IT’S A scorching morning in Agra but around 11 am, dark clouds appear above the Taj Mahal. There is instant relief for the perspiring tourists battling the sultry weather but the grey skies force M K Bhatnagar and his group of workers to scramble into action. The superintendent archaeologist with the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), barely able to disguise his irritation, orders his workforce to throw plastic sheets over parts of the 230-foot-high minarets that have been coated with multani mitti (fuller’s earth). Sensing the enormity of the task, he also decides to join them, washing his hands. Bhatnagar heads the renewed efforts to offset the effects of pollution on the 17th-century mausoleum. He has been tasked with using mud pack therapy, which has been used earlier at the Taj but whose effectiveness is now being questioned, to remove yellow stains caused by pollution that have almost covered the entire monument, making it look creamish and even grey at times. The therapy, which involves coating the monument with multani mitti, much like a face pack, began in April last year, after the parliamentary standing committee on environment directed the ASI to submit an interim action plan for restoration of the Taj. Since then, Bhatnagar and his team have almost finished work on the two minarets behind the main dome and are planning to start cleansing the main monument itself. Today, there was little time to unfurl the plastic sheets before the heavens opened up. But fortunately for the workers, who couldn’t save much of the “costly” clay, the rain is brief — it stops by 11.15 am. Just as the team decides to resume work, which begins around 8 am and lasts till 5 pm every day, they are interrupted by a commotion from one of the minarets. The group rushes to find that a woman tourist has just been saved from possible injury: her husband managed to grab her after she lost her footing on some clay that had washed off one of the minarets. Bhatnagar surveys the spot and shouts at the workers to clean up the place and avert any more potential mishaps. There is, however, little respite from the public. The archaeologist spots a child who appears to be attempting to remove a coloured marble flower from the walls of the main monument. “You should not touch the Taj Mahal, beta,” he tells the tiny offender. “It’s a monument. You should just see it,” he adds, before turning his disapproving glare onto the parents. He laughs when asked if managing the pressure from authorities, experts sceptical of the cleaning process, and the public are part of his job profile. “The rest are all manageable but I wish I could have a hold on the weather,” says the diminutive Bhatnagar, who holds a PhD in archaeology. The Haridwar native says that apart from disrupting their daily routine, the ever changing weather wreaks havoc on the mud therapy. “We put around a 2 mm-thick layer of the finest lime-rich clay on the surface of the Taj Mahal. The more time the clay takes to dry, the better will be its effect on the Taj. Sadly, when it rains, the mud pack gets washed away. In summer, the pack dries within a few hours and is ineffective. The best time for this therapy is winter, but that is peak tourist season. So we have to take that into account and hence avoid placing barricades at that time. We scale down operations in winter,” Bhatnagar says. There are around 38 workers on the job, with about 30 of them applying the mud pack on the mausoleum. They fasten themselves to a scaffolding that has been put in place and use brushes to apply the mixture. The rest of the staff prepares the multani mitti. Water and glycerin — the proportion depends on the weather (in dry times, more glycerin is added) — are added to powdered clay, which is got from laboratories in Agra and Jaipur. The resulting mud pack is poured into buckets. Each worker, whose clay runs out, has to make it all the way down for a refill. It’s a cyclic process that continues till 1 pm, when the workers break for lunch. After an hour, the workers start applying the mud pack again. They work their way from the top of the minaret to the bottom. A few workers have also started removing the dried clay with a brush, following which, these cleaned portions will be washed with distilled water. As for Bhatnagar, he says his job mostly involves clearing piles of files at his office in the ASI building some 14 km from the Taj Mahal, but adds that his “outdoor nature” brings him to the mausoleum on most days. With work on the north-east minaret almost done, a worker rushes to Bhatnagar, asking him to take a look at it. The archaeologist, in turn, turns to a passing tourist for approval. He asks the man if he can see the difference and after a “yes”, moves towards a group of tourists, who are listening to an ASI guide. Bhatnagar joins in the conversation, lists the reasons for the yellowing of the Taj, and urges the group to not touch the monument. This is at least the fifth time that the 17th-century mausoleum is undergoing the mud pack treatment, but Bhatnagar says that in earlier cases, the therapy was confined to only parts of the monument sheltered from the rain. This is the first time the therapy is being simultaneously carried out on the four minarets and the main dome. While cleansing of the dome is expected to take at least a year, 10 months would be required for each of the four minarets. The ASI has also set aside 12 months to account for any unforeseen suspension of work. Bhatnagar brushes aside the recent criticism that the frequent use of mud packs — the marble mausoleum was given this treatment in 1989, 1994, 2001 and 2008 — was harming the Taj Mahal. He says that this method is considered safe as it involves minimal use of chemicals and almost no mechanical efforts. “If you remember, in the old days, mothers had a bowl of multani mitti at home throughout the year. Wherever there was a pimple, they would apply it. When this never affected the faces of our women, how can multani mitti affect hard marble?” says the former chemistry professor, who quit his job at the Gurukul Kangri University in Haridwar to join the ASI in 1996. An official at the ASI’s science department believes that such controversies would not have arisen if Agra had a research laboratory that would allow it to test its products. Bhatnagar too agrees that it would have been easier for them if they had a science lab. He, however, says that the government needs to control pollution and vandalism at the monument, which was declared a Unesco World Heritage site in 1983. It has had to contend with pollution from the busy and industrial city of Agra and the ‘Moksha Dhaam’, the crematorium whose shifting has been stuck due to pressure from Hindu groups. Bhatnagar though says he is surprised that people still want to see Taj as white as it was 400 years ago. “It’s an ancient monument. We need to concentrate on its stability and not on the colour. We can get it cleaned in a day through many other methods but we just don’t want to do that. We need to control pollution and vandalism rather than forcing the Taj to stay white,” he says. He points to the portion of the Taj Mahal facing the Yamuna river and which is infested with insects. He blames the increased critter activity on the “heavy pollution in the river” as another reason for the yellowing of the monument. “The insects sit on the wall and then excrete on it. The excreta accumulates and makes the monument look yellow,” he says. Around 4 pm, with work winding down for the day, another tourist approaches Bhatnagar and asks if the ASI is doing anything to “smoothen the Taj’s surface”. “Look, the wall is so rough. I also have marble flooring at my house, which is smooth,” the visitor says. Bhatnagar patiently explains that the marble at home is evened through machines, which cannot be used on the mausoleum. Back at the minaret, a worker complains that it is not just insects that hinder the process but monkeys too. He says they damage the scaffolding built around the minarets. “They come in groups and damage the pads we place. They remove the mud pack and sometimes excrete on the surface,” the worker says as he packs his bags, his work done for the day.
