Rajkamal Talkies, Chirakkuni

Revision as of 21:50, 2 August 2014

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

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

The Rajkamal Talkies at Chirakkuni [used to] house the country's only circus academy. With just nine students one teacher [left in 2014], the school faced 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.

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."

Thalassery is actually the cradle of Indian circus; it 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.

The two set up a circus school in Thalassery in 1888 and over the next century or so it went on to produce some of India's most prized artists. "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.

But all that changed and the academy struggled to find students. Those who are interested are put off by the academy's abysmal state.

Discouraged by the state of affairs, 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.

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.

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.

A 73-year-old former artist agrees. 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.