Jumbo Circus in Chennai is a whole other experience compared to Jumbo Circus in non-city/ rural places. I watched the performances in Nagercoil (rural India) 5 years back and I have watched the performances in Chennai city two weeks back. Surprisingly, the former was way better than the latter! I imagined the opposite, why? Chennai has become an overly commercialized place with too many malls, expensive food joints, and crowded and polluted beaches that people are bored of so there would be a lot of people interested in going and watching and it's been 5 years too.
Weekend? Yay! What can we do?
Go to the mallllll.. where else in this heat?😐
Photo credits: starofmysore.com
So when I saw the Jumbo circus posters everywhere in the city, behind the auto walas (tuk tuk) and on the city walls, I thought to myself, "hmm... let's do THAT this weekend. It will be fun, especially for my kid. And they are probably gonna perform better in the city, right?" Oh ho! how I was SO wrong!
How it started
We took the expensive ticket, cuz that's front row seats. We got in on time and clicked some photos with the giant animal figures outside. Then the circus started. It was no different than the one I saw in my hometown about 5 years back. The speaker welcomed the audience and began to announce the act that was to be performed. The seating arrangements were congested. There were standing fans kept in the ends of every two rows, and speaker boxes at the end of every 4 rows. If you are sitting next to the fan- you have the best seat, and next to the speaker is the worst. There are snack sellers who come in between blocking your vision selling popcorn, ice cream, and sodas. The fans would go off at times when there was a fire act or balancing act.
The Acts
The acts were something similar to things I would do when I'm alone at home. There was lifting of heavy kettlebells, some cycling, some balancing tricks, some juggling, the iconic throwing of spoons with the leg into the saucers balanced on the head, some stunt inside of giant cylindrical object nothing new which we haven't already watched in the Sivaji movie (reference to a famous Rajnikanth movie fight scenes shot on top of trains, and use of props that were seen in this circus).
Disappointment 1- There were helpers who would tighten the ropes or just be there to catch them in case someone slipped and fell. These helpers were not dressed well, they were all different wearing random unbuttoned shirts and rolled-up pants. They would stand right there along with the stuntmen looking as if they just finished planting paddy in the fields nearby.
Disappointment 2- The grand finale act was the swinging act. The stuntmen swing and leap from one end to the other. Knowing how physics works, it wasn't out of the world impressive. Moreover, they were not dressed like the finale act. The finale swinging act was all men in white body suits wearing red underpants.
No acts caught the awe of the audience but we had to sit through it since we paid the money and didn't know how our grievances would be handled. The acts are more relevant to the 1990s and haven't changed a bit. I had a feeling that it was way better 5 years back when I watched in Nagercoil. My baby slept halfway through the show and it was difficult to handle him as he wanted to crawl and move cuz the show was blah.
Overall, don't go guys. Not worth the price. Don't be fooled by the tent. Let's encourage good and better artists and keep our stakes high.
I wonder why the circus hasn't developed through these years? I mean they charge a pretty high price for the tickets. Then why is it still the same old same old? Is there any politics under the covers? What am I missing?
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