The circus came to town, and this time, announced an unusual programme- the last performance of the famous clown, RAJOO, whom everyone believed to
have retired. Three women came to the circus by special invitation-
Mary, a grey-haired lady teacher with her husband, David.
Marina, a Russian woman, past her youth, but still very beautiful, Mina, a film star at the age of retirement, accompanied by her former actor producer, Mr. Kumar. They all sat in the front row--eagerly looking forward to seeing Rajoo who had played a significant role in each of their lives.
In the circus ring, the clown Rajoo stages a strange Act-he is the clown-patient, while the other clowns are doctors and surgeons who operate upon him and take out his "enlarged" heart.
"Keep it safe" says one of the clown-doctors, handing over the heart to Rajoo.
"It is getting bigger all the time. One day the whole world would be accomodated in your heart". And this makes the clown happy-he sings and dances with his heart, sends it up. It comes down and breaks into a thousand fragments-and each frag- ment of the broken heart reflects the face of Mary-not as she is today-but as she was many years ago when Rajoo first saw her.
The school boy, Rajoo, was infatuated by Mary, the young lady teacher. It was calf love, as she was five years his senior. Mary had a little lamb-and he was the lamb who followed Mary wherever she went.
One day Rajoo saw Mary fall down in a river, emerge from it with her wet clothes clinging to her, youthful body changing her clothes in a thicket in the jungle, and the little boy grew up into a man. When she went on a holiday, he
gave her a clown doll. "What is this?"
"It's a clown-a joker-it's me", he replied.
Rajoo knew that his father was a clown, too, he could make millions laugh. But one day he fell from a trapeze and was killed That is why his mother starved and slaved to send him to a good school so that he could rise to the top in the world. She didn't want to let her son suffer the fate of his father.
When Mary returned from holidays, she was already engaged to a young man, of her own age. She introduced David to Rajoo. and revealed her intention of marrying him just as Rajoo was being sent away from school for clowning on the streets to supplement his sick mother's earnings.
"Oh, Rajoo, why could you not be five years older" she sighed remorsefully. Rajoo went to the wedding-rang the Church bells- then as the Best Man, he was invited by David to kiss the bride. He gave a shy peck, and while parting he received a present-It was the clown-doll, being returned to him.
And as he walked away with the doll in his hands, the words of David rang in his ear-"You will grow up, but this clown-doll will remain as youthful and vivacious as it is today".
Time passes, the boy becomes a man, now he is dressed like a clown, beating a Tamborine Showing Janata Bioscope in a carnival, but on his face he has the same laughter, and the same sadness in his eyes. He is followed by a crowd of children, shouting Joker ! Joker !!" When the mother asks him if he has found a job, Rajoo reports that everyone says that "The place for a clown is a circus!"
"Circus?" The mother is alarmed, "Never mention that name before me. I don's want to lose my son as I lost his father".
And yet Raico's steps inevitably take him towards a circus, where there is a big crowd to welcome a group of Soviet circus artistes. Because of his fair skin and blue eyes, and nondescript clothes, Rajoo is mistaken to be a Russian and finds himself in a lion-tamer's uniform. If he reveals his real identity he loses the Rs. 200/- advance that he has received as pocket money. And he needs the money for the treatment of his sick mother!
After many misunderstandings and misadventures, Rajoo at last achieves what he had always desired-he is made a clown, a singing clown who must sing and laugh and make others laugh.
His gift of laughter, his genius as a clown, his simple-hearted ways, win the love of Marina, the beautiful trapeze artist from Russia who appears to Rajoo as the embodiment of that very fairy of whom his mother had always dreamed as her daughter-in-law.
Rajoo takes Marina to meet his mother, and the old and sick woman is enraptured by the winsome smile of the Russian beauty, though she does not know that she is from another country. "Rajoo, I like her, I approve of her, make her my daughter-in-law", she tells her son. "Then I can die in peace".
But that is the dilemma for Rajoo-and for Marina who has to go back to her people. to her country, to her aged and ailing father.
One night the Mother discovers that his son is working as a clown in a circus. She comes there, tottering on her sick legs, and her heart fails when she sees her son falling from a high trapeze-iust like her husband had his fatal fall!
The mother is dead. but the clown must not weep, his destiny is to laugh and make others laugh-even if his own heart be breaking!
And when he must part from his love, then too there should be no tears in his eyes, he must hide them behind dark glasses.
So when Marina flies away, she requests him to sing the "Awara" song which she has loved since her childhood and which symbolizes to her the spirit of India which is also the spirit of Rajoo, the man she loves. Once again, Rajoo is walking along the shore of life, the eternal tramp. With his mother dead, he carries his home on his shoulders-in a ruck-sack. Tired of the clown-doll which keeps returning to him, like his heart, he throws it to drown in the sea. But a dog jumps in, and drags it back and lays it at his feet.
The dog belongs to a "boy" who is pasting cinema posters on hoardings near the sea-beach, and the three of them become friends-Rajoo, Minco the boy, Moti the dog.
Together these three start a "Footpath Circus" till one day Rajco discovers that the boy he had befriended is a girl-and that the male attire was a mas- querade to protect her honour in the heartless city. Minco the boy becomes Mina the girl and the sari that Rajoo presents to her becomes a wall bet ween them.
But realy between them is the consuming ambition of Mina-the ambition of becoming a film star, with fame and fortune and glamour-for which she is willing to sacrifice Moti their faithful dog. to betray the people who had put up money to arrange their Qawwali, and eventually when the famous film hero, Kumar appears on her horizon, she can even sacrifice Rajco, Rajoo who be friended her when she was friendless, who taught her acting, singing. dancing, transforming an uncouth "boy" into a refined, glamorous actress!
And Rajoo is left, dangling among the cob-webs of his memories, like the clown-doll that lies abandoned in a corner of the deserted and haunted hut that was once their love-nest, as Mr. Kumar, the producer-star, introduces his new discovery-Meena-to the press and to the trade at a dazzling press conference.
Amidst the popping flash-bulbs, Meena smiles, and now it is her face that is reflected in the pieces of the glass heart that broke in the Circus. The old singing clown is still performing.
while he picks up the pieces of glass-the broken pieces of his heart-watched by the three women who had played their respective roles in shaping the pattern of his destiny.
But there are three more chairs, empty, beside them, and the singing clown, as he reaches the finale of his song, announces an interval-of fifteen minutes or fifteen months. For, he says, my-show has not ended-nor has my story!