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Abracadabra on the tracks
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Sandheep is a wonderful mix of two professions that are poles apart. While checking railway tickets he can also pull a rabbit out of thin air. He surprised ELIZABETH NINAN with a few tricks.
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IF THE Train Ticket Examiner at the Ernakulam Junction changes your Kollam ticket to a Kasargod ticket, don't panic, this is just one small number by magician P V Sandheep, ticket checking staff at Ernakulam Junction's Information Counter.
It was a chance meeting with Upendra, yet another magician working with the Railways that encouraged Sandeep who knew just a few tricks, to learn the art seriously. And today, as an amateur magician, Sandheep has performed about 400 shows since 1984. Like Sandheep himself, his troop of eight comprises people who work full time with various organisations like the LIC. Sandheep, as a magician, first attracted public attention in 1995, when he rode a Kinetic Honda blindfolded from Kadavanthara to Menaka.(4 kms).
Though passionate about magic, his job at the Railways is important and is even dearer to him. And that's why he doesn't turn professional. "My job is important to me as that provides security for my family. My father was also with the Railways'', he says. His father, Kanjoor Velayudhan, a writer, was also a TTE with the Railways and his mother, Darly Besant, was a school teacher. Except for an uncle who used to perform little tricks to amuse kids in the family, no one from Sandheep's family was interested in magic.
However, Sandheep, a cousin of K Babu's, MLA from Thripunithura, was interested in magic right from childhood. And by the time he was in high school he started learning little tricks from various books on magic. By the time he was in college, Sandheep was performing small items at birthday parties and other such functions. Serious learning came much later in1984, under Upendra.
He started by assisting Upendra on shows and in six months, he was holding solo shows.
Now, even after many years of magical performance, his quest for new ideas and items has not stopped. And he attends as many magic conventions in South India as he can.
According to him, "Magic is very vast and there is so much you have not even heard about. At these conventions you get to meet a lot of eminent magicians, both from India and abroad and learn many new items from them,'' he says, adding that this own trademark item, `Lighted bulbs from mouth,' was learned at one such convention.
In this item, the magician first shows a wire full of lighted bulbs. Then he slowly detaches all the bulbs and puts them in a glass. Then, he puts them into his mouth and swallows them. The magic? Lighted bulbs are pulled out of his mouth, all neatly arranged on a wire.
He says that this trick, not performed by many magicians, always amazes crowds at a show. Apart from performing at various railway functions, he performs at parties and launches apart from holding bigger shows.
But it is performing before children that he enjoys most. He says children enjoy magic more. They are not cynical and watch every item with wonder, deriving a lot of pleasure from a show.'' Sandheep also likes to propagate public safety messages through his shows. He performs small items that elucidate messages like `Save water', `Save electricity', `Secularism' and `Universal brotherhood' during his shows.
He has also performed for Kochi Refineries Ltd. to propagate the message `Save Oil, Save India' and had participated in the programme, `Magic on Wheels', to create AIDS awareness by Cochin Magic Society. Sandheep sees magic as a powerful tool to create awareness on various issues through fun and that is one reason why he thinks that magic ought to be taught in schools like other art forms.
"There must be school and college level competitions for magic too, as only then can children with talent and interest in magic get an opportunity to learn and perform this art form,'' he says. In his opinion, children can start learning magic seriously from age 12 onwards, though mechanical items can be learned even before that''. And he says that to be a good professional magician, one has to `invest a lot of time and money'. One has to keep learning and practising new items from books, cassettes and other magicians and even improving on them. Performing stunts in public always brings quick fame.
However, he thinks that the most important characteristic to be a good magician is "to be a magic maniac, passionate about the art, always enthusiastic to learn and experiment and perform.'' Sandheep lives at Palluruthy with his wife Shailaja and daughter Akshara, learning and practising new items, adding more magic to his magical performance.
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