Jamuna circus: A rich legacy, now on its last legs

The writing is on the wall — the once flourishing

Jamuna circus

is no longer the sought-after destination for families seeking entertainment. It’s no surprise then that the motley bunch of jugglers, acrobats and clowns who make up the

circus

crew, don’t find much motivation to perform a show sans audience. “There's obviously no show without an audience,” says Poonam Chand Sharma, one of the managers, with a helpless sigh.

The Jamuna Circus, which started in 1901, has a rich legacy of 117-odd years. Through the last 12 decades, the circus that originated in Punjab, has travelled the length and breadth of the country, entertaining the young and old alike. Not so many are entertained by the idea of a circus anymore though, and they are aware of it. Painfully so. They also rue the fact that they haven’t been able to do much to reinvent their approach in this era of social media, smartphones and tablets, where stunts and acrobats from performers across the world are just a click away. “live action just doesn’t have the same bite anymore; it doesn’t excite crowds. These days, people find it more convenient to watch stunts through videos on social media. We barely manage to pull crowds. Why would people travel so far to watch us when they can watch it all on their mobile screens?” says Poonam.

The story is the same everywhere. The entire circus industry has taken a massive hit due to dwindling profits. “organising a circus in the city costs at least `4lakh-`5 lakh; we need to take permissions from seven-eight departments of the government. Despite all that effort, we don’t get crowds. There’s been a 70-80 per cent drop in our collections,” Poonam points out, adding, “Things got worse after animals were banned in the circuses. Demonetisation killed us in one shot. We don’t have card machines and digital payments. We need cash. nearly 9 to 10 circus companies were shut after the note-ban was imposed.” The current lot of performers too don’t want their children to continue in this line of profession. Nepal-born Bendya Lama, who has been associated with Jamuna circus for over two decades, states, “I have been in the circus industry for the last 28 years and this is all I know. But I’ve been a witness to how the business has gone from bad to worse. I don’t have much hope and don’t want to bring my children into this line.”

And yet, surprisingly, several young performers are drawn to the profession year after year, some driven by passion; many, out of compulsion. For the 21-year old Preethi Jain, who has been working in the circus for the last four years, the profession presented an opportunity to travel to the nooks and corners of the country. “I’ve been to almost every major city in the country. One of my biggest motivating factors to remain in this industry is the opportunity to meet people of diverse backgrounds. My father is a rickshaw driver. I dropped out of school in class V and chose this profession, not just because I needed to support my family but also because I had a passion for it,” she adds. There’s an emotional attachment to stay in the profession for a few like Jina. Hailing from a poor family in Darjeeling, the school- dropout found the love of her life, the Bhadrachalam-based Ganga Maskapalli, as she entered the industry. “I was broke and miserable when I joined the circus. The
burden of supporting my family was sometimes too much to take. But then I met my partner and we got married last year. Circus is home for us; it’s here that we met each other,” says Jina Maskapalli.

The quintessential clown of this circus, Janardhan Sadafulle, once the show-stealer among kids at the circus, sits at a remote corner, resigned to his fate. His response sums up the mood of his industry counterparts as he says: “We will live, till the circus lives.”