" Kal khel mein hum ho na ho, Gardish mein taare rahenge sada..."

Mukesh's distinct tone rises from some place backstage and waltzes under the red and gold tent. Manipuri artistes have just wrapped up the final act of the two-hour show. The delighted gurgles of children, the broad grins on the faces of adults, sporadic bursts of clapping, it is all floating in the air like the joker's soapy bubbles.

We are at Patuli in south Calcutta. Standing on what used to be a rubbish dump some years back. Now home to a water tank, a school, a bus depot, and for the last four years, the Empire Circus.

The circus stays here a month beginning mid-December. Every year, it has something new on its menu. One year, there was the man who could swallow a live fish and regurgitate it before a live audience. "He did the show on an empty stomach. He would eat once a day, after the last show," says P.K. Shanith, the manager of Empire Circus.

This year there are the artistes from Russia. "In Russia, artistes can get formal training and a certificate. In India, the only government-funded circus academy is in Kerala. It is in a bad state," adds Shanith.

As the Russians swing, contort and rope-walk, the 300-plus audience in the 1,000-plus arena forget to breathe. "There is a net beneath, but it is not foolproof. If a person falls on his back, he will survive. A fall from a height in any other position means instant death or a disability for life," says Shanith.

The Russians earn thrice as much as the Indians. And the Indians? "They are paid in claps," laughs Shanith. Salaries apparently begin at Rs 10,000 and depend on the nature of the act and number of shows.

Shanith is from Kerala. Dilip Sahu, who does the Globe of Death stunt on his motorcycle, is from Odisha. He has a deep scar on his left cheek - the prize of a practice session gone wrong. This year's hero is Spiderman, a shy youth from Bihar, called Azrat Ali. It's a 150-member diverse team, including five elephants, five birds, five dogs and a horse.

The animals are not listless like the ones in the zoo. Like their human colleagues they have a je ne sais quoi that is appealing.

In 1998, at the Animal Welfare Board of India's insistence the Union government banned performance by wild animals in the circus. It seems National Circus, one of the biggest circus companies in India, had to shut shop after it lost 30 animals. The next to go were child artistes. "In films you can have child artistes, you can have gymnastic competitions for children under 12, but they cannot perform in a circus. There are acts that can be mastered only within the age of 12. So what do we do?" asks the manager. The circus makes money mostly in the winter months. But this year Santa brought in demonetisation and its hard consequences.

In a slick urban space, where the mall is the thing, the circus is like the patchwork tent housing it - incongruous, but not lacking in appeal. There is appeal in the wobble of the plastic chairs, in the tickets priced way below the cheapest multiplex seat, in the joyous pirouette of cyclists to the melancholy of the Titanic theme track.

And stitching it all up is the great joker of Indian cinema, sweeping up the pieces of his broken heart - the broken heart of the Indian circus itself.