Looking at a life full of tricks..
In-depth interview by Akila Kannadasan for The Hindu..
I slump into a chair in the empty auditorium with nothing but a droning AC at the far end for company. Suddenly, an elderly man appears before me. How did he get in? I didn’t hear him approaching. Did I fall asleep? Or maybe he took the rear entrance? Perhaps he appeared out of thin air? With magician P.C. Sorcar, anything is possible. The senior magician, with over 40 years of experience in entertaining people, sets out to tell me his story:
“A mela was on on either sides of the canal in that small town in East Bengal. There was food, games, and so on. My father went there every day. He must have been in IV or V standard. He was particularly attracted to a small group of Marwaris who sat on the ground performing magic tricks. Father keenly observed them, and tried out the tricks back home. He showed them what he could do the next day. At first they brushed him off saying ‘No, no, you got it all wrong’. But when they realised that he wouldn’t give up, they taught him the tricks themselves.
“This is how father learned magic. He read a lot, practised hard…he trained himself to be a magician at a time when he had no one to look up to…