top of page

By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

Thrills, roars and cheers under a giant marquee

Rambo Circus pitches a tent in MMR Mumbai : Mumbaikars are thronging to rediscover the joys of stunning, live entertainment as the familiar Rambo Circus has pitched a tent in Borivali West, before it shifts to Navi Mumbai from December 2.   This is billed as the first major full-scale season post-Covid-19 pandemic, which had led to a near washout of shows owing to social-distancing norms and public fears. The tent is now attracting a strong public response, said Rambo Circus Director and...

Thrills, roars and cheers under a giant marquee

Rambo Circus pitches a tent in MMR Mumbai : Mumbaikars are thronging to rediscover the joys of stunning, live entertainment as the familiar Rambo Circus has pitched a tent in Borivali West, before it shifts to Navi Mumbai from December 2.   This is billed as the first major full-scale season post-Covid-19 pandemic, which had led to a near washout of shows owing to social-distancing norms and public fears. The tent is now attracting a strong public response, said Rambo Circus Director and owner Sujit Dilip.   “We get good crowds on weekends and holidays, but weekdays are still a struggle. Our fixed expenses are around Rs. One Crore per month. Costs have gone up nearly ten times on all fronts in the last five years, and the 18% GST is killing. We manage around 1,500 shows annually, but barely break even, with wafer-thin margins,” said Dilip, 50.   The logistics alone are staggering. Rambo Circus travels across India with an 80-member troupe of acrobats, aerialists, sword balancers, jugglers, jokers, rigging crews, support staff, massive equipment, and a few mechanical animals.   “Many of my people have spent their entire lives under the tent. We live like a huge family. I try to support their children’s education, medical needs and help them build some financial stability. But without resources, it is becoming increasingly difficult,” said Dilip, his voice weary after decades of struggle for survival.   He reminisced of the golden era of Indian circus, around the second half of the last century, when there were many grand, full-scale circuses, but today barely half a dozen professional setups remain - Gemini, Golden, Ajanta, Asian, Great Bombay, and Rambo - along with a few smaller, local outfits.   “Unlike most countries where circuses come under the Cultural Ministry, India offers no institutional identity or support. I am invited as a jury member to several top annual international circus festivals. I feel sad as not a single Indian artist features on global stages. We just have no backing here,” Dilip told The Perfect Voice in a free-wheeling chat.   He said the decline accelerated after the ban on live animal performances nearly 20 years ago in India. In contrast, many foreign circuses still feature elephants, horses, bears, zebras, llamas, tigers, leopards, lions, and exotic birds - though most face heavy resistance from animal-rights groups.   “Moreover, ticket rates in India are among the lowest in the world, without tax concessions. In foreign circuses, even in smaller countries, tickets start at Rs 10,000 per head. We can’t dare match that…” he rued.   Yet, the thirst to lure audiences remains undiminished. Rambo Circus now leans on technology and innovation, featuring a mechanical elephant, a giraffe on stilts, stuffed zebras, deer, bears and horses, and has commissioned a Japanese company to design a robotic lion to perform tricks.   To make the shows more interactive, MoC – a tall senior joker – invites the young audience members into the ring to try small acts like skipping, jumping, or dancing with help from the midget clowns, and the kids’ shrieks of joy echo through the tent, as their parents furiously click videos and selfies.   Dilip recalled that during the pandemic lockdown, when survival seemed impossible, Rambo Circus pioneered online ticketed shows, selling nearly 50,000 virtual tickets - the highest among circuses worldwide at that time, and earned praise by international peers.   “We are swimming alone… For us, it’s not just entertainment. It is art, heritage, livelihood, identity, and passion - and we will fight for a dignified existence,” Dilip said quietly.   Rambo Circus’ emotional tug at PM’s heart Rambo Circus Director and owner Sujit Dilip appealed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to help save this art form with a huge potential to generate jobs, discover talents, earn massive revenues and foreign exchange.   “We urge the PM and ICCR to give Indian circuses a formal status, affordable venues for our shows, extend bank loans, opportunities for skill-upgradation, foreign collaborations and inclusion under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs’ CSR list. Many corporates wish to help, but current rules prevent it,” Dilip told The Perfect Voice .   He recalled how, during Covid-19, Rambo Circus launched online shows and sold nearly 50,000 tickets, proving the potential of Indian circus talent and earning acclaim worldwide for his innovation. “Our dream is to make India’s circuses world-class, and we need government support to achieve this,” he said.   History of circuses – Roman Arenas to open maidans The name ‘circus’ had its origins in ancient Rome, where chariot races, gladiator clashes, displays/deadly fights between wild animals and condemned humans enraptured audiences in huge open arenas. Later, circuses began modestly in 1768 with horse tricks performed by Philip Astley, a London cavalryman. Then, came the modern version of live performances by horses/ponies in the US in 1793, and in the 1830s, wild animals were introduced.   Many Hollywood films featured circuses as the backdrop. The most memorable ones are: Charlie Chaplin’s “The Circus” (1928); Walt Disney’s “Dumbo’ (1941); Cecile B. DeMille’s 2 Oscar Award-winning “The Greatest Show on Earth” (1952); biopic on P.T. Barnum “The Greatest Showman” (2017), et al.   Bollywood’s own legendary ringside acts were in films like Raj Kapoor’s “Mera Naam Joker” (1970); “Chandralekha” (1948); “Appu Raja” (1989); “Circus Queen” (1959); “Shikari” (1991); “Dhoom 3” (2013); and the howlarious circus climax in Firoz A. Nadiadwala’s “Phir Hera Pheri” (2006), etc.

Opportunistic Embrace

Trump’s lavish welcome for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman lays bare a US–Saudi partnership driven by deals in billions of dollars and a blind eye to murder.

President Donald Trump meets Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump meets Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s return to Washington this week - his first since Jamal Khashoggi’s murder in 2018 - was choreographed with all the extravagance of a state visit. President Donald Trump welcomed him to the White House with military trimmings, smiles and a flourish of flags. It was, in every sense, a political theatre of indulgence as Saudi Arabia and the United States renewed an alliance rooted less in shared values than in a frank, transactional opportunism.


The Crown Prince arrived armed with eye-catching promises. Saudi investment in the United States, he announced, would jump from $600bn to nearly $1trn - an extraordinary pledge at a moment when America is hungry for foreign capital. The two sides are also preparing agreements spanning defence, nuclear energy and a high-profile purchase of US-made F-35 fighter jets. The White House under Trump’s second term is eager to present this as proof of revitalised American leadership and economic clout. Riyadh sees it as a way to expand influence in Washington while diversifying its own strategic dependencies.


But awkward moments ensued when reporters pressed the Crown Prince on the most sensitive scars in the relationship: the 9/11 attacks and the 2018 assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. MBS insisted, as he has done for years, that Osama bin Laden, himself a Saudi national, intended the September 11th attacks to rupture US-Saudi relations, and that anyone questioning Riyadh’s commitment to counterterrorism was helping to fulfil bin Laden’s goal. The families of victims, furious at his presence in the Oval Office, were unmoved. America’s intelligence agencies, too, have been clear that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens, and the kingdom’s export of extremist ideology in earlier decades created fertile ground for bin Laden’s rise.


On Khashoggi, the Crown Prince offered little beyond familiar denials. More extraordinary was Trump’s intervention. Sitting beside MBS, the president dismissed the CIA’s 2018 conclusion that the Crown Prince personally ordered the journalist’s murder. Khashoggi, Trump airily declared, had been “extremely controversial.” “Things happen,” he added, absolving his guest with a shrug that would have been unthinkable for any previous American president.


But the logic underpinning this performance was entirely consistent. For Trump, the opportunist salesman, the moral cost of overlooking a murder is outweighed by the prospect of lucrative business. Saudi Arabia already holds significant investments in the Trump family’s orbit, including the $2bn handed by Riyadh’s sovereign wealth fund to Jared Kushner’s private equity firm. A Trump Tower and a Trump Plaza are planned for Jeddah; two more projects are scheduled for Riyadh.


For MBS, the United States remains the indispensable security provider in the Gulf, the backbone of the Saudi military and the political guarantor Riyadh turns to in moments of regional crisis. By dangling vast investments and weapons deals before an American president keen to claim economic victories, MBS can demand concessions while signalling that Saudi Arabia has alternatives from Chinese investment to Russian coordination on oil markets.


The geopolitical context makes the embrace even more revealing. In the past, the United States has tolerated Saudi excesses from the oil embargo of 1973 to decades of Wahhabi proselytisation. The Middle East is again in flux: wars in Gaza and Yemen, shifting alignments in the Gulf and a global scramble for energy security. Washington needs stable partners as it focuses more of its attention on Asia. Riyadh wants strategic autonomy while still benefiting from America’s military umbrella. The result is a relationship in which both sides privately distrust each other, yet publicly cling to the fiction of strategic harmony.


The opportunism that sustains the US-Saudi alliance may be unseemly, but it offers flexibility in an unstable world. What neither side can admit openly is that this flexibility is precisely what makes the partnership both resilient and perpetually fragile - a bargain held together by a mutual willingness to look away when inconvenient truths intrude.

Comments

bottom of page