What’s it like to live in a travelling circus, pack and unpack ever so often, and raise children on the go? Do members of a circus get ration cards? Do they vote?
It is 6.25 am. Sleepless, hungry and without earphones to play music, I am stranded with my thoughts on a metro train. I am travelling from Peenya to Kengeri Bus Terminal to meet the troupe that puts up Rambo Circus. Based in Pune, they are visiting Bengaluru for a month.
My monkey mind isn’t in a mood to nap. How can it? The seat is steely cold. It has been pouring for an hour. So it goes again: Does one feel homeless in a circus or does the circus become a home in itself? I have lived in eight towns and cities in India, and being the footloose sort, I don’t know if I want to settle down in a ‘dream home’.
At 7.35 am, I arrive at the circus venue. The big top, with its yellow and blue candy stripes, infuses a carnival-like energy in me at once. The parking lot is slushy. I tip-toe on stones, pass by men brushing their teeth, and reach the entrance. Senior clown Biju Pushkaran guides me inside. The centre stage is quiet, damp and dark, save for the sunlight piercing from the seams on the ‘tamboo’ (tent). I hear a flutter.
Morning rehearsals
A woman is suspended 25 feet above, from red silken fabrics. She is wrapping and unwrapping the silk to climb, glide in circles, and swing. Lithe and weightless, she is free like a bird. On the red-carpeted stage below, a woman is rehearsing with three hula hoops. I pick up one gingerly, and toss it around my body. Within five minutes, I hear a tip: ‘Keep your legs together.’ On an edge, a man is helping a newbie on rolla-bolla, a balance board.
More turn up. Titli-aasan, chakrasana, jogging and rehearsals ensue. Three kids have tagged along. One tumbles while trying a somersault. The other two can’t get enough of ‘Chhota Bheem’ and English rhymes streaming on their parent’s phone. The buzz is getting louder. Last night’s popcorn and plastic litter is being swept from under the red chairs, and a dwarf man is bobbing his head to ‘Zindagi ek safar hai suhana, yahaan kal kya ho kisne jana’ (Life is a pleasant journey. Who knows what tomorrow holds?).
Around 9.30 am, the artistes start leaving for breakfast — they have a canteen. Some go behind a heavy curtain behind the stage. Some escape through gaps between the tamboo and the ground. I follow Biju.
Army-style tents are pitched in an arc, on an open ground overgrown with grass. The ground is so boggy that I want to trade my canvas shoes for the gumboots and plastic chappals others are wearing. Makeshift bathrooms and toilets, and water tankers and drums are everywhere. For about 80 artistes, electricians, carpenters, tailors, cooks, tentmakers, gatekeepers and labourers, this camp has been home for three weeks. One week remains.
Home visit
“It isn’t always this untidy,” Biju says as I reach his tent, jumping over puddles. Packed with a cot, grocery items, circus paraphernalia, a water filter, clothes hung over, a scooter, and a small gas cylinder, it is overstuffed. The red carpet and wooden planks on the floor are soggy and soiled. There’s even a computer with speakers. “I need the Internet to connect with clowns from Russia, America and Europe. Don’t be surprised but I also file income tax returns,” the 52-year-old informs me.
He has built a duplex home for his children in Kerala and has a rubber plantation out there. “My tent is my bungalow. I can’t stay anywhere outside the circus for more than three days, and my children can’t adjust to this life. We talk regularly though,” he shares.
At 10, Biju ran away from Kerala and strayed into a circus in Mumbai in search of food. “Circus has given me respect. I have learnt public skills. I fought my alcohol addiction here,” he says. Not too long ago, a labourer needed a lakh for his wife’s C-section surgery. “We pooled in with Rs 2,000 and Rs 5,000 and our owner paid the rest. You know what the proud father named the kid? Rambo,” he lauds his “circus family”.
And one midnight, they rescued Biju when he tried to kill himself. “At 3.30 am, I put on my clown makeup and started laughing at myself. I was back to normal,” he says. It reminds me of what the circus owner Sujit Dilip says: “In an apartment with hard walls, nobody knows how you are doing. But these tents are open. They make us care and interact.”
Biju needs to stock toys for sale for the shows, slotted at 1 pm, 4 pm and 7 pm. He excuses himself. I go outside and scan left to right, hoping to find a tent open. There is no doorbell and lurking around may be a breach of privacy. I spot a man digging a trench outside his tent and walk up. “We didn’t expect so much rain in Bengaluru. The water is entering the tents,” explains Tanveer Khudbudin Mujawar, the man who was teaching rolla-bolla a while back.
He lets me inside. I meet his wife Mandira Adhikari, the ‘bird’ I saw at the rehearsals, and his sister-in-law, who is lying on the double bed, down with an eye infection. They have no medical insurance but the circus company pays for treatment of illnesses and injuries.
The tent reminds me of the tiny home-tea shops I see on treks to the Himalayas. It is orderly and cosy, and every inch is well-utilised. “Rats steal tomatoes and onions all the time. Recently, a snake showed up near the tap when I was washing clothes. But except for the rains and the frequent travelling, I don’t have a problem with circus life,” Mandira, 30, says.
This camp is on the outskirts of the city. In Pune and Mumbai, the circus finds venues in more central locations, chimes in Tanveer, still digging. Shrinking open spaces is a challenge for the circus.
The troupe seeks proximity to markets and beauty parlours, and coverage by online delivery, wherever they go. Flanked by a bus terminal, a petrol pump, a thicket of trees and buildings, this camp ticks those boxes. “I love shopping for clothes online,” Mandira says coyly. Online food and grocery orders are routine.
‘I feel proud’
The digital world has taken some shine off public entertainment and the future of the circus is uncertain. They know it but they say they have little choice. Mandira left school when she was nine to join the circus alongside her elder sister. Her family was poor. Tanveer is a Class 3 dropout. He forayed into the circus with his brother after their father fell sick.
Lack of education and hesitancy to start from scratch is why many stay back. Plus, the circus companies pay for stay, food and travel, so they save up well.
Mandira says, “With circus earnings, my sister and I have built a home for our family in Nepal. I feel proud.” Tanveer’s story is similar but he has also come to take pride in the art. “When I fly between the trapeze and the audience claps, I feel like the ‘Shah Rukh Khan of circus’. I wish the Indian government would support circus companies like Russia does.”
The admiration for Russia surfaces all day. The performers watch Russian circuses on YouTube to seek inspiration for their acts and costumes. One has a Mongolian friend from a Russian troupe.
It is 11 am, makeup time. I step out of their tent. A majority have a family or home outside the circus, I gather. They go home during the holidays or emergencies, and a permanent address helps them open bank accounts. “Some go and vote. None I know have ration cards,” Sujit informs. “But for about 10-15%, the circus is the only home. Even if we want to send them out, we can’t, out of humanity. When they die, we perform the funeral,” he says.
Children’s future
Not everybody joins a circus out of desperation. Stage life is more “comfortable” than slogging out as a labourer or factory worker, two artistes say.
Then there is Pinky Khan. She comes from a circus family and pursued the art after Class 9 because it was “like khel-kood (playing)”. She is cutting vegetables when I ask if I can enter. Her tent is dry and tidy, and has soft toys, a TV and an oven. “My husband cooks more than I do. He makes good manchurian, pizza and burgers. He was a cook earlier. He joined the circus after watching me in a show,” she reminisces about their love marriage.
Outside the tent, her kids, Aryan and Alia, three and five, are blowing water bubbles. They invite me to their play date. When my bubbles fail to match up to theirs, they ask Pinky to add more “soap” to the solution. But come night, she keeps them inside, scaring them with stories of “zombies roaming in the circus”. Pinky teaches them ABCD using books and online videos but feels homeschooling is impractical because her career is demanding. “I am sending Alia to a boarding school next year,” she says.
The 33-year-old has no complaints about her nomadic life. “When I go to my flat in Kolkata, I enjoy air conditioning. When I return to the tent, the heat bothers me for a day or two. Surviving circus life is all about attitude and habit.” Pinky counts the perks instead: “I have travelled so much, to Darjeeling, Shimla, Kashmir… This time, I went to a mall in Bengaluru and watched ‘Brahmastra’ in a theatre.”
Circus artistes don’t get the adulation “as big screen stars do” but she cherishes a sari, a book, and a greeting card she got as a token of appreciation. While most families here don’t want their children to pursue the circus, Pinky doesn’t mind. “It is up to my kids,” she says. I turn to Alia to ask what the circus is. “It is a show. I like mamma’s (uni)cycling,” she answers.
Our chat meanders and Pinky has a question for me: “Why is there religious strife outside about hijab? Here, we eat sevaiyan during Eid, and dance during Ganesh Chaturthi.” I wish I had an answer.
With an hour to go for the first show, I take leave from the performers, about 35 of them. I trudge to the workshop area. I pass a dummy rabbit and chimpanzee, cycles, and asbestos sheets blocking the camp life from outsiders. Arijit Singh’s ‘Tum hi ho’ is drowning in the cacophony of welding and tailoring. A lightman from Uttar Pradesh I meet recalls the days when actors like Amitabh Bachchan and Shashi Kapoor would visit on invitation. On the way back, I see Biju fixing the clown nose on him.
I must eat something before the show begins. I walk back inside the tamboo and see hundreds of people in the audience. It’s a Saturday but I wasn’t expecting such a turnout. At a food stall at the entrance, I order popcorn. It’s bland, but the vendor insists it isn’t. He agrees to sprinkle some salt. The popcorn doesn’t get any better.
Lights are on
The show is off to a flying start, thanks to trapeze artistes. Juggling, sword tricks, candle contortions, ring dances, a dog show (courtesy a Supreme Court order), and a punchline borrowed from Telugu film ‘Pushpa’ elicit applause. A daredevil biking stunt has everybody tense.
I can’t get over the final act, ‘Wheel of Death’. The artiste walks and jumps on a huge rotating apparatus, even with a blindfold on. He trips but carries on. I am a fan and I want to meet him. A staffer takes me to an ice cream stall and says, “He is the one.” Oh no! He is the popcorn seller, I realise to my embarrassment. “Instead of sitting idle during my free time, I help out at the food stalls,” Prashant Singh from Nagpur, who was born in the circus, says.
I was right. Those men selling popcorn and toys during the show were indeed jugglers and trapeze experts. They do it for extra earnings, I learn.
The bell for the second show goes off and I run backstage. There are no green room nerves. ‘Wheel of Death’ is announced and Prashant rushes from the food stall area, changes into a blingy costume, and launches into the act in split seconds.
The rain is relentless. Artistes leave their tent under umbrellas, plastic sheets and towels just before the act and leave soon after. Earlier, carrom and cricket were pastimes between shows. Now, all the fun is online. “Young boys are obsessed with the PUBG game. They shout ‘kill, kill’ in their sleep,” Biju tells me.
In a tent, I find Sachin glued to his phone ahead of his gig as a ‘joker’. “I watch videos of Johnny Lever, Rajpal Yadav, Paresh Rawal and Akshay Kumar for inspiration,” says the 29-year-old from Maharashtra. Muddy rivulets breach his tent as we talk. “Which home doesn’t have a problem? My tent is no less than a ‘Taj Mahal’,” he says sweetly. I tear up. Mobile thefts are common too.
Their last show in Bengaluru was on October 23. I call up Biju the next morning to discuss their pack-up plans. “Oh! We are in Mumbai. We flew last night. We are staying in a hotel till our belongings arrive. About 28 trucks will come,” he says.
When gold thieves returned
Since circus artistes camp in the open, theft is common. They also lodge police complaints.
“But five years ago, in Hubballi, some people stole the gold our female artistes were carrying. They then saw our show and were so impressed by our hard work that they admitted to their crime and returned all the gold,” Rambo Circus owner Sujit Dilip recalls.
Fact file
This circus employs 80-90 artistes and crew
They earn Rs 20,000 and up per month
Tents and stuff go from place to place in 28 trucks
One-way trip costs Rs 7.5 lakh
It takes a week to set up the tents
Running a camp calls for about Rs 80,000 a day