There was a time when the arrival of circuses in Calcutta seemed to signal the approach of winter in the city. Colourful tents would sprout almost overnight in Park Circus or Tullah Park and the sound of the bugle would mix with the din of traffic. The classes in Lady Brabourne College, which is adjacent to Park Circus, would each day be interrupted for a few minutes while the noisy motorcycle act was performed. At least some of the students and professors at the college must be relieved this year to find the raucous sound replaced by that of hammering on ply boards as Park Circus gets ready for the book fair.

R. Rajan, the coordinator of the Nataraj circus at Tullah Park, would think otherwise. For him it’s a shame that the Park Circus ground, which got its name from the annual gala it hosted each year, should be given over to the book fair. The banishment of the circus from the centre of the city seems to symbolize its marginalized position today in the heart of Calcuttans. With city kids turning to the television or to the internet to keep themselves amused, circus is rapidly becoming an outdated form of entertainment.

A visit to any of the circus tents pitched in the fringes of the city would prove this. Not only the comparatively costly seats close to the ring but also the cheaper tiers further away remain vacant for most shows, even on weekends. As a result, the atmosphere inside the tents, with the artists performing to an empty gallery, took on a faintly surreal air. The few children who had come with their parents looked bored and concentrated more on the vendors selling ice-cream or popcorn. The young men seated at the back, who had come presumably to watch the scantily clad ladies on stage, had to be prodded by the clowns even to make catcalls.

The lack of interest also showed on the faces of the artists. At the Nataraj circus, a girl gymnast perched on a revolving table contorted her body into strange shapes with a mechanical regularity while the band played a popular Hindi song out of sync with her movements. The act over, she seemed glad to run away, not even pausing for applause. It was much the same at the Great Royal circus in Howrah. The juggler kept dropping the balls and plates, the midget clowns looked sad and the ‘Arabian’ horse seemed epileptic. The ringmaster’s announcements hardly matched what was being presented on the stage. After raising the audience’s expectation by proclaiming that they would get to see a lady “jisko dekhkar aisa lagega ki is larki ki shareer mein koi haddiya hain hi nahi”, an unenthused girl came on stage, performed a few perfunctory tricks stiffly and then walked away unhappily. Thankfully, most in the audience were too busy eating to notice.

The reasons for the general fall in standards are not difficult to find. All the circus-owners complain of the paucity of funds. While their revenues from the shows are falling constantly, their expenditures are rising by the day. Most of what the circuses make goes into paying the artists’ salaries and in maintaining the animals. Transportation cost is hefty, as is the amount spent on paying taxes on entertainment, land or water supply. On the other hand, banks remain reluctant to extend loans to circuses on the ground that they are not stationary. And the government is unwilling to waste money on a form of artistic expression that is slowly but steadily dying out.

The general apathy towards circuses in India is not to be found in most other countries of the world. Especially in Russia, the legacy of Lenin, who had wanted the circus to become the “people’s art form”, lives on in the high prestige accorded to the art to this day. The Russians’ commitment to circus shows in their performance and most of us would remember the spectacular Russian circus that had enthralled Calcutta in the Eighties. Indian circuses now borrow artists from Russia to draw in more crowds by the lure of the ‘foreign’ ladies. The Great Royal circus has about five artists from Uzbekistan working for it. The manager of the circus, A. Rajan, says that all the Uzbeks in his troop come from training institutes in their country. There are no such academies in India, a lack that has contributed to the decline of the circus here.

All circus-owners are also deeply resentful of the animal rights activists at whose behest the ministry of environment and forests banned the training and exhibition of animals in circuses. A. Rajan says that most of the chimpanzees given over to various zoos after the ban came into effect have died within months. He believes that, as with most other legislations enacted in India, the one against circus animals also remains inadequate. Animals bred and trained in the circus cannot live in the wild or in zoos, a fact ignored by those who had clamoured against the alleged cruelty against animals in circuses. And, if R. Rajan is to be believed, circuses could not have maltreated the tigers, lions or the chimps, since they depended heavily on these animals for their income.

Documents presented by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals would present another picture. They say that the circus animals are starved or beaten to make them obey. Raids carried out by the organization on different circuses have shown dogs crammed inside cages, lions or tigers with festering wounds and malnourished elephants.

The horses or elephants performing at both the Nataraj and the Great Royal circus did not look particularly cheerful, but in this they were at least united with their human counterparts. The pathetic state of the circus in India today is unfortunate since the country had once boasted of gymnasts with outstanding skills. Indians, especially Keralites, had taken gymnastics to new heights by combining it with the traditional martial arts. The Great Royal circus, which is one of the oldest circuses in India, has toured not only all over this country, but has also performed in Kenya, Tanzania and Egypt over the last few years. However in India, its audience is mostly confined to the small towns and villages that are yet to be won over by the wonders of satellite television.

The place the circus held in the Indians’ imagination at one time is attested by the popularity of films like Raj Kapoor’s Mera Naam Joker or television serials like Circus, which starred Shah Rukh Khan before he became Shah Rukh Khan. When the circus-owners are asked what keeps them going in spite of mounting losses, they declare unhesitatingly that it is love, for the art, for the animals in their care, for the life of continuous travel. An ancient poet in his wisdom had once affirmed that love conquers all. One hopes that it applies to the circus people of India.