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Rajkamal Talkies Kerals.com

Sources

Rajkamal Talkies Photo: Manorama Online

i) The Circus Has Left the Town

Indian Express Karthikkrishnaswamy : New Delhi, Sun Oct 20 2013

ii) Show can't go on: India's only circus school in Kannur to shut

The Times of India P Sudhakaran,TNN | Aug 3, 2014

iii) Country’s first circus academy to be opened

New Indian Express / Express News Service /Jul 30, 2010 Updated: May 16, 2012

iv) Thalassery to get circus academy

Press Trust of India

v) Circus - down, but not out

Nitha S V, Manorama Online October 9, 2013

The Circus Academy

A national institution in trouble

The Rajkamal Talkies at Chirakkuni houses the country's only circus academy. With just nine students one teacher [left in 2014], the school faces closure.

The Rajkamal Talkies at Chirakkuni, a sleepy village near Thalassery, in Kannur district, houses the country's only circus academy. 'Academy' is a euphemism for the crumbling structure — the tiles fell off the roof long ago, and there are signs of neglect everywhere.

Thalassery and the circus

Thalassery in Kannur district in north Kerala is the birth place of the Indian circus education. (Circus itself was born in what is now Maharashtra.)

The roots of the circus in Thalassery run deep.

Circus historian Champad says, "In 1887, Chhatre's circus stopped at Thalassery. Keeleri Kunhikannan, a gymnastics instructor at the Basel Evangelical Mission Parsi School, watched Chhatre's show and with his help set up a circus academy in Thalassery.

This south Indian coastal town, which still bears symbols of the British colonial rule, is chosen since the region has produced most the Indian circus artistes for over a century.

Thalassery churned out some of India's finest acrobats, jugglers and trapeze artists. There is a reason for this. The town was a British outpost and saw circus shows much before the rest of India. Great Indian Circus, set up in Bombay in 1880 by an enthusiast, Vishnu Pant Chhatre, had travelled to Thalassery. The pioneer met Keeleri Kunhikannan, a gym instructor and kalaripayattu wizard, at the local Basel Evangelical Mission School and was impressed by his skills.

Keeleri Kunhikkannan, a gymnast and martial art expert who lived in Thalassery in early 20th century, is considered as the father of Kerala circus.

Circus training school in Chirakkara, near Kollam

Vishnu Pant Chhatre and Kunhikkannan, a martial arts teacher, set up a circus school in Thalassery [Tellicherry] in 1888 and over the next century or so it went on to produce some of India's most prized artists. {Nitha S V, Manorama Online and The Hindu give the year when the school was set up as 1901.)

Prominent among the first students of the school were Pariyali Kannan, Irimban Kannari, Kunnath Yeshoda and Vendi Madhavi. There started the glory of Kerala circus.

Exit from poverty

In the olden times, there was a basic reason to join a circus- other than being a means to earn one's bread, circus was a refuge for those who had lost the colours of their life or to whom life was exceptionally harsh.

"There were few jobs those days. When circus offered employment, people jumped at the opportunity," says Gemini Sankaran, the 94-year-old owner of Jumbo and Gemini circus companies.

Circuses can also reveal the history of unlucky artists who join a company with hopes of reviving their lives only to make an untimely rendezvous with death.

Most of the prominent artists in Thalassery started their life with a Rs.50-per-month salary in Kolkata.

Prema, an artist with Jumbo Circus for 25 years [1960-85] and who hails from Thalassery, says, " I had started my circus career when I was 10 years old. It was in 1960. My father was sick and mother died in 1966. The one and only motive for me in life was to find out a way to get out of poverty. In early days, we had to sign a five-year agreement with circus managers before joining his company. We have already suffered a lot of hardships and I would never force my children to take a circus career. Now, my daughter is studying for graduation and my son is working in the Army. However, I can’t forget our pure relations and disciplined atmosphere in the circus camp. We learnt the lessons of warm affection and pure love through our companions. Still we keep those relations. I got all my wealth, house etc through the circus career.”

Students set up own comapnies

Some of Kunhikannan's students joined the Great Indian Circus, others set up circuses themselves — Malabar Grand, Grand Fairy and so on. All of them recruited from Thalassery and nearby villages"

Kamala Three Ring Circus needs a special mention here as what started humble went on to become a giant American-style six-pole three-ring circus, first of its kind in Asia. It is not without reason that Kunhikannan is called as the Father of Indian Circus, many of his students (Eg: Kannan Bombayo) gained international fame apart from becoming entrepreneurs.

By the '40s and '50s, Thalassery had become the circus capital of the country. "Of the 50 or so circuses in India then, 40 were from this area. Ninety per cent of all circus artistes in India were from here," says Champad. Even now, Thalassery is home to a majority of India's circus companies. "Of the 10 or 12 major circuses in India, seven are based in the Thalassery-Kannur belt," says Champad.

But the conveyor belt that produced artistes slowed down in the 1970s and nearly ground in the 21st century.

Sreedharan Champad: trapeze artiste, historian

In 1956, Sreedharan Champad joined the Great Rayman circus as a clerk and eventually, became a trapeze artiste. Having spent half a decade soaking in the atmosphere of the big tops, he went on to write about it in five Malayalam novels and numerous short stories. He's also written a history of world circus in Malayalam and a soon-to-be-published history of Indian circus in English, An Album of Big Tops.

2010: The government sets up the academy

The Circus Academy, the first of its kind in the country, started functioning on August 2 2010. The Old Rajkamal Talkies at Chirakkuni in Dharmadam was to be its temporary home.

Initially, 20 students were to be admitted to the academy for training, on the basis of a selection test held in Thalassery on July 31 2010.The academy planned to offer a course of four years of studies and training, in addition to specialised training for one year. Those who successfully complete the course were expected to be absorbed by Indian and foreign circus companies.

The syllabus for the course was prepared by experts in the circus industry.

A 14-member committee with District Collector as chairman and; State Sports Council; president as vice-chairman; controlled the functioning of the academy. About 10 acres were earmarked for setting up the permanent facilities for the Circus Academy at Kundoormala.; The process for acquisition of land began. The academy was to be shifted to Kundoormala on the completion of the construction work.

The building

The building is dark, save for the evening light peeping through the doors. In front of one of them, a pair of lithe silhouettes contort themselves into impossible shapes on a foam mat. Across the room, four children perform double somersaults on another mat.

Three of the building's walls are covered in acoustic panels. The fourth is dominated by a large white screen ripped at one edge, where it has come untethered. This building in Chirakkuni, a village near Thalassery in Kerala's Kannur district, used to be Rajkamal Talkies. In 2010, the state government converted it into a circus academy.

Poor planning, no curriculum

Sreedharan Champad, a former circus artist and also a fiction writer whose stories are set in circus tents, says the mess is the result of setting up the academy without proper planning. The academy never had a curriculum or a time bound schedule for training. Children training here are studying at local schools and only come in for some workout in the morning and evening. They are not monitored for progress.

Potential artistes dwindle, especially Keralite

India’s first circus academy focussed on revival of the dying art in the new context that prohibits putting wildlife on show and stricter human rights and child norms.

A former artist (born in 1940) says that life in the tent was enjoyable and thrilling and allowed artists to have a decent life, she said. But they didn't want their children to follow in their footsteps, she adds.

"Most girls in the circus — and girls form the backbone of the industry — came from poor families with several children," Champad adds. "In the '70s, there was emphasis on family planning. There was money from the Gulf and from construction jobs. Before that, there were few educational institutions here. Now, every village has schools and colleges. People wanted their kids to get an education and not work in the circus."

Conditions within circuses also meant that artistes grabbed the exit option whenever they found one. "If your career ends with an injury, there is little support. The Kerala government provides a pension to artistes with 15 years of experience. In Russia, every circus item has a fixed salary and that is given as pension in case an artiste is injured," says Champad.

"There were also a lot of harassment cases against proprietors from the '30s onwards. In response, the proprietors started hiring artistes from other places, mainly Nepal or eastern states such as Bengal and Bihar," says Champad. This is borne out at the Chirakunni circus academy. Of the 10 children who train there, four are siblings from Thiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, three are from Bengal, one from Bihar, one from Assam and one from Nepal.

"For the last 30 years, children from the area haven't been taking it up as a career," says PM Ramanathan, one of the coaches at the academy. Ramanathan himself was an artiste at the Gemini circus, but realised that he needed to get out if he wanted to secure his future. "In 1983, I became an auto driver. I wanted my children to study," he says.

None of his children are in the circus. "One son is in Qatar, and another is working for a Birla-owned company in Kannur," he says. "My daughter is in Kannur, working for AIR."

In this, he says his family is typical. "Nobody wants their children to suffer those hardships anymore," he says. "When artistes come here from outside, they get Rs 500-600 a day. Locals get Rs 3,000-4,000 a month. Why would anyone want that?"

The academy belies expectations

Local residents also realised that the initial promise of the academy was fizzling out. At first, the cinema hall was only meant to be a temporary home for the academy.

"The government had acquired 10 acres in Kundoor Mala and planned to move the academy there," says Ramanathan. "They were supposed to have cycling, swimming and other sports, too. Nothing has happened so far."

Facilities at the academy remain minimal. "The kids can't get trained for the trapeze as we don't have the equipment. All we have are mats and trampolines," says Ramanathan. "Even these were donated by the SAI centre."

In 1990, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) set up a Special Area Games centre for gymnastics in Thalassery. Its aim was to tap children from circus families for their gymnastic talent. It seemed a good idea, but Thalassery wasn't a circus hotbed anymore. The story of the SAI centre over the next two decades is also a tale of the region's waning circus culture.

At the start, the centre catered only to children from circus families. In 1997, SAI opened it to children from all backgrounds. In 2000, they introduced basketball, and added fencing, volleyball and athletics a year later.

Sportspersons produced by the academy

A SAI newsletter published on the centre's 23rd anniversary contains some revealing facts. Plenty of space is devoted to Mayookha Johny, the biggest name to have emerged from the centre. Johny holds the triple jump national record and won an Asian Grand Prix bronze in 2010. But she's from Kozhikode.

The centre's fencing wing, which draws talent from all over the country, has won 13 of the 18 international medals that the centre has bagged, and 17 of its 38 graduates have represented India. Gymnastics has produced no international medals.

M Shinoj is the only gymnast from the centre to represent India. He took part in the 2009 World Championships in London and at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou. Shinoj was nine when he joined the first batch and 18 when he left after landing a navy job.

Shinoj, both of whose parents were trapeze artistes, was exactly the kind of talent that SAI was looking for when it set up the centre. But he remains a lonely poster boy.

"Yes, the centre has produced only two-three medals in gymnastics and that too at the national level," says Manikant Sharma, assistant director, SAI. "But we've managed to broad-base the sport beyond the circus families. Maybe in a few more years, we'll see some good talent emerge."

The government gives up

The air of gloom around the building is a reflection of the state of circus in the country. With just nine children for students — they all belong to circus families from Nepal, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu — and only one teacher, the school has been whittling down.

"When it opened in August 2010, we had great expectations from it. The plan was to admit 20 students in a batch and develop the academy into an institution of global standards," says M P Velayudhan, CEO of the academy. "However, even after four years not even a single student joined from Kerala."

Because the academy struggled to find students, the authorities, in principle, decided to close down the academy. The government spent over Rs 90,000 a month on running it in 2014. The proposal to invest in 10 acres of land to build a permanent campus in neighbouring Kundoor Mala, as planned earlier, too makes little sense now. Without a clear picture about its future government cannot proceed with the proposal to build a permanent campus. Another proposal to integrate the academy with the sports complex being set up in Mundayad in Kannur too did not take off.

Unpaid salaries

A former circus artiste and the only instructor at the academy, says that salaries haven't been paid for the past 16 months. Fed up, two of his colleagues left. "How can you groom children without any equipment and just one instructor?" he asks.