Taj Mahal? Been there, shot that

Sunday February 17 - Tuesday February 19, Agra, India
"Mehtab Bagh. Mehtab Bagh."

It's golden hour in Agra, India. The hour before sunset so precious to cinematogaphers the world over.

"Mehtab Bagh. Mehtab Bagh."

We're chasing the light, all too aware of the sinking sun. And we're racing in a minibus through streets crammed with tuk-tuks, carts drawn by bullocks, colourful lorries, battered buses and a swarm of motorbikes. Every so often our driver Ramesh leans out of the window demanding directions.

"Mehtab Bagh. Mehtab Bagh."
No-one seems to know how to direct us across the Yamuna river to the gardens with a view of the Taj Mahal at sunset. But somehow we find the bridge, a narrow, two-lane iron structure (with a railway above) built under the Raj and seemingly not mended since. Traffic hurtles towards us as we manoeuvre around anything that presumes to move more slowly than our camera car.

Then, after one wrong turning, there's the sign and then an official at a gate stopping us from taking the car any further. We jump out and hump the gear down to the river bank. Across what at this time of the year is little more than a stream ("you should see it during the monsoon!") is the magnificent mausoleum of the Taj Mahal, with soft sunlight rounding the curves of its white marble.
Truth to tell, we're just a few minutes too late. A glimpse of the Taj's domes from the road had shown them glowing a subtle orange, but now the sun has sunk a touch too low. Nonetheless the sight beats most tourist vistas and cameraman Nandu shoots happily, catching reflections and snatching the red globe as it sinks away.
I arrived in India yesterday morning, travelling on the same flight as Paul Merton. He has come for a 9-week shoot for a Five follow-up to last year's Paul Merton in China. Paul travelled first-class. I didn't. But then again I'm only here for three days.

Having met up with Ramesh, we do the four hour-plus drive to Agra. I was last in India (as a tourist) more than twenty years ago, but India remains India. We stop for a moment and there's a monkey on the car and a man wanting money for a photo. There are beggars at every traffic light, camels on the highway and an unrelenting soundtrack of horns.
Monday morning Ramesh and I drive to Fatephur Sikri, the extraordinary city built by Mughal emperor Akbar in the late sixteenth century and abandoned after only 14 years. We meet our Indian crew, Nandu and Subu, and scope out the vast mosque here -- which is one part of the story I've come to shoot. The only frustration is that because a previous crew damaged the building in some way we're not allowed to use a tripod inside the courtyard. We try persuasion, tricks when we think the guards are not looking, as well as other means, but we have to make do with the camera on the ground, on ledges and Nandu's steady shoulder.
Another problem is that our contributor, a cultural historian who was to talk with us about the Taj Mahal, has had a bereavement in her family, and so we have to to find a replacement in Agra in the next few hours. The resourceful Ramesh makes it happen.
That evening there's the frantic drive to Mehtab Bagh and next morning we're at the Taj Mahal main entrance at 8am. What of course you never see in documentaries is the palaver of getting past security, especially if you have camera equipment. There are soldiers with guns everywhere. The kit is subjected to a detailed scrutiny and we, like every other visitor, are patted down for concealed weapons. The process, like so much in India, is both rigorous and ramshackle.

Inside, jostling with the crowds, there's an intensity to the way everyone needs to have their picture taken with the Taj. And there is perceived to be one perfect spot, dead centre, for which people constantly compete and for which -- when we manage to manoeuvre the tripod there -- we receive disapproving looks and not-so-subtle shoulder barges.
Filming is permitted only from a single wide platform just inside the entrance to the garden. Our two minders make sure we don't trespass any further forward, and then when we start the interview, we're only one question in before one of them challenges our permit. "No casting," it states on page three of the form but, the minder says, the interviewee is "casting". No, no, we all argue, "casting" refers to drama shoots. My plea that I have flown thousands of miles for this moment makes little impact, at least until Ramesh takes him away for a quiet word and an understanding between them. We film the interview.
Despite all this, the mausoleum -- completed around 1648 by emperor Shah Jahan in memory of cherished wife Mumtaz Mahal -- is a magnificent sight. Serene, glowing, glorious. Looking at it, staring at it on our monitor, and then walking around (beyond where the camera can go), none of the minor hassles mean a thing. It is, simply, a sublime achievement of faith and beauty. (John Wyver)