It was the first day on location in Rajasthan, and an interview with an eminent astrologer was scheduled. Sanjeev Bhaskar and the rest of the crew working on Position Impossible: In Search of the Kama Sutra arrived excitedly at the great man's door, only to receive some bad news. Forgetting that visitors were expected, the eminent astrologer had, that very morning, taken an 11-day vow of silence.
'I sat there for 10 minutes thinking, "I don't know what I'm doing here",' says Sanjeev (best known as 'Mr Cheque Please' and 'Mr Everything Comes from India' in the BBC's Goodness Gracious Me ), when we meet at his London club, Teatro. 'I thought, it's all going to be like this. Mental.' In the end, a go-between was found to decode the astrologer's scribbles, and the encounter, which could have been a disaster, was turned into something quite different: a surreal encounter that says a great deal about India, and Sanjeev's fond if bewildered feelings towards it.
It was his idea to make a documentary about the Kama Sutra. It's an idiosyncratic attempt to get past the myth of the book, beyond the smutty associations and the giggles, and explore its relevance: both to its original audience, and a modern one. After all, only a fifth of the book is concerned with bedroom gymnastics. Written in the fourth century by the Hindu sage Vatsyayana, it offers suggestions on a wide variety of social accomplishments: how to sing, fight, make lemonade, read the secrets of the night sky, and decorate your bedroom. 'In the fourth century, Europeans were living in mud huts and had just discovered brass,' says Sanjeev, 36. 'Whereas the Indians had this hugely complex society and were writing books about politics and economics and religion. So the Kama Sutra was written in that context - not as a dirty book, but as a book that tried to explain what a good citizen should do within or when forming a relationship.'
Seeking information from a range of commentators, some of whom shed more light on the text than others, Sanjeev is careful not to use them for cheap gags. The tantric sexpert, for instance, digs his own grave, leaps in, and lies there, quivering expectantly. Sanjeev says, half-regretfully, that he lacks Louis Theroux's courage, but he still manages to coax forth some Theroux-like revelations and, in the process, lets slip just as much about himself.
Over a latte, as on telly, he seems to have very little side: he is funny, relaxed, almost disconcertingly sincere.
Discussing the Kama Sutra 's attitude to marriage, he mentions that his parents had a go at matchmaking him, introducing him to a couple of nice girls, neither of whom seemed 'quite right'. He believes arranged marriage can work, but is pleased his parents have now accepted it's not for him. 'If they do talk about settling down or kids, I don't go, "Mum!" I tend to say I'm not averse to the idea, I'd quite like to settle down, I'm just not in any rush about it.'
The child of parents who came to Ealing from the Punjab in the Fifties (his dad was a supervisor at the Nestlé factory in Hayes; his mother was an accountant) he has a strange lifelong association with the Kama Sutra, though he only read it recently. 'People always assumed that being Indian, I'd know all about it, along with tea and curry and Bollywood movies. I could get away with the other ones - 'It's coriander, you know' - but with the Kama Sutra, it was really tricky. So the easiest thing was to lie. Especially in the uni bar. If they asked how many positions were in it, I'd say, three. And if they asked me when it was written, I'd say 1932.' These fibs didn't transform his love life, though, 'because after that you'd have to prove it'.
After the University of Hertfordshire, he went to work as a marketing manager at IBM, 'and because of the marketing stuff, my bluffing became better, so I could say with authority that it was written in 1847 and there were 237 positions.' Later, he tried his hand at arts marketing, which didn't really work out, and then he had 18 months on the dole. At this point, he went back to an idea that had attracted him as a child, and joined a theatre workshop. He was spotted by two comedy writers scouting for a new radio comedy, and found himself in the Goodness Gracious Me line-up. After GGM became a smash hit and transferred to television, he picked up the Kama Sutra for the first time, wondering if it would make for a good documentary, and found it full of good sense and comic potential. 'It wasn't a manual for sexual superstardom. It's a book of choices. And it was actually quite funny, too.'
Position Impossible is not a conventional documentary. It combines travelogue, social history and standup in equal measure. In his quest to understand the book's relevance to both the fourth-century Indian court and twenty-first-century relationships, Sanjeev finds himself at Richard Burton's grave, in a Delhi sex clinic, and being lapdanced at Stringfellow's. In between, he's seen on stage, musing in front of an audience. As a technique, it's a little distracting: quite often, the expression on his face while on location says much more than his monologue does.
Sanjeev visited the lapdancing club in an attempt to compare Western and Eastern attitudes to women. He had just weathered a sort of stag night in Lucknow, in which a young woman in a green sari danced for a roomful of giggly, slightly bashful men, force-fed him a samosa, and relieved all present of most of their cash. At Stringfellow's, an approximate Western parallel, Sanjeev is completely freaked out. You can see it from his expression: a small, terrified smile that shrinks as the bosoms and buttocks come in for the kill.
In an attempt to get through the experience, he doggedly maintains eye contact with the lapdancer and makes a few lame conversational forays. 'Your hair is in lovely condition,' he says, and: 'Did you watch much of Euro 2000?' It wasn't exactly a meeting of minds, but it made him feel less uncomfortable. 'To be drawn in you have to want to investigate further, but what is left to investigate if someone has taken their clothes off and wiggled in front of you for a tenner? With the dancer in Lucknow, you couldn't help thinking, "When you gave me attention, did you mean it more than when you gave the other person attention?" It was silly, but harmless, and fun, whereas there was so much frustrated negative tension in the lapdancing club. If you go to clubs like that, you can only see women sexually. The Kama Sutra isn't perfect by any means - it's the woman who has to bend herself into all sorts of sexual positions while the man just has to twirl his moustache. But there is still a degree of respect, of equality.'
Sanjeev's foray into TV presenting, like his comedy career, wasn't part of a long-term plan. Neither were movies, but now there's a role in the next Merchant Ivory, The Mystic Masseur, based on V.S. Naipaul's novel and about to film in Trinidad, and a three-picture deal with Miramax. 'It's weird, and probably undeserved in my case, but if you just sit there, things do come to you. I guess I know the definition of good fortune.'
'Position Impossible: In Search of the Kama Sutra' starts on 7 February, C4
