BISARATI BAJIGARI- Juggling- a vanishing tradition

I have seen, I say, the Hereditary Princess of Potztausend-Donnerwetter (that serenely-beautiful woman) use her knife in lieu of a fork or spoon; I have seen her almost swallow it, by Jove! Like Ramo Samee, the Indian juggler. And did I blench? Did my estimation for the Princess diminish? No, lovely Amalia!

- William Makepeace Thackeray, The Book of Snobs (1848)

Ramo Samee (or “Ramaswamy”, probably the more accurate spelling), the most famous practitioner of his art in his era, inspired royalty, journalists, and famous essayists like William Hazlitt, who found him a performer of astonishing skill. Today he is, aside from the appreciation he receives from a handful of juggling history websites, completely forgotten.

The kind of sword-swallowing and juggling he did is in fact a real historical profession in India, and goes back hundreds of years. So while clearly part of Ramo Samee’s appeal was his exotic otherness, he was doing what he did best -- what he had been raised to do.

The Juggler and his profession

A single error of a hair’s-breadth, of the smallest conceivable portion of time, would be fatal: the precision of the movements must be like a mathematical truth; their rapidity is like lightning. Synonymous to this precision and accuracy, the Indian jugglers or ‘gole waala’ have the skills surmounting difficulty, and beauty triumphing over skills.

An acrobat promotes the language of physical culture in a countryside bereft of entertainment and information who train his body to perform feats very akin to those expounded in the yoga shastra and possible only after rigorous discipline.

Traditionally known as ‘Lagdarlu’ or ‘Kattlu-Battalu-Aaditolu’ in Telegu and ‘gola uchaal’ in Hindi, they have mastered intricate skills and naturally resolved them into ease and grace.

Wandering through the bygone lanes, one do not find obvious written records on juggling-its origin and descendence in India. The dilapidated oral accounts of the jugglers trace it back to 12-13 generations in the past as of from today.

As folklore describes it, the members of the community were asked to pick up book, pen, sword, and plough etc., placed in front of the idol of Lord Tirupathi Balaji at his temple. They however did not identify themselves with any one of these objects and rather picked up some balls from the temple and thereafter started using these balls to entertain people.

Jugglers in India come from two villages in Andhra Pradesh namely Chinnakalwal and Antargaanv. They are originally a gypsy community and move on from one village to another entertaining people with their skills, in the demarcated regions for street performances. Traditionally known as ‘Lagdaari’ (meaning to play with a ball and top), this art form is hereditary in nature and the children begin to practice this art from the tender age of 5-7 years.

Despite the gypsy lifestyle, it is binding for them to visit their base villages twice a year, at Dusshera festival (Autumn) and at Holi festival (Spring). It is binding for every family to return home at Dusshera, otherwise they are fined or ostracized.

Dusshera is a festive time for the community and Goddess Durga is worshipped with ritualistic fervor. Corroborating with the Indian ideology that every material form is bestowed with the essence of life, and to liven up this essence, the pran pratishtha of so called lifeless objects is done. The jugglers perform puja of their balls and other belongings after Dusshera.

Socio- cultural leanings

These nomadic communities had thus taken deep roots in the socio-cultural happening of Indian subcontinent and have helped to hold the united spirit of this variegated culture since time immemorial. Unfortunately the post-colonial wave of globalization and rapid urbanization has withered the social, economical and cultural spaces for these wandering communities and they are losing out their distinctiveness in the highly competitive and homogenized market.

It is not that these performers have lost either sense of discernment of their native skills; it is now a question of their survival - both the performers and their ageless art. Most of the members of the community have now deserted this vocation as their interdependence with the rest of community is now threatened. In the present scenario, the diverse manifestations of culture from performing arts to craft, needs to be addressed with an inter-disciplinary approach wherein the knowledge based economics and the dynamism of cultural industries should be the driving force.

The Indian social system had devised a unique patronizing system (Jajmani Pratha) to help the sustenance and maintenance of a variety of art forms and indigenous techniques corresponding to discrete customs and traditions of the society. With change in social priorities and disarticulation of traditional values, this system was ruined and the cultural proceedings associated with it also got messed up.

Juggling was no exception to it and the traditional knowledge system of this art form got paralyzed due to absence of supporting social mechanisms. In the struggle for sustenance and livelihood juggling art forms lost their way and were displaced as a dying art. This study will try to explore the finer details of the ancient socio-cultural mechanisms of juggling so that his art-form can sustain itself in the present-day globalized state of affairs yet maintain the creative high of its traditions.

In addition to this, many art forms have now been more or less abandoned as they are quite difficult to perform and practice and don’t fetch good price. The traditional skills such as Chitrakoot, certain specialized acts of golas, have therefore phased out from the art form.