Hark back to an evening in 1990. A 21-year-old Martin D’Souza is about to don a clown suit for the first time. He’s not entirely convinced about it, just as he isn’t entirely convinced about the drudging B.Sc. Physics degree he’s pursuing at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. D’Souza is just “a regular Catholic boy, obeying the wishes of his regular Catholic parents”. They’re nudging him toward a career in engineering, an option he’s most unconvinced about. “I’m a bit of a creative type,” thinks D’Souza. He’s good with people and doesn’t get awkward behind a microphone, so he moonlights as a host for children’s parties to earn pocket money. On this day in 1990, his party manager/boss has a request, but to D’Souza it seems more like an ultimatum. “The client wants a clown. Here, take 50 bucks more and put on this costume.”
D’Souza didn’t have a choice, really.
“I had no idea what I was doing,” he admits in retrospect. He improvised and fumbled his way through that evening, the kids all laughing not at his skills, but rather the lack of them. It wasn’t fun, “but they loved my energy”. His boss made him wear that clown suit again and again, and D’Souza slowly became more confident about his act. “I was getting good at being a clown, so I educated myself.” He did his reading, wrote letters to people around the world, and put in years of work, which eventually earned him a scholarship to study clownology at the University of Wisconsin in 2004. Now, at 47, D’Souza is better known as Flubber the Clown, a persona that has become his life’s work.
The year 2016 has been a far better year for him than 1990. Now, he’s vice-president of the World Clown Association (a first for an Indian, and second for any non-American). He won the International Clown of the Year Award, and also returned to the University of Wisconsin, this time as a teacher.
Despite these accolades, D’Souza’s biggest achievement, he says, is the International Clown Festival, India (ICFI), an enterprise he founded and has been directing, since 2010.
“The first two years were tough. People didn’t buy tickets to my shows, because they didn’t know what to expect, and weren’t inclined to find out.” A host of licensing issues, lack of sponsors and no government support only compounded his woes. After incurring losses for two straight years, the festival went on hiatus.
“The problem is a lack of clowning culture in India. People instinctively think of clowns as silly, below-the-line entertainers, as dwarfs, or Raj Kapoor in Mera Naam Joker . But jokers only make people laugh. Clowns make people happy. Charlie Chaplin was a clown. Laurel and Hardy? Clowns. Even Mr. Bean is a clown, but Raj Kapoor was just an actor. Even I didn’t become Flubber until my formal education.”
He elaborates, “Clowning is about exploring situations. A clown puts him or herself in an imaginary situation, and extrapolates its various possibilities through circus tricks like juggling, mime and magic, which are honed through years of practice. We’re a highly qualified, intelligent breed of entertainers.”
Determined to promote what he sees as “real clowning” in India, D’Souza resurrected ICFI in 2014, this time without any ticketed performances. “Instead, I approached shopping malls, convincing them to finance the shows so people could attend them for free. In 2010 and 2011, I performed for maybe 8,000 people throughout my festival. At malls, I was reaching out to about 30,000 people.”
In 2015, D’Souza partnered with Inorbit Mall for the first time, performing at their Bengaluru outlet with 1,500 shoppers in attendance. This year, Inorbit Mall will host ICFI on a national scale at their outlets in Mumbai, Vashi, Vadodara, Hyderabad and Bengaluru. Puneet Varma, associate vice-president, marketing at Inorbit, explains the rationale behind this decision. “We receive a footfall of about four million people in December across all our locations. Of these, a large percent are serious shoppers, and the most important thing for us is to keep them happy.”
Varma and his team evaluated D’Souza’s performance in 2015, measuring it on key parameters such as conversions to sale, perceived entertainment value and overall customer sentiment. ICFI scored remarkably well across all parameters, so scaling up the festival this year is ultimately a very sound business decision. “We are projecting a 10 per cent increase in numbers from last year,” says Varma. It’s an example of how consumerism can help an art form to flourish, instead of thwarting it.
And clowning in India is flourishing, thanks to D’Souza’s social circus initiative. His company, Mad Hatters, has over a hundred performers on its roster. Several of his team members come from marginalised sections of society, and clowning is D’Souza’s way of empowering them. He trains them free of cost, and ensures they are paid fairly each time they perform. “The spirit in which a clown deals with situations while performing is how I encourage my team to cope with and overcome circumstances in real life,” he says. D’Souza and his troupe regularly put on shows at orphanages, old age homes, hospitals and other charity events. Clowning, for D’Souza, is ultimately a serious business, one that can entertain, provide therapy and facilitate social change.
The author is a freelance journalist
The International Clown Festival, India begins on December 16 at Inorbit Mall, and will culminate in a theatre show at St. Andrews Auditorium on December 27. Details on www.clownfestindia.com
