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Journalism of Courage
How does a circus artist entertain very young children who are not impressed with dramatic lights or charmed by flying trapeze artists? For Sujit Dilip, owner of Rambo Circus, the solution came during the pause offered by the pandemic.
Rambo Circus has introduced an act, in which performers on stilts enact roles of 10-12ft giraffes, zebras and polar bears. Pune will watch the new performances in spring, when Rambo Circus pitches its tents in the city. Crucially, the innovation fills the gap left in Rambo when it gave up its team of performing animals, especially 28 lions and two tigers, in the 1990s after animals were banned in circuses.
“A circus means animals and acrobats. Animals had been missing for many years. The acts are fun, with clowns coming in to perform tricks with the animals. We have worked on a lot of ideas and concepts for this,” says Sujit, whose father PT Dilip started Rambo Circus by merging Erina circus, the Great Oriental Circus and the Victoria Circus in 1991. Rambo Circus is performing in Mumbai, where children are loving the people enacting the animals.
“The pain that we felt when we heard that the lions and tigers that had been taken away from us had died in a zoo within six months cannot be lessened, but we are keeping the circus going. We were aware that we were not being able to entertain children aged between one and five because they did not know what was happening. Mostly, the children would start crying,” said Sujit.
“Now that we have animal acts, though these are humans in costume, it looks realistic to children and they are mesmerised. My motto has always been to include entire families and we could not leave out small children,” he said.
Rambo Circus has several collaborations with circuses in countries such as Russia, Ukraine, the UK and Uzbekistan. The exposure has helped Rambo Circus adopt new methods and technologies.
While acrobats used to walk in heavy stilts earlier, they now have aluminium pipes that are lightweight. Jugglers also have silicon clubs that are easy to use. “We are trying our best to raise our goals and reach international standards. We have a dream to carry the Indian flag in international festivals,” says Sujit.
