Priyamvada Majumdar of Alliance Francaise de Bangalore, from where the circus would have flown to Calcutta, takes up the tale: "We were lucky there was an Indian (airlines) cargo flight around the same time. The journeys from Mumbai to Pune and from there to Bangalore were somehow arranged by road. Again, at Bangalore, the airline initially agreed but then said the door was not big enough and that the boxes would be too heavy even if tilted."

It was too late to arrange for road transport to Calcutta and so Company Méli Mélo headed straight to Chandigarh.

"If only they had told us in the beginning, we would have arranged the schedule to suit luggage transportation by road. Bringing a circus party over costs a lot of money. And what happened is embarrassing for us," says Myriam Rasiwala of the French Embassy in Delhi, which will seek an explanation from the airline.