RAO BAHADUR SIR KOMAN

 

DOCUMENTING GEMINI SAHADEVAN'S CIRCUS TRADITION AT TELLICHERRY. --- Advocate Jayaprakash MallayWhen circus history books and biographical information about circus and it's founder Director and Proprietors are rather rare and far between, such of those books available seldom delve deep into Apollo Circus of the 1980s due to lack of sufficient data or source material. Despite the prevalence of Online Directories like Zoomingo Linkdin and Crunchbase and Online Archives like Flickr Google and Wikipedia not much extensive information could be made available on CV Sridharan the Partner and Proprietor of Apollo Circus and his brother CV Sahadevan popularly known in social media circle as K. Sahadevan (son of Kunhambu). While there is a paragon of description on circus and circus life in India in Champadan Sridharan's book An Album of Big Tops published from Houston Texas and also in PR Nisha's Yale University Fulbright Fellowship doctoral thesis, not a single paragraph is spared on Gemini Sahadevan and his brother CV Sridharan of Apollo Circus nay, Sahadevan's name is at best dismissed in a shade no bigger than foot note in these pioneering works. Even for that matter Dominique Jando writing in the context of Gemini Circus in his Indian Circopaedia has ignored K. Sahadevan the partner and proprietor of Gemini Circus, which is either accidental or wilful, and has taken care only to highlight MV Shankaran as the sole proprietor of Gemini Circus throughout. For Sahadevan and Sridharan circus art is part of their family legacy and business interest. Sahadevan's circus heritage starts from his own CV family as well as his tutor's Chathoth family tradition of circus artistes at Chalil. It was mandatory for all Mukkuva youths of the day to undergo body movement exercise in school of martial arts called kalari. In Chalil there was one behind Pattanichinte Avide house bordering the Kalari Valappil house. Following Tellicherry Riots of 1972, weapons from this Kalari were removed under Government notification. Sahadevan and Sridharan learnt "meyvazhakkam" or body movement for 3 years from Chalil Gurunathan Kalari and then turned to circus training taught to them by Dharmacaran his uncle. ( As Amirban Gosh of Kolkata said in his essay Circus in Colonial India "At the turn of this century Jaggu Babu, a Marwari businessman from Bhowanipur properly consolidated and utilized wrestling skill of Malabari fishermen into small circus ventures and hence they monopolised circus business" (2014 : 40).Born to a fair woman Choyi Veettil Panchali at Dharmadam Katav in Thalassery, both CV Sahadevan and his brother CV Sridharan soon after their school days were taught the art of Ladder Balance Act by Chathoth Palsserikar Agath Dharmacaran from Chalil Thalassery. Their circus tutor my grand uncle Dharmacaran and his cousin Chathoth Palsserikar Agath Pockunnan were students from Kileeri Kunhikannan's circus kalari at Chirakkara in Tellicherry in the late 1930s. Sahadevan and CV Sridharan and their cousins Chathoth Palsserikar Agath Somashekharan and Azheecode Valia Veettil Padmanabhan were entrepreneurs, circus proprietors and promotors who played a prominent role in popularizing circus industry in India during the 1950 -- 1960 phase. For all of them circus is part of the CV and Chathoth family legacy and continued as family business. Their entrepreneurial skill and expertise in the circus industry coupled with their family heritage played a crucial role in preservation and promotion of circus art in India. When K. Sahadevan and MV Sankaran re - modelled and revitalised Vijaya Circus into the Gemini Circus in 1951 and Sahadevan's brother CV Sridharan acquired and revamped Circus Olympia into the Apollo Circus in 1977, it shows their deep interest and concern in family legacy and it's continued stewardship. Gemini Circus was Asia's largest circus next only to Kamala six pole three ring circus that has attained international reputation.CV Sahadevan and his brother CV Sridharan obtained circus training from Chathoth Palsserikar Agath Dharmacaran and his cousin Palsserikar Agath Pockunnan who were students from Kileeri Kunhikannan's circus kalari at Chirakkara in Tellicherry in the 1920s. His tutor's cousin Chatten Gopalan also joined some circus company before he was recruited to the Madras Regiment as a soldier in the wake of World War II. Chatten Gopalan is Sahadevan's nephew Mattool Chandran's father in law. Choyi Veettil Choyikutty and his cousin CV Ambujakshan were circus Jokers intermittently at the Whiteway Circus, Kileeri Kallan Gopalan's Raymon Circus and the Great Bombay Circus in the 1920s. CV Ambujakshan's son Sridharan first joined some touring circus before he checked in with Sahadevan's Gemini Circus and married Palsserikar Agath Achuthan's daughter Suneeti while CV Choyikutty's son CV Velayudhan a seasoned Catcher at the flying trapeze married Suneeti's sister Urmila. Members who took circus training from Chathoth Palsserikar Agath at Chalil in Tellicherry include amongst others Chathoth Soman grand son of Dharmi Tacchi through Devayani, a Proprietor of a small time circus at Rajasthan having 4 equestrian horses,1 camel, 2 macaques 2 domesticated Alsatian dogs, goats and parrots. His first wife Tara Bai a tight rope walker on high wire put in a guest appearance in Malayalam feature film CID starring Prem Nazir and Miss Kumari in the lead, released in 1955. Soman's second wife Madhavi of Cannanore was a Unicyclist and who did Cup and Saucer Act on tight rope also. (most circus performers develop skill in two or more areas as to make themselves more efficient to circus Proprietors). Soman's son Rajendran was trained as Site Manager at his father's own circus who later opted for Gemini Circus. Chathoth Sreedharan was a gymnast on multiple horizontal bars first at the Grand Fairy Circus and later in Gemini Circus. He quit circus life on grounds of health issues. Azheecode Valia Veettil Padmanabhan, grandson of Dharmi Tacchi through Narayani was another small time circus Proprietor at Shimoga and elsewhere in Mysore with a few animals and circus artistes and "company girls" as they call female circus artistes, probably in the late fifties. T. Bhaskaran was another master of acrobatics in some circus in Bombay from where he joined the Royal Indian Navy and left for London in the early forties, so is the case with my own Krishnan from Police HQ in Singapore who worked with some circus company in Bengal before his departure to Singapore. My aunt Koduvally CV Janaki 's sister CV Sharadha was another female circus artiste and Nambolan Valappil Sridharan being Senior Uztaz (trainer) at Gemini Circus added his son in law Chathoth Sachidanandan (Mallay Jayamma's husband) as a ticket booking clerk. CV Sahadevan himself practiced the Ladder Balance Act initially from the National Circus while his brother CV Sridharan was an all-rounder. This in short is Sahadevan's own circus heritage. Sahadevan's son Jagadish Sahadevan who held a 9th Degree Black Belt in Taekwondo, learnt the Giant Wheel Act directly from the circus tent of the Ringling Brothers in the US. And for the first time in the Indian Circus industry performed this daring Act from the Ring of Apollo Circus in 1985. He and his uncle were exclusive Directors of Apollo Circus since 1977. Actually uncle CV Sridharan brought a dwindling Olympia Circus from Calcutta and named it Apollo Circus. It was on 15th August 1951 that CV Sahadevan (who always prefers to write his father's initial K for Kunhambu) and MV Shankaran joined hands and purchased the then dwindling Vijaya Circus and started their own production company under the banner of GEMINI CIRCUS. My professional colleague at the Tellicherry Bar, Advocate PV Balakrishnan Nambiar was their Legal Advisor. Allow me to add in parenthesis that my grand uncle Dharmacaran is the son of another fair woman Kunhipennu (the Wet Nurse) who claims lactation bond to renowned Pahalwan Chowacaran Valiapurakal Mayankutty Keiyi of Old Tellicherry who once held a free style wrestling bout with Commonwealth Wrestling Champion Dara Singh from Mudalakulam Maidan at Calicut in 1961. Tellicherry General Hospital male Nurse, Chathoth Palsserikar Agath Padmanabhan's son Jayadev Padmanabhan a product of Sir Seyyid College at Taliparamba was awarded the title of Mr Kerala and also Kerala Kesari from Calicut in 1973 who was then declared Featherweight Powerlifting Champion for Cannanore District. These aspects seem to serve as a concomitant to uncle Sahadevan's heritage of circus tradition in the family in terms of body muscle building spree. I may be pardoned for these hurried expressions of my rambling thought. Sahadevan's first wife was my grand uncle's eldest daughter Damayanti, later he married a woman of Malayali -- Odissi ethnic breed Joda Bai and fostered only 2 sons Jagdish Sahadevan and Ranjan Kumar. When I went to Bombay to meet uncle Sahadevan at his own High Rise Development Flat Raj Niketan on Ridge Road in Malabar Hill in 1988, I met him, his wife and his daughters in law Sashikala Malhotra and Nitta R Kumar, including Nitta's 6 year old daughter Pushpa. A mutual exchange of family reminiscence followed over a glass of chilled lassi and sliced apple. Upon his invitation, I visited Apollo Circus running to a packed audience at Church Gate Cross Maidan (old parade ground) from where I got introduced to my aunt Sathi Devi's (a Poste Graduate teacher at Poona Railway School) husband Choyi Veettil Sridharan and her son Sashidharan my cousin, before the start of evening show. .Now back to history. After Sahadevan's initial stint with Kallan Gopalan's small time National Circus in the late 1930s, he embarked upon the Gemini Circus with his business partner a former trapeze artiste Moorkoth Vengakandi Shankaran. His only brother CV Sridharan's Apollo Circus started in 1977 who once put up tent in aid of Singapore Cultural Foundation sponsored by Lim Beng Tee, Director of Tri Union Group of Company and inaugurated by Singapore Parliamentary Affairs Secretary to Ministry of Culture Dr. Ow Chin Hock at the Telok Blangah Way, Handerson Road opposite Municipal Padang in Singapore in January 1980. Gemini Circus on the other hand staged a show earlier in Singapore Housing Development Board's newly built Hokkien area Tao Payoh at the Lorong in Singapore in the year 1970. While Gemini Circus put up tent in New Delhi's Ram Lila ground in the late fifties, the last Viceroy of India, The Lord Louis Mountbatten's wife Dame Edwina Cynthia Anette the Countess of Burma visited the circus and found some time to spend with them and took a photograph. While EM Sankaran Namudiripad was in Delhi the family went to see Apollo Circus and at the end of the show during exit, his youngest son S. Sasi then aged 10 years got lost in the crowd .Immediately a hectic search for him was conducted by Apollo Circus staff in 12 Jeeps and he was discovered by Sahadevan's nephew Mattool Chandran from among the panic strikken melee, much to the delight of the ex Chief Minister and his family ( Sasi later became Chief Accounts Manager of party mouthpiece Deshabhimani ). This incident is recorded in 12 volumes sampoorna kritikal by EMS himself. In 1964, before Nikita Kruschev was ousted from power as First Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party, he managed to organise a cultural exchange through an International Circus Festival. Sahadevan along with a select troupe from among 240 staffers and artistes visited Russia on a Diplomatic Passport and held shows at Moscow, Sochi and Yalta in the USSR. This visiting troupe of artistes were received at Moscow International Airport by the world's First Lady Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova. So also in Bollywood Movie Moghul Raj Kapoor's Hindi film Mera Naam Joker released in 1971, a Russian ballerina artiste Kseniya Ryabinkina figured most prominently in the movie shot entirely from the Gemini Circus. After 2 decades another Russian artiste Irina Kushnareva did the main role alongside Mithun Chakraborty from this Gemini Circus then showing at Tashkent in Uzbekistan which Hindi feature film is named Shikari in 1991. Following 6 prolonged years of shooting the film Mera Naam Joker from Gemini Circus, a marital knot was tied between Sahadevan's son Jagdish Sahadevan and Krishna Raj Kapoor's niece Shashikala Malhotra from Bombay's reputed Shanmugnanda Hall in 1971. Nitta R. Kumar who managed Apollo Circus from 2000 till 2003, is Sahadevan's second son Ranjan Kumar's wife. Before my casual visit to Raj Niketan, a sad incident occurred. While both Jagdish and Mithun Chakraborty were speeding across Jagdish Sahadevan's Film Animal Supplier Boutique at Walkeshwar, Malabar Hill in search of a Cheetah for Mithun Chakraborty's forthcoming film Shikari, Jagdish met with a fatal accident although Mithun Chakraborty and the cheetah had a narrow escape from the claws of death. While Sahadevan's only one brother CV Sridharan's Apollo Circus of which Jagadish Sahadevan was Director, was camping in Faridabad in 1982, Union Cabinet Minister for Sports and Games Buta Singh who was also Chairman of IX Asian Games Organising Committee, directed Gegong Aphang the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh to procure a baby elephant for Asiad 1982. This baby elephant was to stand on its hind leg and to garland the President of India Zail Singh on the inaugural day of Asiad from the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at New Delhi in November 1982. Therefore a 13 months old pachyderm was caught from the Pakhui Wild Life Sanctuary nearby Tezpur in the Tinsukia Range of Arunachal Pradesh. The calf was trained from the dinghy fields of Kanpur by Master trainers at Apollo Circus. The IX Asiad logo depicted this Mascot Baby Elephant being petted by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and was beamed across the country and was figured in the balloon Mascot that kept bobbing up near the games venue. The very name Appu raises up the nostalgic import of Apollo Circus. And because Appu the calf elephant could only put up a show at the 1962 Asian Games meet in New Delhi', nevertheless he staged a spectacular show in Pervez Mehra's Action Adventure Hindi movie Shikaari released in 1991. Appu the baby elephant was transported to Tashkent in Uzbekistan where Gemini Circus had put up a show to find a way in Producer Actor Mithun Chakraborty's Hindi movie Shikari . A few years later Appu re named Narayanan Kutty, underwent "nadayiruthal" ritual at Guruvayoor templ and he died from there in 2005. Popular TV Serial named Circus aired through Door Darshan National Channel network starring matinee idol Shah Rook Khan and directed by Aziz Mirza has a main character named Sahadevan Rai, reminiscent of whom I need not mention here. The telecast consists of 19 short Episodes starting from September 1989 till June 1990 that features Appu the baby elephant. The very name Appu is an abbreviated version of Apollo, the circus where she was trained. In 1988, Producer Director Mira Nayar's Oscar nominated Indian film Salaam Bombay took off with a tent breaking scene of a young boy packing up luggage from the premises of Apollo Circus. Terminating his contact with Gemini Circus in 1988 after a span of almost 40 years, Sahadevan joined his brother's Apollo Circus. A notable event had happened earlier in 1982. While Apollo Circus was camping in Faridabad Buta Singh who was Union Cabinet Minister and Chairman of IX Asian Games Special Sports Organising Committee, he directed Geong Abhang the Chief Minister of Arunachal Pradesh to visit Apollo Circus and request for for a baby elephant. Appu the Mascot Baby Elephant was supposed to stand up on one leg and garland President of India Zail Singh on the inaugural day of Asiad meet from Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium at New Delhi. Therefore a 13 month old pachyderm was caught from Pakhui Wild Life Sanctuary nearby Tezpur in Arunachal Pradesh. This Calf elephant was trained from the dinghy fields of Kanpur by Master Elephant trainers at Apollo Circus for the purpose. Appu and Asiad have become part of Indian Circus history at the national level. Earlier, both Gemini Circus and the Apollo Circus presented a variety of animal shows that included big Cats like tiger, cheetah, jaguar and leopards, as also camels, elephants equestrian horses zeebras, bears and a beevy of macaques. But following Spca's strict implementation of animal ban in all Circuses through the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India in 2013, when coupled with high cost of renting space for huge circus plus shrink in income due to continuous fall in spectators more especially in the wake of TV Reality Shows, resulted in closure of many a circus company in the country. As per Government Record, in the 1990s there were as many as 300 circuses operating in India and Soman's and Padmanabhan's small time circus which "closed shop" then came within this range. But after 2013, there were only around 30 circuses in the country. For some people like Jagdish Sahadevan of Apollo Circus, who was a supplier of animals for the film industry, taking those animals to movie studios and back in double cages on a daily rent basis from his Film Animal Supplier Depot located at Walkeshwar in Bombay provided an additional income. And Sahadevan's only nephew Mattool Chandran nickname Meesha Chandan was Purchase Manager at Gemini Circus in the seventies and much later after it had changed several hands from 2003 through Alim MLA of Bulandshahar District and his brother Yunus Haji, Chandran eventually remodeled Apollo Circus from scrap in 2020 and renamed it as Grand Apollo Circus. And most prominent of all is that Sahadevan's cousin Chathoth Padmanaban's son Jayadev Padmanabhan was declared Mr. Kerala even as a student at Sir Seyd College Taliparamba and Kerala Kesari from Calicut in the 1973 -- 1974 session He was also Featherweight Powerlifting Champion during the period. Initially Sahadevan was Share Broker and franchise with British Corporate Company the Burmah Shell Group. He remained with Apollo Circus untill he breathed his last from his HRD Flat RajaNiket at Malabar Hill on 15 -- February -- 2000, his brother CV Sridharan died in 1995. After his son Ranjan's death Apollo Circus was bought by Haji Alim MLA and his brother Yunus Haji of Bulandshahar District in UP in 2003. After a couple of years Apollo Circus was bought back by Sahadevan and Sridharan"'s nephew Meesha Chandan in 2006, who changed hands with George Kuriyingal, present Manager and Proprietor.

Nambudri House Name Documentalist Jayaprakash Mallay with his almirah of books at Tellicherry in the year 1974.

Nambudri House Name Documentalist Jayaprakash Mallay's eBooks published by Amazon.co.uk

BOOK NOTICE written by Mr. Justice PV Narayanan Nambiar of the Hon'ble Highh Court of Kerala in the year 1996.

MALAYALA BRAHMIN AUTOCHTHON THEORY available on Amazon.co.uk

Nambudri House Name Documentalist Jayaprakash Mallay's daughter Roshna Jayaprakash at New Jersey in the US.