The Street Performers
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As a child growing up on Kohinoor Road, I never had a dull moment. Just when I would begin to get bored, I would go running to see the source of a sound I heard from the street outside - the rattle of a twirling handheld noise-making drum would announce that the monkey man had arrived with his primate entourage. Manic and mischievous, they would cavort and dress up and behave like people in funny silly ways until we and others threw coins down to them. Or a different sound, deeper and grave, would let us know that the man with the dancing bear had stopped by. Or the man with the accordion and the traveling picture-show that you could peek at through viewing holes, all innocent, of course.


Sometimes, whole troupes of amateur trapeze artistes and high-rope walkers would materialize, announcing their arrivals by calling,  singing aloud, drumming, and using other sound-making instruments. Within minutes, they would have re-diverted the sporadic traffic, set up elaborate structures from which they would hang, fly across, climb and build human pyramids. At times, singers would serenade anyone who would listen, parodying the songs of the times. Occasionally, a familiar tune would let us know that the man with the basket of snakes was in the vicinity.

And, as suddenly as they had materialized, the impromptu shows would be over, the makeshift sets dismantled, and everyone would be going about their business again. And things would be as though these scenes had never occurred. Like a mirage or figment of the imagination.

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