Tricks and treats!

He still pulls hares from hats and his audiences still pick up their jaws from the floor. Magician PC Sorcar Jr is yet to turn an anachronism in this techie age, says Souvik Chowdhury

It is 8.30 pm and PC Sorcar Jr, the renowned Indian magician, is late by almost two hours for his show in Hyderabad.

Impatient murmurs are beginning to rise in the packed auditorium when suddenly, in a flourish, the man appears on stage.

I apologise if I am late, he says, with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"But then who says I am late," he asks the audience. "Look at your watches," he insists. And lo! everybody's watch in the auditorium shows 6.30pm – the exact time when his show is scheduled to start.

The inimitable PC Sorcar has done it yet again – got everyone under his spell. And the real show is yet to begin.

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Prodip Chandra Sorcar (fondly known as PC Sorcar Jr) is considered by many in India to be more than just a magician.

To them, he is a man who can work wonders – solve the world's woes, bring riches to everyone, make people's dreams come true ...

In fact, just before the recent elections in India, a certain politician from Bihar (a central Indian state) approached Sorcar requesting him to "do something magical" so he could win the elections.

The politician was sure Sorcar could do it.

After all, if this wonderful man could make trains vanish into thin air, "slice" a person in half, then put the halves together and bring the person "back to life", surely helping a politician win an election was child's play, right?

Well, no. Not when it comes to voters' choices. PC prefers to let that magic happen on its own, if at all it does.

"I've been inventing new tricks to fool people since my early twenties," says Sorcar, in an interview with Friday.

"People have termed me a born magician and, 3,000-plus innovative tricks later, I suppose I wouldn't disagree [with them]," he says with a glint in his eye.

Then, as an afterthought: "If only I had real magical powers, I would make all corrupt politicians of India disappear."

His eldest daughter, Meneka, the ninth child of India's most reputable family of magicians, is seated near him and is quick to add: "Know what I would do if I had magical powers? I would bring about a change in the minds of all those who think magic was born in the West. Even Houdini's most famous trick of swallowing blades and then drawing them out of his mouth in a long string is a purely Indian trick made famous by Indian street magicians here. By Houdini's own admission, he had learnt the trick from a yogi."

Meneka, a twenty-something MBA from Ohio State University, is passionate about taking the family legacy forward.

She is, in fact, the only woman in the family to have donned professionally the "magic mantle".

For her, the crossover from the boardroom to the stage has been easy.

"Women make better magicians than men," she states without missing a beat.

There may not have been too many women in this field, but Meneka is all out to prove her mettle as an accomplished magician.

"You want showmanship? I will show the public what showwomanship is all about," she promises.

"It is a cliche but it is true – behind every successful man there is a woman," she says.

She recalls how her grandmother, Basanti Sorcar, would burn the midnight oil sewing the wonderful, shiny costumes for her grandad, the late PC Sorcar Sr.

She would also personally make all the shimmering fineries and draperies which he used in his stage shows.

"Though she never appeared on stage, she remained a constant source of inspiration for him," recalls Meneka.

"Sleight-of-hand requires nimble fingers, and women are naturally nimble," she continues, bolstering her case for female magicians.

Her father chips in: "[Of course] women are clever; they make men do all the hard work. Look at my wife, she does the same. And then she gets to spend all my money."

Meneka shoots a mock-stern look at her father at this and Sorcar quickly adds a touch of gloss, "Actually, my wife, Jayasree is the joy of my life. That's why I have re-christened her Joysri."

Sorcar Jr and his daughter have performed magic tricks in India as well as in several other countries and they don't recall ever coming away without leaving the audiences stupefied with incredulity.

They've sliced up people, put them back together; made a moving train full of passengers dissolve into thin air; driven blindfold through the busy Madison Square ...

"Today's magic is tomorrow's science," they concur. "There's nothing called magic. There are only illusions. If I had the power to do death-defying feats, then I would have brought my dead father back to life," says Sorcar.

"Magicians who claim they have supernatural powers are liars," he goes on. "Just think about it: Why should I – PC Sorcar Jr. – need spectacles to read my morning newspaper, when on stage I can read through a blindfold? As I always say, reality is stranger than fiction!"

"It is funny and true, but ... performing before children is a bigger challenge for us than it is to perform before adults," adds Meneka, "because children's minds are too young to ‘codify' or perceive things in a linear logical format. They think through and quite often see through the tricks."

So where does that leave them? "We are performers first, then magicians," says Meneka. "In such critical situations, our mastery as performers come to our help."

So, magicians also have occupational hazards.

What are the other types of dangers involved in the game?

While adequate care is taken to see the acts are absolutely safe and the audience does not see what is up the magician's sleeves, there is always the danger of a trick falling flat.

To avoid this, care is taken to judge the mindset of the audience and involve them in the show, says Sorcar.

"At times, it is painful that as performers, we cannot fall ill, even if it is for a day. The show must go on ... even if we are dying," laments Sorcar.

Obviously, he is referring to the unfortunate event when his father suffered a massive heart attack during a performance in Japan. He died soon after.

Prodip, a teenager then, had to slip into his father's shoes and continue with the performance, smiling through the duration of the show, knowing fully well he would not be able to attend his father's funeral.

"By the way, even cats in our family [are magicians],'' says Meneka, in an attempt to clear the emotional overcast that seems to have settled over her father's mood, even if briefly.

"Samrat, a lion we had, was a magician. Otherwise, how do you explain the king of the jungle co-existing peacefully with us in our living room?"

The Sorcar family of five – Sorcar Jr., Jayasree and their daughters, Meneka, Moubani and Mumtaj – are all magicians and enjoy playing pranks on each other when at home.

Their other passion is studying insects, of which Sorcar Jr has a fan