What happens
The Pacific Story presents a dramatic account of famine in India, first set in 1945 when monsoon rains fail and crops wither across the land. The program traces the deep causes of hunger, from a population that grows faster than the land can feed, to debt owed to moneylenders and the poverty that leaves millions always near starvation. Narration follows the wartime loss of Burmese rice, the destruction of boats in Bengal, and a cyclone and tidal wave that devastate farmland. Historians, a doctor, farmers and officials voice the crisis as hunger spreads through the streets of Calcutta. The broadcast was originally aired on April 21, 1946 on NBC.
India, with scenes across the Indian provinces of Bengal and Madras, the city of Calcutta, and the wartime frontier with Burma
Characters: Narrator Gain Whitman, An historian, A doctor, Indian farmers, A government official
Listen for: The description of the 1943 Bengal famine and the government debates over rice exports and price controls
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.