Geetanjali Krishna: A magician's tricky life

A pair of hypnotic dark eyes looked into mine. “You are a dreamer,” said he. I nodded mutely. “Sometimes your dreams keep you up at night,” he whispered into my ear. I gulped and nodded again in agreement — but then, maybe I’d have agreed to pretty much anything he said. Before I knew it, he’d slipped a large ring with a black stone on my index finger. “It will give you good dreams,” he whispered, “only for Rs 400.” As I went to a sunny nook away from the magician’s mesmerising presence, the dubious possessor of an ornament whose powers I scarcely believed in, all I could do was marvel at the man’s skill.

“It’s a matter of performance,” said he later, “all my life, all I’ve done is perform and connect with different audiences.” His name was Majeed Khan, and he used to be a Kalandar working with dancing bears before the practice was declared illegal. “I tried my hand at different trades, but after being used to the freedom of the open road, none of them interested me,” he told me. So, eventually, he decided to continue performing, replacing his bear with magic tricks, music and mesmerism.

Looking ruefully at my new black ring, I asked him to show me some items he performed. And so, the Kalandar began his performance (majma). From a battered old bag, he pulled out some bones, smeared red with vermillion. “I’ve got these especially from the cremation ground to aid me in my magic...” he intoned, brandishing them under my nose. One looked suspiciously like a chicken foot, while another looked like it came out of his stewpot, but we let it pass. For in a blink of the eye, he dusted the bones with some ash and the ash transformed into a coin. Appreciative of the gasps from his audience, he waved his bones again and a second coin magically appeared.

Next he took out a book from his tattered bag. It was called Indrajadu, he said, for it was magical, too. He flipped its pages for us to see. They were blank. Then he licked the cover delicately, and when he flipped the book again, it was filled with writing. He licked it again, and the writing was replaced by print. Circling us like a predator around prey, he performed trick after trick, transforming dirt into vermillion, plain water into jasmine attar and more.

A crowd had gathered to watch, and Majeed was well aware of the business prospects they offered. He leapt from side to side, reading palms, selling rings and amulets to ward off the evil eye and more. The audience wanted more. So, he played a few airs on his flute but was eventually let down by his asthmatic lungs. Everyone in the audience put some money on his sheet, and his performance came to an end.

“After my bear was taken, I realised that entertaining people was the only thing I knew to do,” he said to me. This prompted him to recreate the old style of majma without his bear. “I’m old and feeble now, but still go at least for 15 days in a month. I travel in a radius of about 200 km around my village Chorbhatti in Bilaspur, earn in cash and kind, and then spend a fortnight at home,” said he. “It is not an ideal life,” said he, speaking without regret of a shop he tried running but failed, of progeny who died while he was away on the road. “Yet it’s still an outdoors life and I continue doing what I do best — entertain people!”

That’s when I realised that you can take the bear away from this Kalandar, but he just can’t bear to give up performing.