Munnar had one extra compensation for me: a touring Indian Circus! In Beijing in October we all saw the Acrobats, and Melissa and I saw an evening of Opera-style acts at a tea-house, although Rosa and Mo's hoped-for reviews never appeared here.
Flashback to Beijing Opera and Acrobats
The Acrobats were very impressive and spectacular, and there were a number of ideas to be pinched for future Coventry Community Circus productions also ...
We'd hoped to see a whole short Opera, and the revue of Opera-related oddments we saw wasn't the same, but it certainly had its moments, and the unlimited green tea and lots of little interesting snacks in with the ticket price was an unexpected bonus. And the conjuror had a great line of tricks with live fish, too.
An Indian Touring Circus
The Shakti Girnar Circus was a whole different class of spectacle. Touring circus does not make people rich quickly in the UK, but at least most performers can afford to re-paint their props occasionally.
The poverty really struck home for me: nonetheless, the circus family or families were very friendly, and keen for me to take lots of photos and post them on to them.
Once the show started, however, it was clear that the young women performers were not having such a good time. Their costumes weren't particularly revealing by Western standards, but in Kerala they looked like they felt very humiliated by them. They were also the most skilled members of the troupe, despite most of the photos below being of blokes: I decided not to photograph most of the contortionist, trapeze and hoop-spinning acts, for example, as the women did not look like they would enjoy some gora firing off his flash at them in their frilly swimsuits.
As well as some highly skilled young women, and very lovable clowns, the circus also had the best goat-tightrope-walk finale I've seen in a long time.
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