Back in India, Chatre met Keeleri Kunhikannan during his tour in the city of Tellicherry on the Malabar Coast. Keeleri Kunhikannan worked as a martial art and gymnastics teacher. On Chatre’s insistence, Keeleri started training acrobats at his academy. In 1901, he opened a circus school at Chirakkara near Tellicherry (Kerala), which became the epicentre of the circus revolution in India.
In 1904, one of Kunhikannan’s students, Pariyali Kannan started his own circus company by the name of Grand Malabar Circus. Other companies such as Whiteway Circus (1922), Great Ramayan Circus (1924), The Great Lion Circus, the Eastern Circus, the Fairy Circus, etc. were started by the students of Kunhikannan. Thus, Kerala came to be known as the ‘Cradle of Indian Circus’.
Kunhikannan’s academy also gave rise to a number of acrobats who gained national and international acclaim. Kannan Bombayo, a ropedancer, graduated from Kunhikannan’s academy in 1910 and later went on to perform for several European and American circus companies.
After Kunhikannan’s death in 1939, his student M. K. Raman continued his legacy. In 2010, the Government of Kerala started a Circus Academy in Thalassery in the honour of Keeleri Kunhikannan. He has rightly been conferred the epithet of ‘The father of Indian Circus’.