SPELL CHECK

A magician stood under the escalator, waiting for someone to enter his charmed circle. People strolling the mall in Malad, a suburb in north Mumbai, stared; a young woman nudged her friend: “Isn’t he the TV guy? Magic karta hai. Kuchh Sarcar naam hai. P.C. Sarcar.” Curious, a teenager walked up to the lanky figure in grey denims and black leather jacket. “Hallo,” said the conjuror as the cameras blinked on, “I’m Ugesh Sarcar. I do strange things.”
The names do get muddled but Sarcar, 30-year-old illusionist with a show of his own called 3rd Degree on UTV’s entertainment channel Bindass, is not one to have an identity crisis. He is everything that India’s most celebrated magician P.C. Sorcar Jr isn’t.

He is, so he claims, India’s first street magician. Not for him the stage where rabbits get pulled out of hats and women in pink tights get sawed into half. He takes his show with him, to strangers in malls and markets, to housewives out for an ice cream and young men checking out babes and brands. His appearance, too, lacks the extravagance of a conjuror. The turban with a red plume has been junked for straggly locks; the brocade robes for black T-shirts and jeans; loops of pearls for chunky pendants and belts. The only element of drama comes from the kohl-lined eyes that offset his gaunt face.

Sarcar’s show strings together episodes of him surprising passers-by with his tricks. He approaches the man on the street or the market with politeness, pulls out his pack of cards and the magic begins. He has slid a coin into a sealed bottle of water without opening it, levitated on a Mumbai sidewalk, bent spoons and made cellphones ring on their own. It’s a no-fuss performance shorn of grand gestures. It tells the audience that this is an impromptu, unrehearsed performance—that the conjuror has plucked magic out of the humdrum life around him. It works, though is not exactly edge-of-the-seat action. Sometimes, the show appears amateur in its production values.

... contd.