A conversation with a stranger on a slow train – 36 hours through Ratlam and Indore up to Ajmer – started my love affair with India, one that has gone on for the past two decades.

During a midnight stop, while sitting on the steps enjoying the cool night air, I began chatting to a travelling salesman from a chemicals firm. The giant fortress of Chittorgarh stood ghostly pale in the darkness, and my companion regaled me with terrible tales of its past: of Rajputs and Moguls, sieges and battles, heroic deaths and mass suicides – all the epic drama and romance of Indian history.

“But if you really want to see something,” he said, “you should go south, to Madurai.”

So I made my way down the west coast and took the old steamer to Goa, and on to Cochin. A few days later I took the train that winds over the wooded hills of the Western Ghats. It was night before we reached Madurai, where I made my way through darkened streets past sleeping rickshawmen. Soon the huge temple gateways soared above me, disappearing into the night, their crowded storeys teeming with sculptures of gods and goddesses, garish as a Hindu Disneyland. Inside, I entered a dark labyrinth: giant corridors whose granite pillars were carved into monstrous snapping demons and dragons. The architecture was different from anything I had ever seen. With a flurry of drums and squeal of trumpets, white-clad priests scurried past with a golden palanquin. It was as if the ancient world was still alive.

I stayed a few days, watching the crowds pour in from dawn till dusk to celebrate the patron of the city, the fish-eyed goddess Meenakshi. Access to the inner shrine is restricted to Hindus. But the second night one of the priests came over and asked if I wanted to see the goddess. That night I experienced the ancient rituals of the Tamil world for the first time: the statue of the goddess, the music of nadeswaram (reedy Tamil trumpet) and drums, the scent of ghee, jasmine and incense, the tinkling temple bells, the sacred flame gilding the faces of the devotees who went into the “womb chamber”, as the goddess shrine is called. Coming from industrial Manchester, I had never seen such things. Those smells and images have stayed with me and sum up my fascination with this wonderful country.

More than 20 years later, and after almost 30 visits, the magic has never failed. My wife, Rebecca, and I fell in love there, first travelled together there, were married there, and have taken our children back time and again to meet our friends. India has a special place in our hearts.

The country has changed considerably. The economy, which after independence 60 years ago was all about nonalignment and self-sufficiency, is now booming.

One of the great powers in history is returning – and not just in Delhi or Bombay, where shopping malls and condominiums are proliferating and property is more expensive than London. Even in smalltown Tamil Nadu, where we have stayed off the beaten track with our kids, you see the signs everywhere: the wide processional street around the temple has been surfaced, shiny retirement homes for devotees are going up, and there are new hotels with air-conditioning, satellite TV and internet. It’s a far cry from my early days travelling in the country, when we would have to make a booking at the telegraph office to phone home at Christmas.

The impact of tourism hasn’t always been good, however. The biggest shock was returning recently to Jaisalmer, which I had first visited at new year 1987. The golden city that I remember rising out of a scrubby desert behind a nomad encampment now is completely surrounded by hotels, shops and tourist offices selling Rajasthani camel tours. The interior of the city, one of the jewels of northern India, is almost entirely given over to travellers with hotels, cafés and boutiques. Some of the buildings may be beautiful, but to my mind the development has blighted the magical setting of the city.

Coming here recently to film The Story of India has made me appreciate the country even more. The wonderful variety of landscapes and cultures never fails to amaze me: the Buddhist sites of Leh and Ladakh, the Gonds of Orissa, near the magical lake at Chilika; Kerala, where you can rub shoulders with Syrian Christians, Indian Jews and Muslim boat-builders, who still ply the spice trade to the Gulf in their great wooden sailing boats.

On the east coast I love the old French town of Pondicherry, where the boulangerie sells fresh baguettes and the policemen still wear the képi. Up north, we have journeyed to the Himalayas, with magnificent treks around Amarnath, Gangotri, and Badrinath, up to the mountain passes into Tibet. Down in the plains, I still find Varanasi inexhaustibly fascinating.

Despite all the undoubted attractions of Rajasthan, Mogul Delhi and Agra, if I had to choose a favourite part of India, it would be the south: the world’s last classical civilisation. Here you can touch on India’s oldest living traditions in music, dance and literature. The giant temple cities take your breath away: Madurai, “Trichy” (Tiruchchirappalli), Thanjavur and Chidambaram. The Tamils are welcoming; they love their culture and live without the frenetic rush of the north; comfortable in the global age, yet still existing in sacred time.

We travelled here when our children were young, and they loved the life and colour, and the friendliness. India is a great place to travel with youngsters: our younger daughter has never forgotten how, aged 5, she fed bananas to the temple elephant at a festival in Chidambaram, and the mahout sat her on the animal and walked her around the courtyard to the delight of the pilgrims.

Many of my friends think you shouldn’t travel around India with kids, but my experience is that you just need to follow certain basic health rules. Otherwise, the only problem can sometimes be the huge and rather sweet interest that foreign children generate. A few years ago, we took ours out of school and went with Indian friends to the Kumba Mela festival on the Ganges, where we stayed in a tent among millions of pilgrims. Wherever we went, people wanted to touch the girls and be photographed with them.

When I returned to Chidambaram a few months ago with the film crew, staff at the hotel Saradha Ram still enthusiastically asked after my daughters. The girls have stayed there three times, and as you can imagine, two blonde North London youngsters caused great excitement among the well-mannered Tamil boys who do the small jobs around the hotel.

There is so much to see in India that you would need several lifetimes – no wonder the Indians believe in rebirth. People tell me that I must be tired of the country after a dozen visits in the past 18 months, some of them long and gruelling journeys. But the opposite is true. I have come to love India and admire its people even more. To paraphrase Dr Johnson, if one is tired of India, one is tired of life.

— The Story of India by Michael Wood (BBC Books, £20) is published next Thursday. The six-part BBC 2 series of the same name starts on August 24 at 9pm.

Need to know

Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh:
Rashmi Guest House (www.palaceonriver.com) is my favourite of the riverside guesthouses. It has the best rooftop restaurant in Varanasi.

Madurai, Tamil Nadu:
The lovely Taj Garden Retreat (www.tajhotels.com) is an old colonial house with balconies, wood-panelled bedrooms, a billiards bar; gardens, pool and cottages. But I usually stay at the Hotel Supreme (00 91 45 2234 3151), which has a great rooftop restaurant and is an easy walk to the temple.

Cochin, Kerala:
Accommodation ranges from lovely hotels such as Bolgatty Palace (book on www.travelmasti.com, 0845 277 7569) down to rooms in private houses, some of them old converted merchants’ mansions.

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