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DHAKA, NOV 29 (BSS)-Spectators can dream and
have fantasies as they pay for a circus show.
But for the circus artists, life is unfortunately
too real: an uncertain future and, at times,
a difficult way of living.
Those
having a straight glimpse of acrobats and
trapeze girls in breath-striking games in
a circus show are obviously excited seeing
the apparently impossible artistry and skill
of even the minor girls.
A
photo exhibition at the Alliance Francaise
here depicts their lives through camera lenses:
highly challenging as well as risky and far
different from the life of artists of same
ages in the fields of entertainments.
This
is perhaps another chapter of acute problem
of child labor in Bangladesh, where thousands
of minor boys and girls are constantly being
forced by various social compulsions to earn
their bread by doing different odd jobs. In
circuses, people seldom feel humanly about
the pains of minor acrobats or trapeze artistes
as their eye-catching skillful games keep
them spellbound and bemused throughout the
show.
Titled
as `Chobimela II,' the organizers billed the
exhibition as the first festival of Photography
in Asia and one of the most exciting ventures
in Bangladesh. With around two dozens of photographs,
the exhibition is being held at Alliance Francaise
here from November 17 to December 2.
Alliance
Francaise, Drik Pictures Library, Goethe Institute,
Royal Norwegian Embassy, British Council,
Ministry of Cultural Affairs and Ministry
of Foreign Affairs are jointly organizing
the exhibition. French photographer Pierre
Claquin took the photographs, whose captions
speak the truth about their hard life.
"Each
day of my last six years, I have realized
that if I fall, I will die," says Eti,
aged 12 years, a trapeze artiste of the Royal
Bengal Circus. The 35-year trapeze queen Moumita
of the Rajmahal circus says that she is always
scared of any mistake that will cause her
mate seven years old Adhuri fall and die.
Fatema
aged eight years is an acrobat of the New
Star Circus, fostering an ,otherwise, agony
in her mind. When her poor father divorced
her mother, she could not realize what would
happen in her fate.
"My
father divorced my mother. For the last two
years, whatever I earn goes to my mother in
the village," she says seemingly in a
lamenting expression. Koni, aged around 12
years, had a sweet dream of going to school
but her fate brought her to the Lion Circus
to become an acrobat.
"I
would like to go to school since I know how
to write my name. I told my father to admit
me in a school but he did not respond,"
she said meaning that poverty had brought
her to a circus ring, not school.
Koni's
father is one of those generally want their
children stay at home to become domestic helps
or work in a rich family at least to get regular
food and earn some money. Instead of being
a maid-servant often subjected to various
repressions or a street girl falling prey
to sexual abuses, she is lucky to have been
an acrobat to entertain the people in a circus
show.
In
2000, Pierre Claquin was in Bangladesh, seeking
to know about the existence of circus in this
country. He learnt from the urban gentleman
that circuses were gone, finished by the intrusion
of Television into homes.
"Being
a stubborn French Breton, I went out to find
out for myself. There were 10 circuses in
Bangladesh still active by mid- 2002,"
he said.
In
most cultures, circuses have a special and
almost magical place fascinating children
and adults alike, perhaps because their shows
pertain to dream and reality at the same time.
On the other hand, circus brings nature back
to the spectators: the world of wild animals
into a tamed life as well as the extremes
of a human body particularly of the dwarfs
and the trapeze girls.
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