There are several moves involving a heavy wooden top, which Balraj gets going by flinging it toward the crowd, holding onto the string and jerking at the last instant so the top comes back toward him and lands spinning in his palm.

He balances it on top of a short stick covered in tiny tassels, with that stick balanced on a mouth stick. Somehow - Balraj makes it look as if he does it by tugging an earlobe - he can make that small stick either spin with the top or remain still. When it spins, the tassels stand out; Balraj with a flick of his lips stops it from spinning, then starts it again. He also balances the top on a springy stick about a meter long, that stick balanced on his chin, the top spinning and bouncing up and down dangerously above his head.

Even the "straight" juggling he does looks odd to a Western juggler. Balraj's knives are about a half-meter long (18 inches), with very light, thin blades like huge butter knives, with very heavy round wooden handles. He does not flip the knives blade over handle back toward himself as a Westerner would. He throws reverses, holding the knife high, flipping the handle toward himself so that it somersaults handle-over-blade.

This lends itself more to two-in-one-hand juggling, and that is the main bit of his knife work:

singles and doubles so fast that it looks as if he were spinning two batons in one hand rather than throwing and catching knives. The blades are thin where they join the handle, and around this bit are two "washers" of thick, rigid wire.

Balraj spins the knives around their long axes as he flips them, and the washers make them "sing. " The speed, the noise, and the highly polished blades flashing in the sun make an impressive show. He also does three, but throws mostly flats (no flip) or what Westerners would call "reverse spins."

Balraj's round juggling objects are bronze/ brass bells of the sort hung on elephants, camels and oxen allover India. But they are specially cast for juggling: perfectly round with no attach­ment for a hanging line and only very narrow slits to let the noise of the clapper out.

Balraj starts with two, throwing and catching with his left hand only while he bounces them off the back of his right palm, right forearm, right elbow - very fast and tight. The bells ring differently as they hit different body parts, and the act makes music accompanied, of course, by the dholak.

He does three bells and four bells, using moves similar to Western ball juggling. Despite the act being centuries old, Balraj practices to improve. He has an uncle who does six bells, and feels that if he could do more he could become famous.

In India, Balraj halts his act halfway through to pass around the "thali." This is the plate from which food is eaten, so it is a symbol throughout the land of livelihood and survival - much more appropriate than a hat. He tells the crowd, "For you we have performed, and you must help us so we can live. The one who pays is welcome; the one who does not is also our guest."

Doing only two or three shows a day, Balraj and his troupe earn 7,000 - 10,000 rupees ($1,000 - $1,400) per year, money which must support seven people. This is not a bad Indian income, but they have only been earning this much money for the past three years. Balraj says street acts have become popular in schools over that period, and he is often invited in to perform.

He and his family are members of a low caste and own no land. They do not work much in their home village, but take part in the harvest­festival and other celebrations. At harvest time especially, the farmers are expected to be generous to any artistes living among them.

But when his children grow to school age, he will have to leave them and his wife in the  village and travel without them, sending money home. He will get little help from the government - no social security, pension, or sickness benefits. But his children will be educated free, and Indians get free health care - if there is a doctor nearby. If he is injured on the road, if that coat hanger pierces a sinus or if that marble takes out an eye, he will become another of India's landless unemployed; the children will not be going to school.

Balraj makes more money in the big cities than in me villages. "But I have trouble with the police. It is the biggest problem of my life. I must bribe them and the local 'big men'. Sometimes they even move me on without asking for a bribe. They sometimes take all the props of a juggler, but that has never happened to me. I have been taken into custody twice, but that was when I was only young and did not know how to talk to them."

In London Balraj has not been moved on by the police, nor does he pass the thali. He performs all day in an art gallery. He and a street magician, musicians, dancers, potters, weavers and the like have been flown in to take part in the "Festival of India" - happening allover London this past summer - at the Barbican Centre, a new concrete and glass art gallery, theatre and concert hall complex in the heart of the City. The artistes and artisans perfonn all day as visitors stroll about and watch them.

The exhibit is nicely staged, but there is something a little chilling about human beings ­ especially human beings as skilled, bright and ambitious as Balraj - becoming museum displays, as if they were of another era and must be preserved in a glass case. A bus brings the performers from their hotel every morning and takes them back every evening. Balraj has been on a children's television show here, but has seen none of London and met none of its Asian community. (He speaks no English; I speak no Telugu; so we communicated through an interpreter, Balraj and the interpreter speaking Hindi. He tried my fiberglass clubs, plastic rings, hard rubber balls and cigar boxes. I tried his bells and knives. Neither found the cultural leap easy, but we were deeply impressed by each other's props. He was amazed by a copy of JUGGLERS WORLD, and was especially taken by the photo of Ignatov doing 11 rings. "I wish I could read it," he said.

More and more Indian villages have a central TV set and more people see cinema. Thus the same forces - TV and cinema - are at work in India which wiped out the hordes of variety artistes who made their livings touring Europe and the USA earlier this century.

Also, more and more street jugglers must have the same hopes for their children that Balraj does. An office colleague of mine, an Indian recently moved to Longdon from Delhi, says her impression is that India's traditional street performers are succumbing to such pressures, becoming scarcer. Maybe it is appropriate that they perform in a museum in London.

But not Balraj. He says he cannot wait until his month in London is up and he is back in India again - back on the road.

The contents of Balraj's prop bag.

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