A girl, a rope and happy parents

BANGALORE: Her life rests on a one-inch thick coir rope. Five-year-old Sukhbhai makes her way conscientiously across the line pulled between two poles impermanently drilled into the ground by her young parents. Her father, Prakash plays on a double-sided drum and her mother Nissa uses a ladle to clobber on an aluminium-plate-turned-percussion-instrument. One miss and the swift drop could easily break a few bones. But Sukhbhai has never fallen, so says her father. She is no doubt, sure-footed, but the onlookers who gather around her gasp in bewilderment as they see the young girl take to the rope as smoothly as a cat. This family of three hails from a little hamlet off Raipur in Chhattisgarh, and often, they head to Bangalore in an attempt to make money through their tightrope walking stint. “We have come to Bangalore at least three times before. We have also gone to Mumbai, Pune and Hyderabad. This is how we make money,” says Prakash. Wherever they go, they stay for about a month, until they believe they have enough money that will last them till their next trip. “In Bangalore, we make about `400 a day,” says Prakash. But they sleep in the bus stand in Yelahanka so that they can save money to take back home with them.Prakash’s family members have all been tightrope walkers. “My parents and grandparents were also doing this. They taught me this skill. My wife was also taught by them,” he explains. According to Prakash, who has been doing this from a tender age, it’s upto him to keep up the tradition. “I don’t know any other means to make money. Everyone in my family has been doing this. Now I want to pass it on to my daughter, I’m glad I could teach my daughter this skill. She is good now. She can even walk using a cycle rim on the rope,” says a proud father.