Circus

The travelling circus party has halted in the city. They did that once in a few years. We lived in the hinterland, the villages. And were really little at that time. I'm talking early '90's. 

Aunties and mother, decided to take us to the city to watch the circus. The men were away at work. Those were the days when old women in the family booked a taxi and went to distant villages and fixed a girl for an uncle in marriage. Such girls then moved into our homes and became our aunties. And also there were vivacious daughters of the family, who were married at nubile ages, to government job holder men, and they were aunties too who visited from the city in summers and winters for respective vacations. 

And both categories of aunties and mother, decided to take the kids to the circus in the city. And there was no stopping. For some reason a taxi was not available. They never were, for immediate bookings. Those were the days when hardly anyone had cars and you had to tell the taxi driver weeks before. So somebody called an auto-rickshaw. Although now, it is difficult to imagine how so many of us fitted into one little auto-rickshaw, but we did. I remember one gigantic auto-rickshaw. The kind, that was probably not manufactured. 

The driver had a potbelly and a mustache. We, packed food in paper packets and water bottles, umbrellas and towels and embarked on the road trip to the city. It was more than fifty kilometres away. And with bad roads, that must have been a lot. A few of the women and children puked on the way. The auto must have been stopped. People must have complained that we would be too late for the circus. But thankfully we made it on time. 

The kids were excited beyond words. Tickets were bought with soiled notes from women who toiled in kitchens and saved money underneath pickle jars. You can't tag a value to such things. 

We got distant seats, but I don't remember regretting. Every show amazed us. The circus was held inside a gigantic tent of sorts. The seating area with rickety steel chairs was dimly lit. The stage had the brightest lights I'd ever seen. As trick after trick was performed by magicians, we, a family of a dozen women and children, huddled together, chatted, giggled and shushed each other. 

Petite little white girls hung from the roof with invisible ropes and relentlessly entertained us with their gymnastic prowess. Even our good old Indian girls did the same but the make up on their faces, outshone the lights. And we were besides ourselves to see white women, in bikinis, we had never seen someone so fair before. 

Animals were called upon. Ill fed tigers and elephants. Jokers who stood on storey high wooden legs hidden inside their pants and the littlest of kids were all wide eyed. 

When the show got over, we were all famished and thirsty and tired. But our pot-bellied auto driver had bailed on us. We looked everywhere, but he had taken an advance for the to and fro journey and left us in the lurch. The women got worried, it had already gotten dark. And there was no telephone to call and inform or get help.

One of mother's half a dozen brothers lived in the city. He was a big shot civil engineer who built bridges. Bridges that mother would show to us every-time we crossed them. How big a man would be, I wondered, who could build such enormous bridges. I realized he a was not that big, when we all sought refuge at his government quarters for the night. They were surprised to host so many and without notice, but what other choice did anyone have. 

The next day, after a visit to the city's big temples, and lunch at a roadside dhaba, the women and children headed back home in a bus.