Ariel: Team building at the Taj Mahal

Five guys from BBC Monitoring won a week in India

By Tony Matthews, Ariel, 19 April 2005

They won a prize for creativity in last year's Making it Happen One BBC awards for the ingenuity they showed in developing the kit to carry out their jobs.

So the multimedia unit in BBC Monitoring, which compiles round ups of events and topical issues for BBC News and the UK government, had little trouble putting together a tailor-made travel package as their prize.

The five travellers - unit duty editors Ashley Brewer and Jim Champion, chief sub Clive Liddiard and video unit chief subs Unis Shaikh and Arash Dabestani - beat the investigative journalism of Secret Policeman and the innovative techniques of Big Cat Diary to the title.

Working with the Making it Happen team, they sorted out their own flights, accommodation and itinerary for a week with the BBC in Delhi, combining business with sightseeing.

Breaking down prejudices

'We settled on Delhi because that was a common choice and it meant that Unis, who is of Indian descent but had never been there, could visit the country for the first time,' says Brewer.

The BBC World Service Trust in Delhi invited their Caversham-based guests on to the set of Jasoos Vijay, a long-running educational series screened by national broadcaster Doordarshan TV.

It features an action hero detective who is HIV positive.

'Through him, the series tries to break down prejudices in Indian society, while being sensitive to taboo subjects,' explains Clive Liddiard. 'I'd not been on a film set before and it never occurred to me how painstaking their work was.'

As much of the filming was done at night, the BBC Monitoring team used the day to explore. 'On a personal level the Taj Mahal was mind blowing,' said Liddiard.

Local welcome

The five also ventured into the back streets of Delhi, only to discover later that tourists are advised not to do so.

Not that they found the locals anything less than welcoming.

'We went to the Mosque at the Red Fort, which dates back to the early 17th century, at Friday prayers and never felt uncomfortable,' says Brewer.

Even the glitches that inevitably occur during travelling didn't, as many a backpacker will warn, leave them at each other's throats.

If anything it drew them closer.

The only spoiler was a bout of sickness which prevented them from seeing the Golden Temple at Amritsar.

Nowhere to stay

'We learned to rely on each other; you get to know your team mates much better when you're looking out for each other,' explains Brewer.

'The same was true when there was a foul up by the hotel organisers.

'It left us without anywhere to stay at an extremely busy time as Hilary Clinton was visiting and so were the Pakistan cricket team.

'You learn more about each other than you do in the daily routine of the office.'

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