Kolkata: As homage to jokers, fading circus, this Puja paints the ‘world empty’

Barisha Club’s theme finds a cinematic echo in Raj Kapoor’s Mera Naam Joker (1970), in which the clown makes others laugh while his own heart bleeds.

“That’s the truth of today’s performers: once stars of the ring, now reduced to empty chairs in empty galleries,” said artist Manash Das, who designed this year’s pandal.

As audiences dwindled, animal acts were banned, costs rose and digital entertainment replaced live shows. Many performers who once earned their livelihood juggling, flying on trapezes or confronting wild beasts were forced to leave the ring; some became daily-wage workers or petty traders. The jokers remain symbols of a fading art, their painted smiles masking loneliness and hardship.

“Their stage is gone, their laughter echoes in empty galleries, and their world, too, has become “shunno prithibi,” said Das.

At Barisha Club’s Durga Puja in south Kolkata (Express/Partha Paul)

Barisha Club captures this loss in stark symbolism. At the entrance a truck, the very vehicle that once carried circuses from town to town, greets visitors. The pandal is modelled not on the glamorous front of a circus tent but on its neglected backstage: messy ropes, scattered props and unfinished sets reveal what is normally hidden from the public eye.

“Everyone sees the colours and lights, but nobody notices how messed up it is at the back,” Das said. “When the stage is ready, our struggle is overshadowed by the spectacle.”

The club draws a subtle link with mythology as well. Just as Ganesh is different from humans yet loved and cherished, jokers too are set apart by painted faces and exaggerated costumes; they may stand apart, but they are still deeply valued for the joy they bring. The metaphor reinforces the idea that difference does not erase worth.

By naming the theme “Shunno Prithibi,” Barisha Club asks visitors to look beyond the spectacle. Empty chairs in circus galleries stand for more than lost entertainment: they symbolise the emptiness that comes when people lose their livelihoods. For performers who once dazzled under the tent, that loss meant a loss of identity; their painted smiles, like the unfinished bamboo and cloth of the pandal, hide long stories of toil and sacrifice.

“As the festival lights up Kolkata, the pandal becomes more than a space of worship; it becomes a mirror, asking visitors to remember those whose lives are hidden in the shadows,” Das said. Just as the circus once thrilled Bengal with tigers, trapezes and jokers, Barisha Club hopes this Durga Puja will provoke reflection, that behind every performance, whether in a ring or a pandal, unseen hands and silent struggles hold it all together.

(Anisha Ghosh is an intern at the Kolkata office of The Indian Express)

From the homepage

‘Time to decriminalise all this’: Supreme Court signals rethink on criminal defamation

‘Unfortunate’: SC slams reports suggesting ‘pilot error’ led to Air India crash, issues notice on plea seeking independent probe

As GST 2.0 kicks in: what changes for consumers and industry