Coulrophobia

Fear of Clowns

Can’t sleep, clown will eat me
Bart Simpson

Shalimar the Clown
Salman Rushdie

Psychology Today in its August 2006 issue names coulrophobia as a clinical condition that afflicts eight percent of the world’s adult population. This means about one in seven grown-ups is seriously affrighted by clowns and needs therapy to get over it. Or to be told that all clowns have miraculously died of a very serious virus.

Formal clowning has long come in three varieties. There are white and red faced circus clowns of whom several happen to be scary looking dwarfs. This lot may have avoided extinction by reincarnating as Ronald, the McDonald’s mascot, complete with green park bench. Then there is the comedian Auguste clown who is holding out for another Batman sequel and yet another multi-million dollar turn as The Joker. And last but not least, there’s the street person tramp clown sanitised and deodorised by Chaplin & Kapoor.

But why are one in seven people over 21 frightened of clowns? Consider that Pierrot and the Commedia dell’arte and the Circus Maximus are all thousands of years old and mostly history. You can’t find a clown suit outside of a costume rental shop, a carnival, a church charity drive or a fancy dress party any more. So why are so many people still afraid? Do they, in their wisdom, know that the clown has gone and mutated in this nuclear age? Do they realize that the old style clowns have turned into legions of men and women and evil-hearted children whose expressions we cannot read and whose intentions we cannot fathom?

Coulrophobia grows, after all, out of nasty, humiliating or terrifying encounters with clowns in childhood. And, not surprisingly, from the unwitting infliction of some very malevolent looking clown dolls. For those who find clowns unfunny, they represent intrusion, molestation and trauma, masked, of course, by ghastly painted leers and witch’s cackle.

So how much more “fear of clowns” do we properly need? How much more paranoia will help us protect our soft underbellies? We have so much to defend after all. Look at us in Shalimar’s Kashmir, in New Delhi and Mumbai and Varanasi and Ayodhya and Ahmedabad. Look at the Iraqis in Baghdad and Karbala. And those bloodied people in the Gaza strip, Beirut, Haifa, Madrid, Colombo, Kandahar and Kabul. Look at the lore represented by 9/11 and 7/7 and 11/7 and the barbaric bringing down of the Bamiyan Buddha. Look at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. This is old fashioned wrath and retribution. The gallows humour is only in the sacrifice of innocent lambs. Coulrophobia is about this kind of sinister seemingness. No wonder it’s so real.

And today is a very good day to be afraid of clowns. The US House of Representatives last night passed the much debated nuclear deal with India. They voted after five hours of debate 359 for to 68 against without any of the unacceptable “killer” amendments. The US Senate is yet to vote and will do so, it is expected, in August or September of this year. However, as we stand, the rousing bipartisan support (218 Republicans and 141 Democrats) for the deal could begin to change the strategic architecture of the world.

The Act, when it becomes US law and receives other international endorsements, will permit India to buy reactors and nuclear fuel from the global market for the first time in more than 30 years.

Said Tom Lantos, a Democrat representing California who co-authored the piece of legislation:“ We are at the hinge of history, building a fundamentally new relationship with India...historians will regard this as a tidal shift in ties between the U.S and India when Congress signalled definitively the end of the cold war paradigm.”

Naturally, there is cause for celebration in sarkari and business circles tonight in New Delhi. But between the bhangra drums and the glasses of clinking lassi we’d better be on the look out for the clowns. Remember these people wear large red smiles but you never can read their expressions.

(671 words)
By Ghatotkach
Thursday 27th July 2006

This and all original essays on GHATOTKACHSERIES are copyright 2005-2006 by Gautam Mukherjee. All Rights Reserved.