Photo features about 'box-cinema' are occasionally published in the news media. These so-called film shows have nothing to do with dark auditoriums, wide screens and projectors. All the 'cinema-wallahs' --- 'bioscope-wallahs' in many rural areas, would require a wooden or tin-made 5 to 6-foot rectangular box. The one-man 'cinema screening' would have a low bench in front of the box having 5 to six viewing holes fitted with magnifying glass. Now, how the show would run? The lone 'cinema-wallah', holding a 'jhunjhuni' and singing a rhyme, in fact a running commentary on the still photographs appearing before the viewers one after another, would be behind the screenings. The secret of the 'projection' is the photo-pasted glossy paper roll, which the operator would make move round its iron stand stuck in the middle. The show-time used to last for five to seven minutes. It's also worth mentioning that at times a few curious and fun-loving rural women were also once found among the child and teenage cinema watchers.
Through the passage of time, these shows have long disappeared. Except at the city-based fairs showcasing the rural child entertainments of the bygone days, these bioscopes are veritably found nowhere. The mobile or smart phone-hooked rural children care little for these 'childish' cinemas. It hasn't been too long ago, when school-bunking rural teenage boys would be seen going in hordes to the nearest theatres to watch the conventional movies. With the start of picking the habit of watching real sound movies in the dark cinemas, the 'bioscope-wallahs' began experiencing bad times for their trade.
So much for the so-called bioscope shows. Average Bangladesh villages and pockets of the smaller cities once were used to the circus parties staying in certain neighbourhoods for weeks. Unlike with the child audiences, the circus shows would stir excitement-layered enthusiasm among the young male adults. The secret was the inevitable presence of lithesome women gymnasts alongside their male associates at the entertainments. Their breathtaking acrobatic performances used to draw scores of male circus fans to the mostly afternoon shows. There are few people who do not like circus shows. Watching young women and adolescent girls, clad in skin tight trousers and full-sleeve shirts, doing trapeze stunts, walking over a long rope balancing them with a pole or a few hanging in a group vertically from the top of the tent's ceiling is a spectacle indeed. The acrobatic items performed in a circus are more or less similar. There are not much difference between the skill and the extent of courage shown by the participants, be they are done by a Chinese, Russian or American or Bangladeshi circus men and women. Universally, there will be weirdly dressed clowns having a grotesque and gaudy facial make-up at all circus shows. Without their antics a circus never comes alive and fun-filled.
Circus was introduced in the sub-continent --- Bengal in particular, by the British colonial businesses. It was a money minting enterprise. In course of time, when the British rulers' economic power was at the height of its glitz, several native companies of circus began emerging one after another. They followed the style of the popular 'jatra' companies engaged in competitions to win more spectators than their rivals. As part of their techniques, the introduced light songs rendered by a typical group of singers. These female singers used to sing and dance on the dais made in the middle of the open-air venue. Normally, these entertainments would be punched into the main performance three times --- one in the beginning, one during the intermission, and the last one after the end of the otherwise loud music-filled high-pitched dramas.
In the Bengal cities, especially in Kolkata and Dhaka, the circus party known as 'Kamala Circus' emerged as one of the most popular circus in the 1920s and the thirties. The talkies (sound films) had not yet started pulling audiences into the newly built movie theatres. Thus circuses, 'jatra' operettas, 'Kobi gaan', instantly composing poems on stage as a reply to an aggressive rhymed question, involving two 'poets', 'Nouka baich' (boat races) comprised the list of rural entertainment in the bygone days. The centuries-old 'jatra' has been under a mysterious ban for nearly three decades. Circuses appear to be on their fast way out. Soon it might become a bygone chapter in Bengalee life. The circus parties had a typical attraction made through manipulation of animals like tigers, elephants, bears, monkeys etc. Although the circus animals upon being trained through rigorous training sessions, like 'conditioned reflex', they eventually became an integral part of the circus shows. In the late 20th century in countries like the USA, UK and France, the use of animals underwent a jolt in the face of the protests by animal rights groups. On the other hand, in the face of wide-scale audience apathy, the largest circus company in the US was declared closed after a pathos-filled grand show, saying goodbye to its millions of fans. However, the authorities are mulling resumption of the company after a few reforms in their style of the shows.
The American company 'Ringling Bros and Barnum and Bailey Circus' formally quit shows in 2017 after a gorgeous 146-year performance of 3-ring entertainment around the world. However, apparently on continuous public demand, the Circus is expected to make a colourful reappearance in 2023 --- without using animals. Many observers believe that animal rights activists targeting Ringling Bros have contributed to a decline in ticket sales that had led the company to close its shows. The company is said to have grown to a large extent on the strength of its animal 'stunts' taught by trainers like Gunther Gebel-Williams --- working, among others, with lions and tigers. The Ringling Bros dropped animals from its shows in 2016. It said at the time that ticket sales had declined alarmingly. Film makers haven't lost their opportunity to make movies on real-life circuses. A few of them were based on novels depicting the behind-the-scenes events and pathos related to the lives of the people in circus parties. The Hollywood movies 'The Greatest Show on Earth' (1952, directed by Cecil de Mille) and 'Trapeze' (1956) are two of the all-time-great films on circus. Khan Ataur Rahman directed an Urdu movie called 'Soye Nadia Jage Paani' in Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) in 1968.
Some of the traditional 'feats' of the circuses, especially in South Asia, are jumping through the rings of flame, shoving one's hand deep into the throat of a tiger, cycling around the circus ground with several girls standing on the shoulders of the cyclist etc. In Bangladesh even in the 1960s, people used to be attracted to isolated circus feats held mainly in the cities. Those included death-wells or death-rings. The latter would be made of wooden planks with a breath-taking height. The stunt-dominant acrobatic feats would involve bicyclists and motorcyclists. The former would be seen pedalling on the walls of an earthen well --- starting from the bottom and climbing up maneuvering their bicycles on a ride along the well's mud-built surface.
A similar feat would be presented by the motorcycle-riding stuntmen. Simple courage and indomitability featured these acrobatic shows, which were once common scenarios in the sub-continent. These shows have mostly disappeared from Bangladesh, too. Instead of the innocuous entertainments and displays of bravery, the popular taste appears to be leaning towards grisly live shows filled with blood and gore and macabre heroism. The feats of classical heroism do not have any appeal to many. This has also become a global phenomenon.
shihabskr@ymail.com