Many faces of the bahurupi
He is a performer par excellence. He can switch roles at the drop of a hat. He wanders from village to village to eke out a living by entertaining at fairs. Shoma A. Chatterji traces the journey of the bahurupi, whose very existence is under threat today
Cinebuffs who watched Shreyas Talpade’s marvellous performance as the kind-hearted and lovable bahurupi- turned-conman in Nagesh Kukunoor’s film Dor were actually looking at an underplayed subtext of the film – the decline and decay of the bahurupiya of Rajasthan. Ritwik Ghatak made a detailed reference to the bahurupi in his film, Subarnarekha (1965). Folk artistes

When business is fun
In the booming entertainment industry, funplexes are spending big bucks on hi-tech amusement machines, writes Anurag Yadav
Sanjay Arora was an official at the Appu Ghar in Delhi for more than a decade and a half. He says, "It’s amazing how I brought up a family doing an unconventional job — helping kids have fun at rides and swings." Today the street corner jhoolawalla is in the company of the funplexes that spend lakhs so that children and even adults can have fun on the wonder machines.