Magic 101:: New Age Xtra

This article was originally published in New Age Xtra on February 26, 2010

Magic 101

Khamin and Syed Tashfin Chowdhury talk to famous magicians of Bangladesh to learn about the entertainment form

A crowd had gathered around a bede (gypsy) couple performing magic, while selling herbal products, in a marketplace of the Rampura Banasri residential area. The magician asked a volunteer from the crowd to cut a long white rope into five pieces. The magician’s wife took the pieces and after tying them all in knots, mumbled some magic words. To the crowd’s surprise, the rope was back in its original shape without any torn parts.

A while later, the same couple turned a Tk 100 note into a Tk 500 note. ‘If they can make Tk 500 out of a Tk 100 note, then why are they selling herbal medicines!’ commented a member of the audience to another.

Despite being aware that the acts of magic are all just illusions and mere forms of entertainment, members of the audience love to feel the thrill and amazement that each magic act takes them through. Be it the simple magicians on the street, Jewel Aich or Ulfat Kabir on local television, or even David Copperfield or Criss Angel on the cable channels, magic has been the single most popular and longest running form of entertainment since ancient times.

Both Jewel Aich and Ulfat Kabir feel that Abdullah Abu Syed and Fazle Lohani, noted television presenters of Bangladesh Television (Btv) during the eighties, played a major role in its growing popularity during the time.

While magic shows were extremely popular during the eighties and mid-nineties in our mainstream media, it seems to have taken a backseat over the years. Although magic is still popular in the rural areas, it is rarely seen now in the urban areas due to the lack of space.

‘We learn of magic at an early age from the spiritual tales told to us by our elders, including the account of Hazrat Suleiman (AS)’s sword and Prophet Musa (AS)’s magical stick,’ says Ulfat Kabir, a senior magician who has won various national and international awards for magic over the years. Ulfat, along with his wife, are officially the first ever couple to have formed a magic troupe in the country.

‘These stories amaze us and this is how magic becomes a common interest among most people since childhood,’ he says, while describing the link we hold with magic.  ‘Magicians, on the other hand, love magic and they like to perform it for the audience,’ he says.

Like Dev in Hindu mythology, magicians Jewel Aich, Ali Raj or Ulfat Kabir can all vanish on stage in front of thousands of watchful eyes in the audience. As found in the Arabian nights, David Copperfield and contemporary magicians can now fly during stage shows.

Kabir pointed out that magic was looked upon as a matter of spirituality during ancient times. ‘However, the general public are very much aware now that these are basically tricks, although they still love it,’ he said.  

According to magicians, the most common of all acts is the vanishing trick. It can be executed in many ways, starting from the disappearance of a coin, a cage of doves and finally, a glass of milk covered within a newspaper. ‘This type of magic is called hand trick and there are many other forms of this than seen or mentioned,’ said Kabir.

‘Tricks of appearance like a rabbit from an empty hat, a fan of cards from thin air, a shower of coins from an empty bucket and so on are called production magic under hand trick,’ explained Kabir.

The next most popular form is the illusion which can be classified as teleportation, escapology, levitation, prediction and others. Famous illusionists of the world include Criss Angel, Herbert L Becker, David Blaine, Darren Brown, Lance Burton, David Copperfield, Paul Daniels, Dorothy Dietrich and Terry Evanswood. PC Sorcar and PC Sorcar Jr were Indian illusionists while Jewel Aich is the master illusionist from Bangladesh.

‘Tricks involving illusion require massive arrangements, leading to high expenditure for any particular act,’ said Aich. Aich and other magicians explained each form of illusion briefly.

‘In teleportation, the magician causes something to move from one place to another,’ said Aich. He pointed out that this could be a borrowed ring from a member of the audience which is later found inside a ball of wool or even a canary found inside a light bulb. ‘The magician’s assistant can also be transported from inside a cabinet on the stage to a remote spot in the back of the theatre amidst the audience,’ said a magician. He explained that the exchange of two objects’ position is termed a transposition or a simultaneous, double teleportation.

In escapology, the magician is placed in a restraint and in extreme conditions, which would make it difficult for him or her to be released. These conditions can include being handcuffed, strapped within a strait jacket, plunged in water with weights stuck to the feet, being tied up and placed in a car that is sent through a car crusher or even being shut inside a coffin. In most acts, all the conditions are combined to make things tougher for the escape artist and more thrilling for the audience.

However, the escape artist or magician awes the audience by escaping totally unharmed from the peril. The most famous escape artist till date is Harry Houdini, who despite being a magician initially, became a stunt performer, actor and film producer later in his life.

The trick where David Copperfield flies is known as levitation. The act helps the magician defy gravity. This could begin with small things starting from silver balls floating on a cloth or big items like making an assistant float in mid-air. David Copperfield and others flew with the aid of superior technology.

The next class of illusion entails all magic acts where one solid object passes through another. As such, this is aptly called penetration. Some magic tricks from this section include the linking and detachment of a set of steel rings, a candle passing through a man’s arm, a sword passing through an assistant within a basket, a saltshaker passing through the table-top and a man walking through a mirror. The famous David Copperfield trick of walking through the Great Wall of China is from this sect of illusions.

There is also prediction, where the magician yanks out the card that a member of the audience had chosen from a deck of cards or other such tricks.

Magicians like Ulfat Kabir, Jewel Aich and even Ali Raj agreed that being a magician can be a good profession given the general public interest. However, they intimated that most of them learnt it out of curiosity.

‘I learnt magic from a group of gypsies at my village,’ said Aich. Kabir, on the other hand, learnt magic from his guru, Jadugar Aladen. ‘I have also opened a magic school for students of all ages,’ he said. However, he said that he enjoyed teaching magic to children.

There are other magic schools in Dhaka. Some of these schools teach around 100 tricks, including one trick for free, at only Tk 500. Kholifa Al Mannu’s magic school in Malibag is one of such.

‘Named Magic Academy, my school has two more branches in Jatrabari and Uttara,’ said Mannu. ‘Even three to four years ago, my school was the top magic school in the city. It has fewer students now as the interest towards magic seems to be waning amongst the general public,’ he said.

‘People are now more mechanical and they do not seem to find much amusement in their lives,’ said Mannu. ‘However, we need recreation and only magic can provide such entertainment for the mind,’ he added.  

Mannu was taking a class of restoration trick, during a visit to his magic school in Malibagh. In this trick he destroyed a newspaper and then restored it back to its original state.

‘Following the same procedure, a woman can be sawn off in half,’ he said. ‘However, it would require state of the art equipment and therefore would be more expensive.’

He also taught his students the transformation trick after this. His final trick was the ‘Monte trick’ which is used by gamblers in the rural festivals or fairs, for swindling unsuspecting audience members. Also known as the ‘three cards game’, the trick begins with three cards being placed on the table. Prior to the placement, the audience members are shown that one of the three cards is the queen.

After a mix-up, the audience is then asked to bet their money on which one of the three cards is the queen. Everybody in the audience loses money as the magician doing the trick replaces the ‘queen’ with another card. ‘This is also a prediction trick,’ said Mannu.

Aich and Kabir are wary of such magic tricks. ‘This is not magic but cheating,’ said Kabir.

‘This is not magic, which is really a performing art that entertains an audience by creating illusions of seemingly impossible or supernatural feats, using purely natural means,’ clarified Aich.

Magicians indicated that there is still hope for the entertainment form. ‘Magicians are still the main acts at birthday programmes, marriage anniversary events and at cultural programmes,’ said Kabir. ‘Magicians are even called to entertain the country’s guests. As a profession, the income is still quite good and prestigious,’ he added.

‘Magic can be a good alternative through which, academic lessons can be provided to school children,’ said Ali Raj. ‘In such a way, they will learn while enjoying,’ he added. He recommended government authorities to consider the idea, as it is already successful in the developed countries like USA and others.