.30.

I pondered that for a second as I held the phone up to my ear.

A second passed and I told the person on the other end, of course I would meet them alone in the woods. I said goodbye and I hung up.

Two days later I asked the driver to take me into the forest. We left the bustling, honking, sweaty neighborhood of Chonakipuri and drove until the trees became denser and more tangled. Almost enough to block out the light.

I asked the driver to stop and got out of the car.

I waited at a distance and I stood there awkwardly on the gravel road, holding my notebook, wondering what would come next.

To the right and left of me there were nothing but woods. It was totally quiet. All the sounds of the city, the traffic, the rickshaws, hit it all fallen away.

All I could hear were birds. And so I stood there and I waited.

Suddenly the bush started rustling and a man appeared.

He was an older man kind of elephant and his hair stuck out and toughed all over his head. But still handsome, pale, high cheek-boned, with hawk nose.

I instantly recognized him, I'd seen him in pictures. This was Prince Cyrus. He wasn't as imposing as I had expected. He was jubbly, he seemed nervous.

...