The programme was commissioned by the channel's Programme Enterpises Group in 1998 to Flat Dog Films Ltd, an English production company which has shot the famous wildlife series uncharted Africa for Discovery Channel. In addition to being commissioned by the chanele, Folat Dog Films will also have the terrestrial rights to England for India Diaries.

India Diaries consists of six half-an-hour minute programs filmed in various locations around India. These include the tea gardens of North Bengal, a village outside Calcutta, Sonepur in Bihar, Little Rann of Kutch, Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh. "It is an affectionate look at India" says Mark Shand whose association with India goes back to 1969. With five documentaries and two books on wildlife under his belt, Shand is also a recipient of the British Book Awards Travel Writer of the Year Award in 1992.

Aditya Patankar, the other director on the series is a professional photographer with a number of picture books to his credit. He has also worked as a stills photographer on various wildlife films. "We picked these subjects from several potential ones that we had encountered in our various journeys through India together in the last three decades" explains Patankar.

As for the subjects themselves, "Elephant Trouble", the first film deals with an area ravaged by wild elephants which is the tea gardens of North Bengal, which according to Patankar and Shand fall directly in the migratory route of wild elephants in that region and this film deals with the fallout of deforestry here which has resulted in wild elephants coming into villages every night.

The film primarily looks at the plight of the government squad comprising forest department officials whose job it is to keep these elephants at bay. Miracles, the film set in West Bengal and Mela Madness look at the goings on at the Sonepur Mela in Bihar's coal belt. Salt deal with the plight of the nomadic Agarias, the salt gatherers in the Little Rann of Kutch.