Magic of science is in the mind

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The magic of yesterday is the science of today, the science of yesterday is the magic of today,” said the youngest female artistic illusionist in the world. She was in the United States for a conference with David Copperfield. “He only meets you if he is intrigued by you and thinks you are good,” she said talking about meeting the world famous magician.

I watched how she made a coin disappear through a groove on the back of her hand sitting one foot away from me. It’s an art, I thought. “It is an art. People get a little disenchanted by phenomena like jadu tona, a scientific art,” said the 26-year-old.
Kruti’s interest in this art form generated early when she was five years old. She pleaded with a magician to teach her some tricks. Fed up with the little girl’s pestering, he relented and taught her a few of his secrets. Later the same year, on a trip to Fantasy Land outside Mumbai, she came on stage and performed the same tricks for an audience. She got instant recognition by the group of people who watched her. That recognition pushed her to learning the ropes with passion.
“I taught myself by reading books and watching videos. A lot of magicians are wary of teaching girls,” she said, adding, “Finally my guru William Zambaga, the illusionist, took me under his wing.” “Does your talent sometimes fail you?” I asked her. “How can something you have control over fail you?” she answered. Having said that, she narrated an incident when she was locked up in a Houdini box and could not get out because of a goofup by one of the assistants. “Something like this can be fatal, but you need the presence of mind and then let it look like part of the act,” she confessed.
Kruti wrote a book when she was twenty titled Beyond The Threshold Of Mind. The concept of the book is about how to work your mind, to apply and focus and finally achieve. She also conducts sessions called “Mind, Power and Beyond”. She explained how everyone was initially sceptical about the fact that she was, after all, so young. She added, “It was a challenge and a goal to conquer their minds.”
She talked about meditation and in her opinion it is the tool that enables you to focus on everything you do in life. “Hitler meditated the extortion of the Jews,” she said. Having studied the Bhagavad Gita, Vedas and the Upanishads, she said, “It is not only about religion but the psychology of how to work the mind to deal with different situations. It is mind training,” she said. Kruti believes that there is nothing more powerful than the determined mind. The training to maintain the focus as it is almost always the focus that undoes most people. Meditation brings with it the need to remain silent and if you aren’t silent, how will you be able to hear what is going on in someone else’s mind?
This young girl who has yet to understand what life is all about talked about telepathic conversations she has with the people who come to visit her. Kruti was the first test-tube baby in India. I asked her if she ever thought in some unrelated way the magic in her life had anything to do with it. “Well,” she paused, “I have no background of magic in the family but I was born of scientific magic.” Kruti is now applying herself to merge art (a dance form like Kathak) with magic.
“We think too much about why the past happened or what the future holds. Why things were wrong or right. We just have to learn to live it and live it now,” said the young one wisely.