An air-conditioned living room, a spa for a shower and a royal spread for lunch—if you're thinking luxury, you're thinking right.
   For the four sea lions with the Russian Circus team in the city, that is what life is all about at Netaji Indoor stadium.
   Far away from home, the only thing these mammals are missing is the warmth of human applause.
   Except that, it's all indulgence; at Rs 15,000 per day.
  

To begin with, the four have been kept in an air-conditioned enclosure behind the stage at one end of the stadium. And the air conditioner is on round-the-clock.
   Inside the enclosure, the sea lions have been kept in huge water tubs, where they can move, if not swim.
   Every day, Julia, the trainer, guides
them through special sessions, followed by an hour of cuddling and a refreshing shower.
   " The way the four play with the trainer is a spectacle in itself. She is possibly the only one in the world who can communicate so well with the sea lions," said Bhaskar Goswami, from Choice Events and Trade Promotion, the company managing the shows.
   Lunch follows soon after. It is estimated that the sea lions consume between 70 and 80 kg of fish every day. And not any kind of fish. They have to be fed chosen varieties of sea fish, that have to be specially flown in.
   At Rs 150 a kg, the organisers claimed that they end up spending between Rs 10,000 and Rs 12,000 every day on fish alone.
   But the sea lions won't be here for long. Come December 12, the mammals— sucked into a controversy that has stopped them from exhibiting their talents —will head back home via Mumbai, where the team will perform.
   " They will be sent to Mumbai in a special truck fitted with an air-conditioned cell, along with two trainers. From Mumbai, they will fly to Moscow. We are now hunting for transport operators who deal with huge air-conditioned cells,"said Dharam Dutt Pandey of the event management group.
   The circus troupe will start for Mumbai three days after the sea lions. Efforts are on to push back the deadline.
   " We are trying hard for an extension, but things haven't been finalised," said an organiser.
   The managers are not complaining, though. "Almost every day has been a sellout. We have already received offers for special shows at Hyderabad and Surat," claimed Goswami.