Art Has No Value in Pakistan, Life Of Acrobats Is Full Of Hardships: Master Shan

Their only purpose is to entertain kids and make them happy and laugh, some of them wear different costumes of cartoon characters like Eddie Teddy, Mickey Mouse, Pink Panther and others , while some paint their faces, it is part of their job to maintain smiles on their faces no matter what happens, they have to hide their sorrows and hardships behind their painted smiling faces.

But behind those smiling faces they have a life full of hardships and difficulties, they are mostly found in huge malls, birthday parties and other such functions, they only earn few hundred rupees as wage after working for at least eight hours per day.

This is the story of  35 year old Shan Ali, who is a master of a circus group at Hyderabad, some twenty acrobats, performers and dancers work in his group, while he himself is a magician and a dancer.

 It was a hot and humid Saturday of August in Hyderabad, when I along with Akhtar Hafeez met Shan who lives at Cloth Market of Hyderabad, we sat at a tea shop and started talking with Shan, who actually hails from Balochistan but finding better opportunities in Sindh, he came to Hyderabad some twenty-two years ago, he now lives with his two children, who also help him in different acts.

(An acrobat Master Shan at Hyderabad, Sindh)

"There are as many as twenty members in my group, we catch different kinds of programs like dance parties, birthday parties, annual school functions and most of our performers also work in different malls of Hyderabad on daily wages. 

We charge eight to ten thousand rupees for different programs, while the malls offer two to three hundred rupees per day," Shan told us.  

He said that: "we perform different kinds of items including cultural dances especially Sindhi and Balochi cultural dances, candle dance, magic tricks, walking on ropes, stand-up comedy, we have a long man who walks on sticks. 

The most difficult performances are of long man walking on sticks and walking on rope, it takes long time to get balance after practice of months, the acrobats get injured while practicing on sticks and ropes."

Shan mentioned that in Pakistan there was no value of art, what they do is pure art but they faced many social hurdles, though they entertained people but people always looked them with disrespect, while there were no institutes to promote that kind of art.

"We have families, our children don't get quality education, health or other basic facilities and our life is full of hardships, we are doing this because it is the only art we know," Shan added.

He said that to promote that kind of art it was need of the hour to establish an academy of professionals, there were thousands of acrobats, comedians, dancers, magicians and other performs, who were unable to get proper platform and thus their art went into vain.