Wishlist Circus :)

Circus season is here ....and with all the cries of animal cruelty the circus has actually lost it's charm. I watched the tents being put up at the Patuli just as winter arrived in the city. The lights started to shimmer again ,  and the place was buzzing! Each year I plan to visit the circus , and it never happens....When the tents are taken down at the end of the season , I just watch the elephants as I am passing by. And I miss being there again.
Circus used to have a place in my imagination, thanks to the stories by Enid Blyton, who made life in a circus so exciting- with it's trapeze acts and animal stunts it was indeed a life of nomadic adventure- of glitzy shows and life in a caravan.
My first brush with circus happened when Dada took me to the Gemini Circus and I was so fascinated with the pretty foreigner in a short pink dress, who walked in with a huge Hippo and fed her one loaf of bread after circling the ring. And there were the tigers and  the lions and elephants all at the beck and call of the ring masters. I did not know about animal cruelty then and was fascinated with the world they lived in.
Do I get to visit the circus this year? Amit lamented, "Didi, ticket er boddo daam!" And I felt a little guilty, may be I am too frivolous these days. I remember Baba getting us passes for the circus at Park Circus and and how we bunked college to be there. I guess I will just buy Amit a ticket even if I am not able to make it.
I see enough of Circus everyday - of a different kind that makes me feel exasperated, hold my breath,  gasp and laugh to myself ! To end on a cliche.....life is a circus really, and the clowns who make you laugh are unhappy because they are clowns, and the trapeze stuntperson(s) die a thousand death everyday and Enid Blyton's world is just a make belief .....yet when I see the tents in the evening with its fairy lights and music playing I go back to that day in Gemini Circus , when i just did not want to leave and go home......