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Dilip, when did you start the circus, how did you get into the circus business and how long have you been doing it?
I got into this business fourteen or fifteen years ago. My grandfather and father were in it too. So I am the third generation. The Great Bombay Circus started in Hyderabad and Sind, in Pakistan. In 1920, my grandfather Kannan Nair and his brother had a partner called Babu Ram Kadam, a Maharashtrian. They started it together. My grandfather’s brother died in 1950 after which my father took over. Now my youngest brother, Sanjeev and myself have been running it for the last fifteen years.

Do you need some kind of special qualification to run this or did you learn it from your father?
No, I learnt it from my father as well as many other stalwart senior managers. There was a general manager with my grandfather, Mr. Joseph (Valez). He had retired and had given me some theoretical knowledge like how you plan the camps, which are the marriage seasons, crop cutting seasons, exam seasons, how the weather patterns are in different places, climatic conditions and so on. Like in Mysore, we perform during Dusshera and in Bangalore we perform during Christmas. During Diwali, we prefer Bombay. In Calcutta, it only works during Christmas and January because there is always rain in other months.

Have you been coming to Mysore every year?
No, I have not performed in Karnataka for a long time, for about thirty years. I may have performed once in Davangere and once in Gulbarga because there was no ground in Bangalore for a long time. The Raja’s ground was under litigation.

Apart from the travelling, what is the most difficult part about setting up a circus when you move to a new city?
I’d say licensing. You have to get upto eight to ten NOCs (No Objection Certificates). Depending on the place, they may even ask for a Pollution NOC. I don’t know what a circus has got to do with pollution. I’m told even cricketers have to produce a Pollution NOC (laughs) in Calcutta. Abroad, in the US and Australia, they give a license for one year. Here, every time we change camps, we have to get a new license. I wish they would change it so that for the whole of Karnataka, we’d get a single license. They can check everything and issue it straight away.

But do you think running a circus is a viable business in the years to come or is it losing out to TV?
No, it loses out to one day cricket matches but it has now become very expensive to run a good circus. Here we charge Rs.100 but in Bangalore we charge Rs.200 per ticket because it’s a bigger city and requires more advertisement and a wider reach. Again if we go below Rs.200, Bangaloreans will think that it’s a lousy circus. Now because of the economic meltdown, if we reduce the price to Rs.150, they say, “Yeh circus achcha nahin hai”. It works psychologically also.

What is the size of your staff?
We have roughly about a hundred people who are permanent and about two hundred who we take on a daily basis wherever we are locally.

Why do Russians come here to join the circus when they have circus companies in their own country?
They can’t make much money there because earlier they were supported by the government. Now that the economies have crashed, they are unable to tour and make money like in the earlier days. For example, Kazakstan is totally dependant on foreign money inflow like Kerala is dependant on NRIs. Their economy is totally dependant on outside remittance and construction. And if they’ve got oil, they are yet to develop it. So there are different reasons why they come here. Some artistes come here on training after they have just graduated from a circus school.

Are the Russian artistes paid differently?
We have an exchange system with them. But we pay them the same as their Indian counterparts, about Rs. 8,500 per month. In Russia, they’d have to wait for four to five years to get an opportunity to perform before a huge audience. Here in India, they get such a chance sooner.

The Russian artistes have gone to a circus school. So do the Indians have a circus school?
We are starting one in Kerala at a cost of Rs. 60 crore, I’m told. We want to start it on a temporary basis.

So the government is starting a school to train circus artistes?
They are going to give us the land and we have to form a committee and run it. Earlier we had circus schools in my home town so all the circuses were from my home town Telicherry and Sangly. Now it’s become a risky business. There are no grounds, bans on using lions and tigers and maybe tomorrow they’ll ban elephants. That’s what animal rights activists are lobbying for.

Everybody wants to talk about animals. Have you had any problems with human rights? Do people come and say you’re not treating your artistes well?
(Laughs) People are more bothered about animals than humans. It’s a sad case. Unless you treat your human resources properly, you will not get trained and equipped artistes and workers. Even the boys who work at the gate need to be trained to handle crowds. Circus is a team work. I don’t claim to run the show. It is team work involving about 250 people together. Workers, housekeepers, mahouts, everybody is involved.

How come most of the artistes are from Nepal? Are they more agile?
They are more agile. There are only three or four places from where we can recruit performers Bengal, Kerala, Maharashtra and Bihar. Now in these places they have a lot of hills, streams, rivers and nature is such that they move around a lot and have a natural athletic ability. We may recruit about fifty or sixty out of which ten may turn out to be really good.

Where do you get your animals from?
Earlier we could buy them. But now we can’t buy the elephant because it is scheduled, nor can we sell or exchange. The rest of them we can buy and sell. They are considered domestic.

Do you feel that the NGOs are right in saying that the animals are harassed?
They want a natural environment for the animals. Is drinking milk natural? Is wearing clothes natural? They come to such drastic conclusions like elephants have to walk for eighteen hours in the jungle. What about Zoos? You can’t have double standards. Even temples should not have elephants then. Why target the circus only? One of the famous Mutts has an injured elephant which no NGO wants to take. They’ve asked the NGOs to take it but they don’t. They want to target someone who is not willing to give up the animal.

I saw a lot of young boys and girls at the circus. Are they here on holiday or are they part of the team?
They are a part of circus.

What about their schooling?
We don’t recruit below the age of 14. Upto 14, there is a compulsory Sarva Shiksha Abhiyaan. The Prime Minister has declared it.

Isn’t the legal age to work 18?
The circus doesn’t come under the Child Labour Act. That is because we are artistes. It’s like making children act in advertisements. It comes under art and sports. We can’t run a parallel school here which is why we don’t keep children under fourteen.

What about the security of the ladies? It’s a camp, it’s an open area?
We have got our own security. We have tough guards so nobody will dare try and act funny. Here in the South, at least the Police are there. In places like Bihar, the Police will not bother; we have to fight our way out.

Since you started the circus, have you been harassed by any officials?
No. Officials are very good to us. There will be NGOs, they are all amateurs. They don’t know about our care and methods. They say we don’t care for our animals. What nonsense. These animals are our bread and butter, why should we ill-treat them? We are the ones looking after our animals for ages. They would’ve gone on the internet or become members of some organisation. Watching National Geographic and Animal Planet doesn’t make you an expert overnight. Actually we can run wildlife awareness camps here instead of going on a collision course with NGOs.

Do you think the circus is going to continue to survive in the coming years?
Live shows will survive but it will become impossible to run very good circuses because costs of running a good show are too high.

Courtesy: Star of Mysore