Blog@GraceJunction

The loud music coming from inside the huge canopy, huge halogen lights all around, smell of excitement rising above the small stench of animal presence, vendors selling popcorn, wafers, cold drinks, balloons, toys etc, and anticipation and excitement of my elder daughter and even myself are some of the first few things that come to my mind when I look back to the evening a couple of days back. I had never seen a circus for real. There were huge gates to greet us and to make sure people don’t barge in. The show inside was still on and we could hear faint sounds of announcements by the ringmaster rising above the din of music and the murmur of hundreds of people.  Suddenly, they appeared. Hordes of them smiling, talking, some amused, some with a look of disbelief and most only thinking about the next chore on their list. They kept trickling out and I was surprised by the number of people that tent had accommodated!

We were the first few inside for the last show. Plastic chairs were arranged all around the ring with different colors to demarcate the different classes of tickets. Uncomfortable wooden benches were racked in a rugged manner to form stands on the outer for those who couldn’t pay much for their own entertainment. Inside the ring, nets were in place implying that the first item on our show was going to be the trapeze. We anxiously waited for the seats to fill up. The show started on time with the ringmaster occasionally speaking words in English which probably he had picked up from his friends in the village!

Slowly the artistes started coming out. For the trapeze perhaps a dozen of them. They performed the feats with breathtaking timing and precision. Slowly as the circus progressed, more and more new faces kept appearing. I started wondering whether they have a whole township of artistes behind the tents!!

I was in awe of the risks they took and the feats they performed making their bodies twist and turn and do things that normal people couldn’t even imagine of, all for the sake of earning a livelihood in return for entertaining a crowd that bothered neither about them nor their circumstances but stared only and only at what they showcased or displayed. I have purposely incorporated the word ‘display’ because a faint tint of eroticism is exhibited while the artistes with their scanty clad perform. Now, as the artistes performed daredevil stunts like eating and breathing fire, equilibristics, contortion, tight rope walking, acrobatics, cycling, walking on stilts, laying under an elephant, water tricks, gymnastics, knife throwing, and juggled using their hands and even mouth, a closer look persuaded me that I should not have been wondering about what’s behind the tent, rather about what was behind their smiling faces and their spectacular courage.

Though I couldn’t meet any of them, a little research revealed that most of the circus artistes were overwhelmed by hurt and pain indicted by their most grueling concern, sheer poverty. Perhaps their skill sets, their passion and their excitement to be part of a circus had pulled them into it in the first place but I am sure that it was their helplessness and brokenness that forced them to drop their anchors. What else would explain such daredevil stunts, ninety times a month, for salaries as measly as 2000 to 15000 rupees every month - the higher salaries being only for a very select few, mainly the foreign artistes!? Fall in audiences is the reason for the low pay, say the owners. The reason for the poor turn out, they say, is more after the government’s directive to remove wild animals and endangered species (tiger, leopard, lion, bear and monkey) from circuses than because of people having alternate avenues for entertainment.

Also, many of them stay on because they do not know how to earn a living in any other way. Raj Kapoor’s ‘Jeena yahan, marna yahan, iskey siva, jaana kahan’, was not without reason. They would have toiled for hours together every day for over two years before performing on the shows, and five years before they mastered the trick that they take only a few minutes to perform. After such hard work, they don’t know what else to do for a living. The hold of the circus on some of them is so strong that sometimes they retire and come back with their children! But that happens also because, life back home is worse than inside a circus.

However, for many women, the circus becomes a hellhole. A Delhi based NGO (BBA/SACCS) brought into the limelight the physical, verbal and sexual abuse of women in Indian circuses. They are man handled and beaten during the trainings, by the trainer and sometimes even by the owner of the circus. Some of them are sexually abused and not allowed to leave the closed confines of the circus. Sometimes, the circus owners let out these women to local power lords in the places where they go. Their inhumane and pathetic condition is worsened by the fact that the circuses are always mobile and it becomes almost impossible for any of the artists to contact their families nor is it feasible for the parents to track down their children. Often, because of the agreements they sign before taking up the job, the women silently endure through it. Some of those who were freed from these nexus are not returning to the circus - not even to watch a show! Their only refuge often is to marry another artiste!

Circus has become their life and so when time is up, the canopy will be pulled down, and all these artistes will silently move along to another state, another city and entertain more people there, a people often oblivious to their effort, struggles, pains and hurts. The show will continue.

The artistes continue in the circus because they have no options. But what about many of us? We make life a circus! We juggle with choices where none should exist, we walk tight ropes where simpler options are around, we eat and breathe the fire of habits and addictions, we walk on stilts and appear tall when we really aren’t, we sometimes indulge in contortion to make facts look otherwise, we clown around like old court jesters even in matters that are eternally significant, we do equilibristics with work, relationships, spirituality, health and character all at stake and label our nonchalant conduct of life as adventure? Is it courage? Don’t we make life appear like its all fun and frolic and subdue some of the intense questions under the revelry? Don’t we jump around from one to the other without digging roots where we have to? Don’t we live multiple lives with one for the work place and other for the home and still other for the world?

‘Life is a circus’ is perhaps an incorrect life metaphor. Life is a Trust, a trust entrusted by the creator. Life is a Test, a test of how we fare through the trials, projects and relationships. Life is a Preparation for something beyond, something eternal. ‘Kal khel mey, hum ho na ho, gardish mey taare rahenge sada’ is appropriate only for the circus and not for life. The show on the planet will not go on forever. Its time we shift focus from becoming the Clown of Life to getting the Crown of Life!

Tags: artistes, Circus, clown, joker, raj kapoor, ring master

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Articles, Economy, Finance & Money, Geo, Justice, Marriage, Purpose of Life, Relationships, Society, Sports, Thoughts, Trends, Troubles & Problems, Youth Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.