The magician who did not believe in magic

DISCLAIMER

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents in this Story are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental and unintentional.

"Today………today," he said with genuine earnestness “Today, I will get your medicines” taking her feeble hand in his. His wife looked at him with eyes that had neither any hope nor any tears left. They were as empty as empty could be.

Even the noise of her children fighting with each other for the only video game in the house could neither distract her nor fill her with any hope to live. It is this hopelessness that he was more afraid of than the dreadful disease that she had contracted. Shankar looked at his bed-ridden wife and his hungry children who were hungry for either food or more video games. And had almost lifted his right hand and wanted to say his famous spell ‘abra ca dabra’, wishing the endless reign of poverty and disease and despair to vanish forever from his small hut and his life, with just a slight movement of his hand.

Like the magicians do on the stage. They just move their hands and lo! The hat vanishes and turns into a fluttering pigeon or the girl in tight pants and a tank top disappears from the locked cage!

Create magic!

Yes, Shankar was a magician and had been quite famous in his times and had pulled out rabbits from the hat or had made even elephants disappear!

‘In his times’, meant long ago. Before the advent of smartphones and reality shows, when magic was one of the few entertaining acts for both the young and the old.

Shankar sighed again, this time more painfully and purposefully.

If only he could do in his home what he did outside his home and on the stage!

With the slight of his hands and that ridiculously silly spell ‘abra ca dabra’,  which meant nothing and was just to make kids believe in magic and fantasy. For it could very well have been ‘dabra debra’ or ‘abbra abbra’ or anything equally foolish and the girl in tight pants and a tank top would still have vanished or the rabbit would still have popped out from the hat.

Shankar looked around his house, which smacked of scarcity and distress. Years ago, the same house had smelled of success and happiness. Now the only links of his past glory were the two trophies, apart from a photograph of him being felicitated by some local MLA of that time, which stood at the corner in a cupboard, covered in dust and neglect and cobwebs. A few medals hung on a peg, overlapped by the current important things like a calendar and keys, which the family now used to hang. Apart from these few things, there were no reminders of the better days that the family had seen. Shankar despised seeing these glimpses of past glory since they rather made him feel bitter than better. Why, he had even started hanging his magician’s tall black hat on the peg where the medals hung, to cover them up and perhaps even forget them. Forever.

When Shankar had learned that a new Circus had come to town, he felt the first glimmer of hope.

And though he was a magician, he never believed in magic!

For he knew that there was no magic in the world!

At least not in the magician’s world!

The magician had to put in long hours of practice and more practice until he got it perfected. And what looked like ‘magic' to the world was just a skilled act done with perfect timings!

Obviously, for the magician in today’s world, there was certainly no magic anywhere in the world.

Everything was too costly, prices were going up, their family’s expectations were reaching the roof and even the best magicians could not conjure up any magic that could pull down these prices or their family’s expectations!

Phew!

Today, Shankar was not a poor magician. He was just an ‘out-of-work’ father, who worried endlessly for his family when he went to town to meet the circus owner.

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When he returned home, Shankar was more worried than before.

He was more than worried. He was frustrated.

He felt hopeless after being almost thrown out by the Circus owner, who yelled at Shankar, that since today’s kids, hooked on smartphones and video games, had enough of entertainment served to them right in their homes, and there no longer wanted to see any magic or any circus, so the Circus owner had no choice but to shut down his circus for good.

Shankar knew that this was bound to happen one day, but when it did happen, he could not help but feel betrayed and shunned.

Shankar solemnly knew that magic just did not exist so he could not expect any magic to pull him out of this appalling situation. Now, he had no choice but to turn to God and his miracles, as the last resort!

It was in this frame of mind, that he entered his home. Only to find it very unnaturally quiet. His wife was sleeping soundly, while his children were silently playing a video game, with the volume turned off so as not to disturb their ailing mother.

Though the volume of the video game was off, the volume of the children was far from ‘off’. And they were excitedly giggling and whispering to each other as if the scores in the videogame were all that mattered to them in the world!

In a flash, Shankar recalled those days when his son used to be extremely reluctant to learn magic from him. Shankar who had learned magic traditionally from his father was keen to pass on the same tradition to his son. But his son had neither the discipline nor the patience or the hard work required to learn it. Learning or even viewing magic certainly did not mean fun for his son, who had promptly switched to playing video games instead.

Today, when Shankar once more saw that his children preferred video games to magic for their entertainment, he felt more defeated than when the circus owner had thundered at him!

Disgusted that even his children, the children of a famed magician, were playing video games which were one of the main reasons why he was out of work, he yanked the video game from their eager hands, and with all the impotent rage that was buried deep inside his psyche from years, he smashed it hard on the ground. Crushing the videogame and the children’s only source of entertainment and happiness with an unbelievable fury.

“Why don’t you learn magic rather than playing these video games” Shankar yelled at his children, his tone one of pure aguish.

“Magic!” spat Radha, the elder child, now almost 12, “Has magic helped you? Can your magic make our poverty and problems disappear?”

Shankar just kept staring at her and did not dare rebuke her. For deep down, he knew that both her anger and her attitude towards magic were frighteningly true.

 “Papa……Papa” implored the five- year-old-Kartik, holding his father’s hand, which had done so many magic tricks in his life, and muttered with a sob “You are a magician, Papa. Why don’t you use magic to cure mama?”

Shankar looked at the withered and frail body of his wife for a long time and as if sharing a great secret with his son, replied in a whisper “There is no magic in magic, son. Magic is only in money. Only money, not magic, can save your mama” he added, trying to control the lump of bleakness that was forming in his throat.