Can you turn dice into a bunch of flowers? Bet you can’t! But the children who attended the three-day PC Sorcar magic workshop jolly well can.
PC Sorcar, along with wife Jayashree and daughter Maneka conducted this interactive workshop at Nehru Children’s Museum recently. Sixty children between the ages of 6 and 16 attended, making it a huge success.
The dexterous magician performed some magic tricks on the dais that preceded a demonstration of the secret behind the illusion, while his daughter and wife went around making sure that each participant picked up the trick well. The curious attendants put forward various queries to the sorcerer himself, none of which went unanswered.
Yatish Agarwal (13), one of the learners, exclaimed that he was enjoying the workshop because he had got “the opportunity to learn from such a great magician.” Some of them were asked to perform a just-learnt trick on stage and they did it all remarkably well.
Maneka Sorcar is confident that the workshop will bring out the PC Sorcars in the youngsters, “provided you have the dream, the determination and believe in your ability.” When the workshop ended for the day, the kids ran to their parents eager to show them the ‘magical’ tricks they had learnt.
PC Sorcar is pleased with the success of the workshop and hopes to conduct many such workshops in the city. Believing that his countrymen have a high level of intelligence, he hopes that they will nurture their talents in magic, it being “an art for the intellectuals.” The great illusionist describes magic as “going beyond science using science.” But, as he always says, magic should never be used to promote superstition, cheat science or divert our society in any case.
So, the next time you see dice turn into flowers, know for sure that some budding magicians are trying to hood-wink you with their hocus-pocus!
[By Arnab Nandy, Teesta Guha Sarkar]