Sarcar, despite his break with the tradition of magic, was born into a charmed life. His father M.C. Sarcar was and still is a big name in the gallery of Karnataka magicians. With his elder son, he runs a school of magic in Bangalore, Karnataka Magic Academy Trust, which has about 7,000 students. “I grew up surrounded by magic. As a child, I accompanied my father to many stage shows. But even then, I didn’t like the idea of loud performances and the magician with layers of make-up. It was too unreal,” he says, running his fingers through his hair.

Sarcar also had no patience for formal education. He dropped out of college because he didn’t see how cramming Newton’s law of gravity would help him when he was “considering ways to defy it.” But he took a long detour before he found his way to the school of magic. “I took up any job I could find. I have worked in a call centre, as a medical transcriptionist, been part of a marketing cell, performed as a stand-up comic and given motivational lectures to IT executives. Magic is about playing mind games. That was the best way I could learn about the psychology of people,” he says.

After 12 years at playing the rolling stone, it was time for him to learn the tricks of illusion. Only, his father refused to teach him. “I mean, here I was, all set to be a sincere student and he refused flat out, without giving me a reason. In my anger, I shot off my mouth and said I would learn 100 card tricks in a month,” says Sarcar. As it turned out, he hadn’t made a tall promise. “When I went back to him with my small repertoire, he told me there if I could have picked up these tricks on my own, I didn’t need any training. Looking back, I realise he was the best teacher I had.”

... contd.