The circus is in town

What immediately came to mind was my recent brush with the circus made under duress to keep a beloved nephew smiling. The circus is in town, he chortled, skipping in and out of the house and eager to see how it would hold up to his imagination. I knew what was high on his mind, of course.

Galliano’s Circus, featured in a few of his favourite books by Enid Blyton. A circus where animals and human beings were all for one and one for all. Where a snake might be put on show, but was ultimately part of the family and was draped around the neck lovingly. Where big cats loved their ringmaster and hopped on to their stools as soon as he bade them to do so. Where tiger cubs were domesticated pets who readily accepted tasty titbits from your hand.

After wading through this bookish circus, reality hits you hard. Circuses all over might like to perpetuate the “good for animals” theory, but nothing can take away from the fact that these very animals, which bring their owners bread and butter and are affectionately termed hamare bachche, have it bad. Think about it, day in and day out these beasts from the wild are kept behind bars. Drugged, they are taken from town to town in miserly cages that can barely accommodate them. After all that, they are made to perform acts that are unnatural to them. And no matter how hard circus owners try to feed you the story about circuses being breeding grounds, facts indicate otherwise. For animals rarely breed under such traumatic conditions. The entertainment that circuses offer might liven up your Sunday evening, but it also leads to an increase in the animal trade.

Circuses in no way help conserve, they merely denude and also provide us with a lop-sided and damaged view of wildlife. What kind of joy is there in watching helpless animals struggle through desperate situations? It’s like the Spanish eulogising their bullfights, and resting all reason at tradition’s doorstep. Like bettors putting forward defences for pitting birds against each other and making money as the winged ones peck each other to death. Or else watching confined birds look out of their cages desperately seeking a little bit of the blue beyond to flap their wings.

The basic fact remains the same animals being caged and used to provide us “superior beings” with pleasure and entertainment. Wild animals are protected under the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. And yet, most of the animals that are made to perform be they lions, tigers, bears, monkeys, birds or elephants are endangered species that come under Schedule I of the Act. However, the law takes its own course, just as the circus charts its own. And the show goes on.