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The
Indian circus is showing a downward trend for some time now. Many
proclaim that it is a dying industry. The first and probably the most
important reason is the law, which forbids the use of animals. The
main reason could be the apathy of public since a circus hardly
occupies the mind of a child nowadays. At an afternoon show,
only 25 per cent of the seats were occupied. The price of the tickets
was ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 100 for a three-hour show in which about
200 artistes perform live. The price is much less than the ticket
price at a multiplex. One wonders if they actually make any money.
"The Indian circus has to be technologically savvy. For how
long can we mourn the law forbidding the use of animals, which where
no doubt the major draw for a circus. But we have to look forward. We
can do much better if we get a ground in the middle of the city. Most
of the time, we get the ground outside the city and not many people
want to travel that far. There are so many things one can do. I plan
to introduce traditional art forms like sword fighting along with
modern music to make it more interesting. I am planning to add new
techniques to make circus interesting," says Sujit Kumar, owner
of the Pune-based Rambo Circus, which is currently performing in Pune
itself.
Few Indians
Another girl from Nepal is Ruksana. She doesn’t
know who her parents are. Around 20-year-old Ruksana claims to have
been looked after well by the circus management and has no plans to
leave it. This is the only home for her. After a certain age, most of
the artistes go back to start a family. Some of them do bring their
children at the circus. Most of the children don’t go to the school,
because of the mobile nature of the circus. The skills that they
develop while working at a circus are quiet useless outside and offer
few job opportunities in the outside world. Most of the time women
leave the circus after a certain time while men continue with the
circus for a longer period of time. Men folks generally leave their
families in the villages and visit them once a year. Girls who leave
the circus generally start a small enterprise. Natasha is one of the
artists from Uzbekistan, who is here as part of the cultural exchange.
She is here for six months and is going to be here till the end of
February. She has attended college to learn circus tricks. "I
like India. Earlier I had performed for Gemini Circus in India. The
circus here is different from the circus in my country. While in
Uzbekistan, circus is not mobile. It performs at one place itself and
is owned by the government, here it is mobile and privately
owned," she tries to explain haltingly in English. Rambo Circus
does not pay foreign artists. They are paid by the UK-based Zippo
Circus, which has collaboration with Rambo Circus. While the foreign
artists command a salary of $15 per day, artists from the subcontinent
are paid anything from Rs 2,000 to Rs 6,000 per month. Salary is a
pittance and it was surprising that artists didn’t come across as a
disgruntled lot. It might be because for most of them this is the only
life they know. Any circus is incomplete without a clown and so is
the case of Rambo circus as well. Saif Ali Khan is an 18-year-old
dwarf who performs at the circus. "I had come to see the circus
with my uncle some four-years back. I liked it and contacted the
management for job opportunities. While outside I was teased about my
height, I am accepted here and manage to send some money back home as
well. This is my home now and in fact, whenever I visit my home I don’t
feel like staying for a longer period," says Saif. Most of the
artistes go home once a year. When questioned about the safety
aspect of the artistes and whether artistes have any insurance against
an accident, Kumar said, "I am their insurance. We live like a
family and I try to help them as much as I can. Some time back there
was a case of a girl who developed cancer and I paid for her
chemotherapy. She has left the circus now." Explaining the
process of recruitment of artistes, Kumar says, "Earlier there
were agents and they used to get people for us from Nepal and
Bangladesh. However, now some poor families contact us directly and
sometimes, the person, usually from a small town, is enthusiastic
about joining a circus and comes on his/her own." The tents
where the artistes stay were clean and one of them even had a
television. Most of them had a bed and some open space where they kept
their things. They also had running water in the toilets. The foreign
artistes cook their own food on a stove while the Indian artistes cook
together. Eighteen-year-old US circus artiste, Disa Carneol, trained
at the Academy of Circus Arts, feels that in some ways Indian circus
is better than its US counterpart. "To perform before about 5,000
audience is a dream of any circus artiste and I regularly do it here.
And also, there we moved every week but here we stay at one place for
at least a month. Many a times, we sleep in lorries in the US, but
here everybody has a bed." It is certainly a difficult life for
a circus artiste but for many of them it is better than life at their
homes. Poverty ensures that they are never able to leave circus.
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