Jaadugar Karan: 4/10

I try to catch magic shows when they come into town. A couple of years ago Jaadugar Anand blew my brains out with his elephants and levitations and item number dances but it's generally been downhill after that. Last night I dragged some friends out to see Jaadugar Karan at the Town Hall. So we bought front row tickets and entered the hall. In addition to the six of us friends (including Ajay's two year old son Satva), there were about 15 other people total in the hall and one megawatt light focusing on the audience. On the left and right extremities of the stage there were some TVS motorcycles and general TVS posters here and there. Ok, so he has a sponsor that probably takes him around the country, good for him. Then the lights went off and the show started. Three red ambulance lights in front of the stage started revolving and projections filled the curtain, it was 70s Bollywood Smuggler Villian's House Disco Party vibe and eventually the curtains opened after 10 minutes. Music pumping, some guys came in holding up a white screen and eventually fixed themselves at stage centre and a projection on the screen started a movie which introduced us to the show "starring Jaadugar Karan". In the movie, he walked in to the frame with sykotic magician/gladiator clothing, silvery suit and black boots and some barren hills in the background. He walked in slow motion towards his TVS motorcycle and mounted his steed. Then... the camera zoomed into the kick starter and we watched his black boot start the bike. Then... the camera zoomed to the accelerator and he revved the engine a couple of times. Then... he rode it around the mountains for 10 minutes and finally ended up stopping the bike in front of a wall and the screen burst open and there he was in real life on his TVS motorcycle behind it and he jumped out smiling and started the show.

He spoke in Hindi a lot. I thought he also spoke in Gujrati for a bit but Vishal told me that wasn't the case. He spoke English too but in some Tolkien dialect and you could only pick up a few words and phrases like "Greatest", "Run Run Run", and "First Time in Asia". His magic revolved mostly around boxes and making people disappear and decapitated using these. He also took some cloth pieces and put them together to form the Indian flag and then his stage assistants marched around patriotically. He threw in some short discourses on religion, nationalism and statehood. His magic wasn't very captivating. I was hoping for some good music and dance stuff but it was mostly him and the same really strange looking guys dancing vaguely to Michael Jackson and Khalnayak music. The ambience was pretty dark and sinister and nobody responded to anything he did (except us I think). There was no live orchestra. He was ok. But then he left the stage and in came his assistant to do some filler tricks and he is a certified crack fellow.

He seemed innocuous enough when he asked for a young volunteer, a five year old boy or girl if possible. He had to ask several times before some guy came up to the front with his son and lifted him onto the stage and gave him to the mad man. The mad man then proceeded to do some small talk with the young man who already looked pretty scared to be there. "Hindi teriyon?" "Padte ho?" "Daddy ka naam kya hai?" which stumped the young fellow and made him even less comfortable. Then the lights went out, music started and the revolving red strobes took us back into Amrish Puri's evil lair. A midget brought in a blindfold and much to the kid's dismay they blindfolded him lifted him up and took him towards the back where there was something like an operating table and they put the blindfolded kid on it. He was fighting now but it was too late for the trick had started. It was dark and red strobes and scary assistants and midgets who looked like they wanted to drink his blood, really scary even from where I was sitting. I think the mad man brought some swords and hoops and tried to prove that the kid was levitating but by this time the kid was in tears and had removed his blindfold and was trying to get up and yelling to his dad. But the mad man was having none of it and kept pushing him down. Finally when the trick was over, the kid was brought back to the front still crying and looking like he'd just come out of the Exorcist and returned to his father after giving him a chocolate.

I think that was when we decided we better leave soon. By now Satva was also crying and Ajay left. Karan came back and did a couple more tricks which elicited no response. He then asked poignantly "Aap ko mazaa nahi aa raha hai?", Vishal felt bad and threw in some claps. Karan thumped his chest many times during the show and talked about kalaa and kalaakars. He cut himself into half, that was a pretty neat trick but he could have made a bigger deal out of it. Then the mad assistant came in and did some Hindi standup comedy where he made fun of his wife and turned rice grains into thermocol. He also brought in the midget and a glass of milk and did something with it but I'm not sure what. They kept dipping their hands in the milk and splashing it around, then drinking it and spitting it out and finally he made the midget drink the milk from 20 feet away, converted the milk in his stomach into water and pulled it out of various parts his body with a siphon. Don't ask. So in conclusion, Karan's magic was ok, his assistant is most definitely rural guy with rural humour, and the show wasn't much of a spectacle, we agreed that it would have been more fun to watch if it was set in a tent in rural Haryana. Finally there was a 7 minute break. And that was when we got the hell out of there and went to drown ourselves at The Windsor Pub, which was fun as usual :)

Papel

What he wants to know is this. If I wasn't funded then what was the point of me going to New York? I tried explaining but now I have a headache. I know this headache now, it's all too familiar. It's the communication breakdown headache and it hurts like hell. Physically. And it lingers the longest. So now I have to dissect it or I can't go on with my day. He's thinking money. He's thinking bottomlines. He's thinking if they didn't pay for my ticket then what's the big deal. He doesn't understand. He doesn't see that money is just pieces of paper only worth the things you can buy with it. Like a ray of light invisible until it falls on something worth seeing.

Out Of Transit?

Well well well, it's been three years but both the music album and the film titled "Still In Transit" are now done. As in, the album has been fully produced, mixed, and mastered by me (with plenty of help from plenty of friends) at Clementine Studios in Chennai and Steve in the meanwhile has declared in New York that the movie final cut is out. It took a while but this chapter is over. Now comes a new one which involves crazy words like distribution, publishing rights and other such hocus pocus...

But before all that - some good news! The film "Still In Transit" has been selected for screening at a festival in New York. It will screen on Nov 9th and I plan to be there with Steve when it happens.

In the meanwhile, the project now has a space where we've uploaded a few tracks and put up the movie trailer. It's at www.myspace.com/sitproject and there is probably where latest news will be updated.

So some good things happening at the moment. But out of transit? Not by a mile :)

Superman

Shilo was in Meghalaya recently and found this gem...

Swimming in sunshine

What a great trip this was! Summer fantasy fully fulfilled I'd say - sunshine, backwaters, magoes, fish curry & rice, cold beers, Cockroach, and endlessly lost highways. I thought I did well the first day when I left early and rode about five hundred kilometres to reach Gokarna before sunset. Kudle beach was totally shut in the off-season. Being forced to stay on Om beach was not the most desirable start to the trip but I was off the next morning. A leisurely ride, squid manchurian for lunch and a wild goose chase later I was on Palolem. By this point Cockroach was extremely happy to be back on the highway again, I could hear it from the sound of the engine - I can't say enough good things about Bullets and highways! And Cockroach is one stoned motorbike. Onwards to Candolim (Goa was charming as usual - this is what a highway in Goa looks like) and another day ride took me to Ratnagiri in Maharashtra. Family gatherings and random friendships on the inner roads between Ratnagiri and Ganapatipule took up a couple of days. During which time my dad took me to our ancestral house a couple of hours away and we met his distant cousin. I come from sea-side people. I thought as much. Saturday morning bright and early I prepared to leave Ganapatipule for the two day ride towards Bangalore. I rode that day. And I just rode and rode. By lunch the silly little idea of riding all the way to Bangalore lodged itself in my head. So I kept riding. Cockroach was beautiful. The sun set gloriously over the windmills of Chitradurga. The moon rose across the plains on the other side. And I kept going until I reached Bangalore at midnight. Eight hundred kilometres in a day ride. I crawled into my house ready to sleep. Suddenly Gautam's on the phone. "abhi meistaaaar! you're back! come to Maya". "no Gautam I just got back into....", can't finish that thought before, "abhi meistaaar! come on - one nightcap at Maya..." I think for a few seconds and then reply, "ok sir, sounds good."

Millions of hapoos, hapoos for me!

In mango country now - everywhere mangoes. Mango trees line the highways, mango orchards everywhere, mango sellers selling ripe yellow specimens, all hapoos! And I going delirious in the summer sun. Too much it is!

Under the bridge

Off the highway and on a local road somewhere between Palolem and Panaji in Goa. Cruising from one fishing village to the next, finally away from the tourist malls disguised as beaches, I thank Divya silently for telling me about this road. The last three days have been great in terms of riding, but the beaches are the same old Israeli Mexican Italian story. Enter Divya with a good suggestion over the telephone and here I am crossing a little bridge over some backwaters. I look below and see some boys frolicking in the water and a fisherman sorting out his catch. I ask Cockroach to stop and go down to have a chat with him. He speaks Konkani and I speak some mix of Marathi and Hindi and we manage alright for about ten minutes. Eventually I take a photograph. He takes a look and asks if I can send him a copy. Sure, I tell him, what's your address? Address. That stops him dead. Address, he repeats and scratches his chin. Half a minute of silence while he looks at the sky and thinks about it. Then he gives me an address which is so ambiguous I know nothing I sent there could reach him. But I note it down anyway. It takes me two minutes to pronounce his name. Fogu Bhikanpagi. From somewhere his friend shows up. Drunk? Mad? Something. Starts talking about good intentions, bad intentions, god and all. Money. Some people die for the stuff. Ask god for the stuff. Bad bad bad. The afternoon sun is making me dizzy. He's asking me questions. Do you ask god for money? No, I tell him, he gives me enough. Good. So are you in control of your destiny? Yes, I answer without thinking. Hah! He points at me, turns around, and walks away laughing. No, wait, what did I say - "No wait, sorry I'm not in control of my destiny", I shout out behind him but it's too late, he gaaan.

Tintin in Ratnagiri

Sizzling anticipation. The morning starts of well. Yesterday was a tiring day, starting with a late night, a full day of work, band rehearsal, and finally a couple of hours at the mechanic (par for the course) getting Cockroach (my motorbike) back. But worth it. The bike felt really good this morning on my way to work. I'm seeing visions of endless roads and sunshine. Twenty four hours from now I should be riding under canopies, fields on either side, a sea breeze almost in my hair, and a smile on my face. I've taken the whole of next week off from work and it's been ages since I took Cockroach out for a spin. Yummy.