The Hindu Business Line : Life, and love, at the circus

LIFE is a circus is an old adage that most people, especially married men, would agree on. But a young couple in love gave this adage a whole new meaning on Sunday morning in Pune city.

The couple, 21-year-old Rajlakshmi and 30-year-old Kahnhaiyyalal, have grown up working in various circuses and when Cupid struck and they decided to marry, it was in the presence of their human and animal colleagues, who have shared their highs and lows over the years.

Sunday morning was high excitement at Rambo Circus, which is currently camping at Pune. The Vedic ceremony wedding, which took place before the 11 a.m. first show of the circus, ended with the couple seeking the blessings of the oldest member of the team, an elephant.

Rajalakshmi is an acrobat with the circus while Kanhaiyyalal is a ringmaster for the lions, tigers and chimpanzees.

Part two of the wedding festivities took off in real style after the last show of the circus at 10 p.m., when the entire circus tent rocked to the tunes of the latest chartbusters, with the in-house clown, Russian belly dancers and trapeze artistes, among others, adding oodles of fun and glamour. Over 600 wedding revellers rocked the evening which extended into the wee hours of the morning before it was curtains so that the next day's show could go on.

The newly married couple, incidentally, have been given a week's leave of absence from work and have pushed off on their honeymoon.

Journalist-writer Praveen Valimbe, who has written a book on the world of people who work in circuses, was the master of events at the function and even stepped in to give the bride away in kanyaadan while local priest Sinnarkar Guruji took the couple through the Vedic rituals.

And for those who think this is a bizarre, almost Bollywood-ish story, there's more. Rajalakshmi is actually the infant that circus owner Mr P.T. Dilip found in 1987 when he was in Hyderabad, camping with the mobile amusement and exhibition business that he owned at that point. According to Valimbe, the Dilip couple searched in vain for claimants to the infant girl before they decided to bring her up themselves. The fact that the team was at that point all-male prompted the couple to hand over the little girl to the then Gemini circus owner, Mr Shanker, who brought her till the age of eight.

According to Valimbe, the Dilip couple, in the mean time, acquired Arena, Oriental and Victoria Circuses and set up their own unit, Rambo, at which point they also took back charge of Rajalakhshmi, who started training with the rest of the circus team. Sunday's wedding, incidentally, was almost entirely funded by Dilip's son Sujit.

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Life, and love, at the circus