Chhota Bheem’s big eyes accentuate his child-like smile. The children love him; they want to shake his hand and take pictures with him. The adults can’t help breaking into a smile either, especially when he tilts his huge head to the left and waves both his gloved hands. He’s delightful, no doubt about it. He dances and bounces, elated to be the crowd’s source of entertainment. It’s not like his smile can wane anyway, it’s painted on his face.
It’s only when Chhota Bheem’s head comes off that you get to see the beads of sweat on S.P. Subramani’s forehead. It’s been a month on the job and he already seems to know how to get someone to break into a smile. Training is only a half-an-hour affair: their boss, Magic Raja, gives them all the instructions they need to be a cartoon character. It’s their job to make children smile when a picture needs to be taken; welcome guests when they are at a shop opening or get on stage when a cake needs to be cut. Apart from that, they also need to get the place decorated for the event and help organise it.
An average event is three hours long and they make Rs. 1,000 for entertaining as a cartoon character during that time. Donning the costume is the most essential part of the job, but it causes a lot of discomfort. “It often gets sweaty inside the costume and the smell of the sweat gets to you,” says D. Rajesh, soon after he gets out of his Spiderman costume. For every 50 minutes they spend inside the costume, 10 minutes of rest without the head mask is essential. Longer events — like a showroom opening where they have to give out flyers and welcome guests — can go on for up to 10 hours and some times is handled by one person. “For a cartoon character, there are no fixed timings. You never know when you’ll get booked for an event either, so you always need to be prepared. But the biggest challenge is the limitation of the costume; you can’t sit or relax when you have the costume on,” reveals Rajesh, who found his current job through an ad in the paper seven months ago and has been an entertainer since.
Rajesh says that the kids often ask them if they are really human, adding that, “Only if we take off the mask and show them, do they really believe us.” With the really tiny ones, they usually need to do the same thing to make sure they don’t get scared. Sometimes, the adults as well ask them to remove the masks so that they may wear it for a picture. Rajesh doesn’t like it when the adults do it; he says it disturbs his work.
A fan of children, Rajesh says he likes it when they imitate him. The best part of his job is making them happy and yet, he remains stoic under his mask, even as his audiences break into giggles. Punching and pushing the cartoon characters is often entertaining for the kids, says Rajesh. Since they are just children and he’s around only to keep them entertained, he puts up with it.
“It’s a great thing to be able to make someone happy even in the face of difficulty. Someone will pull your hair; someone will pull your tail. When you’re dressed as a cartoon character, sometimes they even push you down. All that will be difficult, but you shouldn’t make a big deal out of it. You should keep the children happy and try to get yourself out of that position,” says Magic Raja. He started off as a magician when he was younger, diverged into making balloon decorations, dressing up as cartoon characters, conducting games and organising events. Over the years, he’s grown and now has his own event management firm with 10 men working under him, including Subramani and Rajesh.
During his days of dressing up as Tweety and Donald Duck, Raja says he’s gotten dizzy enough to fall to the floor. The masks he used were smaller and the noses were made flatter, making it difficult to breathe. It’s better now, though; he has bigger masks to make sure that the men who work under him get more ventilation through their costumes.
Even as Raja shakes his head and takes the child’s hand, the man beneath the mask breaks into a sweat. If he’s used to it, he won’t even notice it; if he isn’t, he’ll still endure it.
When the child smiles, he’ll know he’s done his job well.
