Not as a performer, she travelled along with a circus troupe as a teacher

This special education teacher from the city has an interesting story to share about her career. Manna K Abraham was the only Indian employee of the 147-year-old world famous American travelling circus company Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus until they closed last year. On a balmy Saturday morning we met Manna at her home in Kilpauk where she spoke at length about her experience working with the circus company as a teacher.

Manna landed in the US in 2004 in search of a job. She saw an advertisement calling for teachers and applied immediately. “There wasn’t any mention of the ‘circus’ in the ad. I thought it was for some fancy American school and was looking forward to the interview. After arriving at the interview location, I began suspecting something was amiss — all I could see was a huge arena with cutouts of clowns. Never in my wildest dreams had I thought I would be hired as a teacher for a travelling circus company. To be honest, if there was any mention about the ‘circus’ in the advertisement I wouldn’t have appeared for the interview!” she starts the conversation.

Soon, she realised that she was going to teach children of the performers. “I came to terms with that. But my next question was about my accommodation and I asked the manager the same. He took me to a rail yard where I saw a train painted silver with the name, Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus! The manager looked at me and said, ‘Welcome home’. He showed me inside the train and told me that they wanted a teacher so desperately and had even built a new coach that year to accommodate him/her. The manager took me to the brand new coach with a cute little studio apartment with a kitchenette attached to it,” she recalls. The train apparently is the longest (a mile and a half) privately owned train in the US.

Manna was assigned to teach kids from kindergarten to Class 12, all their subjects. “The students were children of the performers and a few were performers themselves below the age of 18. In the US it is mandatory that if a circus performer is under 18 they should finish three hours of schooling a day. We followed the US home-schooling curriculum. Being the only teacher for the circus company, I had a tough time initially — I had to prepare thoroughly before each class. On a daily basis, I had to teach students belonging to different age groups and it’s not an easy task,” she smiles.

The classroom would be set up in an arena wherever the circus was happening. Every week, the circus travelled to a new city and the classroom kept changing each time. “When we halted at a city, I set up the classroom space in the arena. It was a different experience altogether. I really enjoyed the whole process of setting up a classroom. Every show day would be a working day for me. While shifting, there would not be classes. On those days, I would get into my cabin, cook Indian food and take rest. While the train was moving, we weren’t supposed to cook because of safety reasons.”

She says that back then, foreigners had a different perspective about India and its culture. She took this opportunity to teach them about our country, history and traditions.

There were moments when Manna was lost in memories during our conversation. In between, her two cats —Momo and Piggy — came searching for their pet parent. She got them while she was with the company. The cats were part of her journey at Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey Circus. During her free time, Manna says she would watch the performances. “I adore their tiger acts. There were two lions in the company and I loved the male one called Masai,” she says and shows us pictures from her album.

Apart from two states in the US, Alaska and Hawaii, Manna has travelled to all other states. “Whenever we halted in a city for a show, if I wanted to visit any particular place, I would plan a field trip for the children also. Each time we visited Washington I took the children to museums after getting prior permission from the manager.” The circus had three units — red, blue and gold. Red and blue unit members travelled on the train. Apart from humans, elephants and horses were on board too. The rest of the animals were transported via road in huge trucks. “I consider this as an opportunity of a lifetime. Other than the birth of my children, the next best thing that happened to me was working for the circus,” she says.

When asked what her best experience of travelling with the circus was, she shares, “The two journeys that are close to my heart are a ride from San Diego to Washington along the West Coast and travelling through the mountains of California. During the former, I would come out every morning and stand on the vestibule with my friend. We used to have our breakfast there,” she sums up.