List of Prominent Indian Circuses - An Eventful Timeline

Vishnupant Chatre: Founder of India's First Modern Circus

Although India has a Circus tradition that dates back to the late nineteenth century, the first Indian Circus, according to the definition of the art form created by Philip Astley in 1770, didn't appear until 1880. Its founder was Vishnupant Chatre, a riding master who doubled as a music teacher. Chatre was in charge of the stables of the Rajah of Kumlu wadi, where he occasionally performed “feats of horsemanship.”

Legend has it that Chatre and the Rajah went to see a performance of the Royal Italian Circus of Giuseppe Chiarini in Bombay. Inspired by Chiarini’s performance and also by his show, Vishnupant Chatre decided to organize his Circus, of which he would be the star equestrian, and his wife would become a trapeze artist and an animal trainer.

Keeleri Kunhikannan: The Father of Indian Circus

The first performance of Chatre's Great Indian Circus was held on March 20, 1880, in the presence of a select audience, among whom was the Rajah of Kurduwadi, who may have helped him in starting his venture.

Chatre’s Great Indian Circus went on to travel extensively, first in the vast regions of North India, then further south, to the large east-coast city of Madras. When his Circus visited the city of Thalassery, on the Malabar Coast in the state of Kerala, he met Keeleri Kunhikannan (1858-1939), a martial arts teacher, who also taught gymnastics in Hermann Gundert's Basel Evangelical Mission School.

Chatre asked Kunhikannan, who showed a keen interest in the Circus, to train acrobats for his Great Indian Circus—which Kunhikannan obliged to do in 1888 at a kalari (Indian martial-arts facility) in the village of PuIambil. In 1901, Kunhikannan opened a Circus school in Chirakara, a village near Thalassery. In 1904, one of Kunhikannan's students, Pariyali Kannan, created his own company, the Grand Malabar Circus, whose life lasted only two years.

Over the years, the school in Chirakkara gave birth to such companies as the Whiteway Circus (created in 1922 by Kunhikannan's nephew, K. N. Kunhikannan), the Great Rayman Circus (created in 1924 by another disciple of Kunhikannan, Kallan Gopalan), the Great Lion Circus (also founded by K. N. Kunhikannan), the Fairy Circus, the Eastern Circus, the Oriental Circus, the Gemini Circus, and the Great Bombay Circus.

After Kunhikannan died in 1939, one of his disciples, M. K. Raman, created the Keeleri Kunhikannan Teacher Memorial Circus and Gymnastic Training Centre, still in Chirakkara, and the tradition established by Kunhikannan continues to this day. Keeleri Kunhikannan is rightly referred to as the father of Indian Circus.

The Contribution of MV Shankaran

The contribution of MV Shankaran is also noteworthy. Shankaran, who was born in 1924, trained under noted circus artist Keeleri Kunhikannan for three years and later joined the military and retired after the Second World War.

After working with various circus groups across the country, he purchased the Vijaya Circus Company in 1951 and renamed it as the Gemini Circus. Later, he started his second company, Jumbo Circus. He was honored by the Union government with a lifetime achievement award considering his overall contribution to circus in the country.

In 2013, the Indian government banned the use of wild animals in circuses, as well as child labour in performances. Monetarily, these were two staples of the Indian circuses that allowed them to considerably lower the costs of their productions. Without these elements, many enterprises were not able to operate anymore.

Coupled with other regulations that were put into motion and the overwhelming bureaucratic hurdles, many circuses went bankrupt or simply folded up. Today, the Indian circus is struggling to adapt to a concept of circus vastly different from the model they had developed in the nineteenth century.

Prominent Indian Circuses

Great Royal Circus

• Founded in 1909.

• It was originally known as Madhuskar's Circus.

• It was taken over by N.R. Walawalker in the 1970s and was renamed the Great Royal Circus. He popularized it in India as well as in other countries.

• It was one of the few Indian circuses that travelled internationally.

Great Rayman Circus

• It was one of the oldest circuses in India.

• It was established by Kallan Gopalan in 1920.

• He was a disciple of Keeleri Kunhikannan.

• Kallan Gopalan once created a circus empire in India that comprised National Circus, Amar Circus, and Bharat Circus, among others.

• Amar Circus, started by Gopalan in the 1960s, is still running.

Great Bombay Circus

• This circus was started by Baburao Kadam in 1920.

• It was very popular in the Sindh and Punjab regions before the partition of India.

• K.M. Kunhikannan, who created White-way Circus and Great Lion Circus, merged these two circuses with Grand Bombay Circus in 1947. The combined entity was renamed as the Great Bombay Circus,

Gemini Circus

• Gemini Circus was started in 1951 in the town of Billimora in Gujarat by Moorkoth Vangakandy Shankaran or M. V. Shankaran, a native of Thalassery in Kerala.

• He was popularly known as Gemini Shankarettan.

• He served in the British Indian Army during WWII. Later he joined M. K, Raman's circus school in Chirakkara, near Thalassery in Kerala. He became a famous aerialist and a gymnast on horizontal bars.

• Shankaran expanded his circus business empire rapidly and became a partner in many other circus ventures such as Apollo Circus and Vahini Circus.

• Shankaran also started Jumbo Circus in 1977.

• Gemini Circus has been closely associated with the Indian film industry. It was portrayed in movies the Kamala Hassan’s Apoorva Sahodarnagal, Raj Kapoor’s Mera Naam Joker and Mithun Chakraborty’s Shikari.

Rajkamal Circus

• It was founded by Gopalan Mulloli in 1958 in Zira village (now a town) of Punjab.

• The circus was named after his son, Raj, and his wife, Kamla, by combining their names into Rajkamal.

• This circus steadily gained popularity and traveled extensively in India.

• It is one of the largest circuses in India at present.

Jumbo Circus

• This Circus is famously known as ‘The Pride of India’.

• It was started by M.V. Shankaran on 2 October 1977 at Danapur (Bihar).

• It has many Russian acrobats and performers.

Rambo Circus

• It was started by P.T. Dilip in 1991.

• It was formed by merging four old Indian circuses namely Arena Circus, Fantasy Circus, Oriental Circus and Victoria Circus.

• This circus has toured India extensively. It has also toured the Middle East.

• Sujit and Sumit Dilip are running it at present.