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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.

The Art of the (Middle East) Deal

Though elected on an isolationist promise, President Trump’s Middle East doctrine has alarmed MAGA purists by embracing strength and strategic entanglement.

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Within hours of bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities in Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, Trump, with characteristic bombast, declared victory and called for peace, while warning both Iran and Israel to respect his unilateral ceasefire. The so-called ‘12-day war’ ended leaving Trump’s anti-interventionist supporters in ideological freefall.


For a man elected to end forever wars, a careful examination shows that Trump’s Middle East doctrine has proven anything but isolationist. The Iran strikes disappointed the MAGA faithful, sending many of Trump’s supporters into paroxysms of rage.


Trump is willing to engage in short, kinetic bursts of action to secure national interests. His administration has certainly renounced the liberal interventionism that followed the Cold War, which was protracted, expensive and morally freighted, and replaced it with a doctrine of calibrated unilateralism. Each strike is a show of force and each threat a test of nerve in this Trumpian doctrine.


Trump’s Middle East doctrine marks a clear departure from his predecessors. Whereas George W. Bush pursued grand ideological crusades in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Barack Obama sought to recalibrate American influence through diplomacy and multilateralism, Trump has favoured coercive pragmatism.


The clearest example remains Trump’s 2020 assassination of Qasem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful general and regional powerbroker. Where conventional politicians might have balked at killing a sovereign state's top commander, Trump pressed the button. “To terrorists who harm or intend to harm any American, we will find you; we will eliminate you,” he said, before issuing a warning to Tehran: “We are ready and prepared to take whatever action is necessary.”


Trump has weaponised economic coercion with the same theatrical style. In 2019, when Turkey launched an offensive against America’s Kurdish allies in Syria, Trump responded by threatening to “destroy” the Turkish economy, imposed sanctions on officials, hiked tariffs and dispatched Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo to Ankara. Within two weeks, a ceasefire was brokered. Sanctions were lifted and American forces withdrew.


The same playbook was deployed over the fate of Andrew Brunson, an American pastor imprisoned in Turkey. When President Erdoğan refused to release him despite a diplomatic quid pro quo, Trump imposed Magnitsky sanctions, doubled tariffs on Turkish metals and tanked the lira. Erdoğan eventually yielded.


If coercion is the stick, recognition is the carrot. On a surprise visit to Riyadh in May this year, Trump, to the shock and surprise of many, announced the end of American sanctions on Syria, now under new leadership of Ahmed al-Sharaa, once the commander of Jabhat al-Nusra - al-Qaeda’s Syrian franchise. “It’s their time to shine,” Trump declared.


What binds these episodes together is Trump’s rejection of post-9/11 orthodoxy. In 2017, he declared America would “no longer use military might to construct democracies in faraway lands.” He praised the Gulf states for charting their own course while criticizing erstwhile American regimes for having wasted trillions in Baghdad.


Trump’s message, in this sense, has remained consistent, if not always comfortable for his most ardent backers. His decision not to immediately withdraw from Afghanistan early in his presidency earned him scorn from Breitbart, a longtime cheerleader.


Still, he has largely governed as he promised - not by retreating, but by refusing to remake the world in America’s image.


This doctrine has delivered episodic wins on Trump’s terms but limitations are evident in his struggle to contain more complex conflicts. Despite lofty rhetoric and arm-twisting, Trump has failed to bring either the Gaza war or the Russia-Ukraine conflict to heel. Allies may chafe and MAGA purists may grumble, but for Trump, projecting power remains the proof, and not the contradiction of ‘America First.’

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