In our town meetings in Delhi, the ongoing drought crisis in the country was a story several people felt very strongly about. One member in the audience shared how in Bundelkhand, one of the hardest-hit regions, men were struggling to find wives who would marry them and move to the place. Why? Because in most households in rural India, the responsibility of fetching the water rests with the women.

Coping with lack of water in everyday life is a topic that resonated with Pop Up chief Matt Danzico, who is from California which has been in the midst of a long drought. But how does it affect lives in rural India? This question took Matt, Shalu Yadav and Neha Sharma 400 miles away from Delhi to a village of 5,000 residents - Gopipur in Chitrakoot district in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

There, we met Shyama, who had married and moved to the village 15 years ago. She laughed when she heard about the drought problem in California - Shyama and other women in her village walk for five miles twice a day to fetch water. She told us of her body aches, and how her hair was thinning due to carrying heavy buckets on her head. "Don't get married and come here," that's Shyama's advice to the women back in her hometown.

Those are not empty words. About 80 percent of the men in Gopipur are unmarried due to lack of water. As a man in the village puts it: "Who would give their daughter to this village?"

The drought, according to the Indian government, is affecting at least 330 million Indians - and this water crisis is having surprising social consequences.

When BBC Pop Up first announced its trip to India in a video, one of the visuals used showed a snake charmer. On Twitter, some users told us the image no longer represented India.

This got us thinking - do more and more Indians strongly feel that this image is an offensive stereotype out of place in modern India? And what did the former snake charmers themselves think about this? 

Matt Danzico and Vikas Pandey travelled to a village of former snake charmers near Delhi to ask this question and found a community struggling to survive after losing their livelihood. One of them told us: "If abolishing the tribe of snake charmers makes India a more developed country, then we are with India. But they have to provide us with livelihood."

We then spoke to the Delhi tourism minister and a branding expert about what image symbolises India today, and made a film titled  "Where did India's banned snake charmers go?" (see above).

On Twitter, as a follow-up to the core question raised in the film, we posted a poll: "Should India erase its snake charming culture to embrace modernity?"

To say this did not go down well would be an understatement. 

What set out to be an effort to understand stereotypes ended up being seen as perpetuating the stereotype - BBC Pop Up ended up being the subject of a few news stories in the Indian media. 

The Firstpost website said, external that while the film itself was "far from being offensive or biased", the tweet cannot be defended: "To condense an entire nation to the land of "snake charmers" is not just ignorant but offensive."

The Quint website said BBC Pop Up "very naively popped a question with an indelible stamp of racism". It added, external: "The little slip took us right back to the India which was famously stereotyped as the land of snake charmers and dusky naked women by British colonialists eager to squeeze funds out of the royal coffers on their mission to find rich colonies to conquer." 

The Janta Ka Report site attributed, external the Twitter fury to "one piece of editorial presented out of context". A headline on the Veritenews website asked, external: "Is BBC trying to stereotype India’s image in front of the world?"

The Scroll.in website reported, external the controversy like this: "To be fair, the channel appeared to have its heart in the right place to begin with. But a tweet without context put it in a world of trouble."

Huffington Post also wrote, external a piece about the outrage: "The tweet, even though badly framed and possibly clickbaitish in its attempt to provoke the group that takes affront to any perceived slight to the motherland, did not call India a land of snake charmers, or project any such idea."

And Buzzfeed said, external: "It’s safe to say that the BBC dropped the ball on this one."

To clarify, BBC Pop Up did not intend the poll to offend anyone - the question was meant to understand perceptions about countries and was asked from the perspective of the snake charmer community who felt they had lost their livelihoods and identity due to the ban.

It all started with: "Make a film on the lives of Africans in India." 

Pop Up first met Delhi-based Sierra Leone student Benjamin Pratt at - where else - one of our town hall meetings in the Indian capital.

This idea culminated in Benjamin Pratt as well as BBC Pop Up's Christian Parkinson and BBC India journalist Vikas Pandey embarking on an epic journey - from getting to know the lives of the African students living in Delhi to travelling together all the way to the state of Gujarat to meet the African Siddi community. The Siddis are descended from warriors who first came to India about 400 years ago and never left.

Here are some of the pictures we took while making their film:

In our first week in India, we tried to go all Formula One with an Uber vs Indian rickshaw race in Delhi, and also asked whether more people wanted patriotic slogans to be used as mandatory greetings.

And now, the Pop Up team has split up, and left the capital to find more about the rest of the country. 

One trio comprising Matt Danzico, Neha Sharma and Shalu Yadav are in the holy city of Varanasi to find out whether the fabulous, intricate art of Banarasi saree-weaving is "dying".

They even broadcast from Periscope from a market in the city - and bargained live for a saree!

The other Pop Up duo comprising Christian Parkinson and Vikas Pandey meanwhile travelled to Gujarat to meet the African community living in the state - and are clearly having a great time. 

BBC Pop Up crowdsources ideas for films through town hall meetings, and in our first one in Delhi, we were struck by a statement made by veteran Col (retd) Tejendra Tyagi. The colonel said he felt the phrase "Jai Hind" (Hail India) should be a mandatory greeting in public places. 

We were intrigued. 

Did other Indians agree with him? Did they think "Jai Hind" or "Bharat Mata ki Jai" (Hail Mother India) should be made mandatory greetings? 

BBC Pop Up's Christian Parkinson, Neha Sharma and Shalu Yadav took to the streets of Delhi to find out if there is a growing call for more visible forms of patriotism in India.

Last Wednesday, BBC Pop Up's Matt Danzico and Delhi-based producer Vikas Pandey "raced" an Uber taxi and an autorickshaw (or tuk tuk) on the roads of Delhi - you can watch the video of that journey and what they encountered along the way here.

They then went live on Facebook from a rickshaw near Nehru Place in south Delhi, discussing the daily traffic woes with a commuter and answering questions from the BBC News audience. And there were a lot of them - from what an autorickshaw smelled like to the cost difference in hailing an Uber - and whether "horses would be better than tuk tuks". 

You can watch the stream here, external.

Image source, Facebook/BBCNews

After our town hall meeting earlier this week, Vikas Pandey and Matt Danzico decided to hit the roads of Delhi to find the answer to a question suggested to us by a student: "Is it faster to take an autorickshaw or call an Uber?"

You can read our live-tweets on the intense but fun experience here. Let's face it: This is the closest we shall come to living our Formula One dreams.

But....

[SPOILER ALERT]

We will be filming more stories suggested to us by the audience this month. You can follow our journey on Twitter, external, Facebook, external and get in touch with us via email bbcpopup@bbc.co.uk.

We received suggestions ranging from transgender issues to temples that could "turn people into stone". We certainly are going to have a busy day combing through these.

Do you have a question about India that you want answered, a person you'd like interviewed or an issue you want broadcast to the world?

Today is your lucky day.

BBC Pop Up, external is the company's travelling bureau. We relocate to new countries for a month at a time in order to film stories suggested by our viewers.

We hold town meetings to collect story suggestions and also take ideas over social media, external.

Here is an example of a story we shot in Kenya last year after a Twitter user requested a story be filmed on life in rural Kenyan villages.

But this time, we're heading to India!

Our team has been dropping hints about our next location around the internet. And many of you guessed correctly.

We'll be joined by BBC Delhi journalists Neha Sharma, external, Shalu Yadav, external, Ayeshea Perera and Vikas Pandey, external as well as Christian Parkinson, external, who is based in South Africa.

Like always, we want to know what stories you'd like us to film. Be as specific as possible, supplying links, names, contacts and a brief of the story you'd like made.

Send us your suggestions via Twitter, external using hashtag #bbcpopup, on Facebook , externalor via email at bbcpopup@bbc.co.uk.

How can skateboards help keep kids off the streets?

A look back at last year's BBC Pop Up story on Alchemy Skateboarding in Tacoma, Washington.

Image source, iStock

We're locked into our next stop. In fact, we'll hit the ground running (and filming) in just a few weeks, starting on 2 April. But where will BBC Pop Up spring up next? Here are a few hints to keep you guessing.

If you think you know the answer, tweet us via #bbcpopup, external.

• This country has one of the largest vegetarian populations in the world.
• It is illegal for foreigners and non-citizens to leave the country with its currency.
• An estimated 35% of the country's population lives below the poverty line.

Last Thursday was the night of the Republican debate in Houston, Texas. Our team was busy making the drive from Tennessee to Texas, with a scheduled arrival in Houston around 4pm. We had been up late the days prior doing a story about Linden, TN – "the conservative town saved by socialism". Click here to watch the video or here , externalto view the Twitter Moments collection.

But we wanted to put something creative together for the following day's news about the primaries – something a bit different. Between exhaustion and hunger though, we weren't coming up with much.

That was until one of us had the idea of hosting a Texas barbeque. 

"What if we held a tailgate outside the debate and talked with college students on the University of Houston campus about what they think the presidential candidates were like in college?"

So we swung by a local store, bought some supplies and set up shop next to the first parking spot we found.

Though our BBQ skills were lacking, we did come up with this video, external. 

It was a two-hour shoot and a three hour edit to put this together. We were done and relaxing by 10pm. 

Linden, Tennessee, is a staunchly conservative town that took a big hit at the height of the 2008 recession.

Around that time, the residents of this small community did something rather unique to save their home – they agreed to take part in a government experiment.

Facing an unemployment rate of 27%, the county used stimulus money from the federal government to directly pay the wages of almost 300 workers at private companies.

Today, the community is vibrant.

So how does this federal aid sit with their conservative beliefs in limited government?

For the full VIDEO story, go here.

To view our Twitter Moments collection of photos and GIFs, go here, external.