Send In The Clowns, If You Can Find Them

By Harry Sanna

Horses whinny excitedly and children tear pink strips of fairy floss from splintery sticks. Xylophonic tunes warble from rusty speakers, echoing from tent-top to tent-top. Mighty grey elephants sway in their shackles to the rhythmic parade of ticket sellers’ hustling.

No doubt about it, the circus has come to town.

A shady blot of faded colour in the heart of Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, Amar Circus sat steaming in its own splendour. Three shows a day, seven days a week, a steady crowd orbited the grounds.

Barricaded behind eight feet metal walls, the performers’ quarters encircle the Big Top. Beside the entry, appaloosa horses share shade with two gangly Great Danes.  

In a country where total domination of television and the Internet is still some way off, the circus is a ready distraction from the day’s humdrum activities.

The Indian circus, once a mighty and colourful industry touring the country, is now a shadow of its former self. Those large enough to survive the downturn in profits have cherry-picked the most wow-ish acts India’s circus industry has had to offer.

The final product finds itself a surreal and surprisingly entertaining way to spend an evening.

The price of admission for Amar Circus ranges from 25 to 100 rupees per seat, a justifiable fee for three solid hours of decent, and occasionally very solid, performances.

From old favourites unchanged for decades to some more hit-and-miss stylistic endeavours, the acts chase each other like a battery of missiles firing point-blank at the audience.

While the clowns remained stubbornly unfunny throughout, the bike tricks, juggling sticks and Nepali chicks make for pretty consistent viewing. The Russian mother-daughter couplet (the ‘International’ in ‘Amar International Circus’) also has a few tricks up their sleeveless leotards.

There were dwarfs in top hats, cockatoo chariots, voyeuristic displays of leggy contortionism and a master of projectile regurgitation. There was even a Bengali daredevil and an acrobatic wheel of death.

The luck-factor of striking a surviving circus in the vast and varied landscape of the country makes the experience all the more rewarding.

It’s hard to sought out a circus in India. Not having an online schedule listing, the troupe tours the nation in much the same way as circuses may have in 1930’s America. A scout comes to town a week or so before, putting up posters and generating hype while a convoy of equipment and exotic animals rattles across the roadways of India.

While the rest of the world, with its saturation of media and immediate entertainment, has all but killed the spontaneous queerness of a night at the old carnival, India seems to be a last bastion for circuses of old.

In spite of its handful of stylistic shortcomings, Amar Circus still has managed to retain that unspeakable quality of bizarre surrealism that makes the event such a memorable and unique experience.

Despite it’s rough and road-travelled exterior, the weathered big top of India belies a great many treasures and a hauntingly resonant adventure, and one that mustn’t be missed if, indeed, you can find it. A romantic may even say that it finds you.