Cast a spell
They neither wear capes, nor pull rabbits out of hats, but youngsters today are turning magicians by learning simple card tricks and disappearing coin acts from the TV and Web. Magic has always enamoured children and now they learn simple tricks to perform at school and among friends, and the satisfaction when a classmates’ jaw drops after a trick, is simply priceless.
A cool trick can be learnt while watching how magicians operate on TV, and impressing friends with such a small effort is well worth it. Akshay Chugh, 15-year-old student of the capital’s Somerville School, informs, “I follow TV shows by magician Yogesh Sarkar and India’s Magic Star. It’s fun to see my friends trying card tricks and what they see on TV and it’s pretty cool whenever they pull it off. I too am picking up and very soon I will be able to perform a few tricks myself. It’s fun.”
And not just the Western illusionists, even Indian magicians on telly have a healthy fan following among youngsters who then try the tricks themselves. Sixteen-year-old, Rohan Talukdar, says Breaking The Magician’s Code (BTMC) is an excellent source for decoding those impossible tricks that magicians do and it also talks about the tricks not to be tried, saying, “Even the famous disappearing acts are unveiled on the show and most of it is clever trickery. I particularly liked the acts where the masked man walked through a brick wall, which just turned out to be a curtain. Simpler things like card tricks can be safely tried, but who knows you could end up banging your head against a wall.”
Famous magicians like David Blaine, David Copperfield, Chris Angel are very popular on TV and YouTube and this is evident from the number of clicks their Web videos get. Ravi Kumar, 14, also followed the BTMC series religiously, and by the time the series folded up, he literally had a few cards up his sleeve.
“Disappearing coins, recognising cards, matchstick tricks can easily be tried and are not at all risky,” says Ravi.
Shuffling coins from one hand to other and some simpler card tricks are easy to pull off and that’s all that youngsters must attempt, say magicians, as intricate tricks and stunts can be hazardous.
Mumbai-based Ashley Vanristell, only 11, and already a veteran of over 1,100 magic shows, is a fan of David Blaine and has learnt magic himself. Barring the shows on TV, magic’s secrets are closely guarded, and Ashley, like a seasoned magician, is wary of letting them out.
Ashley sums up, saying, “It feels great when people admire my magic shows, and a lot of people, specially children, come up to ask me how I do it, but I can’t tell them the tricks of trade.”
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