Electrifying elephants, dramatic dogs, heart-stopping aerial acts and clowns that tickle your funny bone – welcome to the circus. As the lights come on in the Big Top and the performers parade around the ring to the flourishes of loud music, one is instantly transported to one’s childhood, when the arrival of a circus in the town caused great excitement and prompted a spontaneous display of good-behaviour for a week just so that our parents would take us to the show on Sunday!
When the thrill of watching lions, leopards, elephants, bears and monkeys perform tricks to their handlers’ commands far outweighed the muggy discomfort of sitting in a jam-packed tent for over an hour. When ‘Circus’ meant Enid Blyton’sheartwarming, Mr.Galliano storybooks, and Aziz Mirza’s eponymous TV series that gave Bollywood its future Badshah. So it was on a wistful note that I entered the Big Top of the Empire African Circus, on show at the Shaheed Maidan in Dhurwa. And while the show did not disappoint, the thin audience turnout prompted questions about the survival of this traditional form of entertainment. “Presently, there are just 10-12 circuses still running in the country; and most of them somehow manage to break even,” said J. Raj, its manager.
Raj started the circus 30 years ago, with its first show in a small town in West-Bengal. “Those were heady times. Our arrival would create a sensation in the towns and people began queuing-up for tickets hours before show time. One reason was that for people in far-flung areas with no access to zoos, circuses were the only chance to see live all the ferocious animals that they had only heard or read about,” he recalls.
And herein lies the main reason why circuses are no longer roaring with life.“Performances by lions, tigers, leopards and bears attracted crowds. The government has now banned wild animals from being featured in circuses under the Wildlife Act. Only elephants, Horses and dogs are allowed, but wehave to get permission from the Central Zoo Authority and Animal Welfare Board of India and renew our licences regularly,” says Raj. His words remind me of a friend’s grandmother, who spent the major part of a circus performance petrified that the animals would attack her as her seat was just one row away from the ring! The grandmothers in the current audience made do with the antics of the elephant and the calisthenics of the African gymnasts in the troupe.
As the trapeze artists showed their mettle 30 feet above the gasping audience, one wonders about the years of training and rigorous practice that goes into their acts. “Earlier the acrobats and trapeze artists were trained in their acts from a very young age, say 9-10 years. At that age their bodies are flexible and supple so it is easy to train them. But now we have to train 17-18-year-olds who are not that supple and hence it takes time, plus the quality of the acts are also affected if there is no enough practice, “ says Sathyakumar, a former acrobat who is now in-charge of the artists training and rehearsals.
Kumar’s words highlight the second blow that the circus industry has had to face in the last few years. “Children under 14 years are termed child labourers by the law even if they're gymnasts or acrobats. Then in 2011, the Supreme Court banned circuses from using child performers. In an industry that requires skills that take years to develop, such as trapeze and tightrope-walking, the ban on young apprentices hit us hard,” says Kumar. And the final blow has come from satellite TV, multiplexes, gaming parlours, internet and digital media. The empty chairs and barely-audible applause remind us that city audiences have moved on to more ‘modern’ forms of entertainment ; and theaudience left in the smaller towns and villages does not seem enough.