Not quite amusing

Barely a week after I wrote the previous post, a touring amusement fair decided to make a brief halt here! However, instead of the shopping types that I was hoping for, this one was of the fun and games types - hoop- la stalls, merry-go-rounds, etc. So, on Sunday evening, we went & found 75% of the town already there!! We are really short on entertainment here!

Kids between 2 & 5 made the most of the rubber slides and the merry-go-rounds with seats shaped like cars, boats, planes, etc. The bigger kids went in for the ubiquitous giant wheel and rides with names like 'Titanic' & 'Tora Tora' (For people like me, observing the flirtatious mood among the youth was added amusement!!). There was a freak show- advertised as Naagin- supposedly, a creature with a woman's face and a snake's body (A dwarf forced into a skirt made to look like a snake's body? - Probably). We decided to give it a miss.
And then, there was the dog show - managed by 3 dogs & 2 men. We decided to go in. The audience had to stand around a circular enclosure within which the dogs performed as instructed by the men. The 2 pomeranians performed the usual circus tricks - pushing a cylinder, jumping through hoops and walking on twos wearing necklace, sunglasses, purse & umbrella, while pretending to be 'Naguma' :)

It was the labrador's performance that was new to us- 'Sony' would walk along the enclosure and stand by the apt person when its master asked questions like 'Who's the oldest here?', 'Who's the youngest?', etc. After sometime, the man asked, 'Inme kaunsi maydam aalsi hai?' and to my utter horror and embarassment, it stood in front of me!! There were a few titters and my husband gave me a smile that meant 'You look it - even a dog can see that' (Hubby, you know that looks are deceptive, right? And, I'm sure one of the men was making a clucking noise when the dog neared the person the man thought answered the description - bad judge, I think :) )!
And so, the show continued for some more time, embarassing a few more people with answers to questions like 'Which boy here is a master at ogling?' and 'Which lady is forever quarrelsome?'. The show ended just when everyone was beginning to feel a little bored and we headed home.

Shows like this, involving animals, bring out such conflicting emotions. On the one hand, there are those two men, whose far away, probably large, families must be surviving because of the income generated by the animals. On the other hand, there are the animals, who, for no fault or choice of theirs, must be subjected to so much torture to learn and regularly perform unnatural tricks. It must be hard on the men too - away from their folk for long stretches, spending time in strange places, eating different types of food & unhygenic living conditions. Handling the animals during transit must be difficult too. Falling sick in stange places would be traumatic, both for the men & the animals. All in all, a very difficult equation to solve :(

 Maybe, one should takes these things at face value and not think too much about it - that's the only practical solution I can think of.