Forward
Firstly, I would like to thank you in advance for gifting me some of your time in joining me. Time, I have been reliably informed, is a finite commodity that must be put to good use. As I sit here writing this in my little room (yes, the ‘poets room’) I can’t help but feeling a little sad that I am no longer in the hot and sultry climes in which this tale took place. But no matter, I will take pleasure in my memory, for I am wealthy in that respect, and I will no doubt try my utmost to conjur to you, my readers, a flavour and feel for the location - as if by magic! If I am successful in this regard than I will have succeeded in my novice and humble aim. The tale takes place in the desert city of Jodhpur in Rajasthan. The tale you are about to hear is true. It may have been lightly ‘seasoned’ here and there, since I am an artist, with an artists licence, but I assure you that the seasoning is not so overpowering so as to remove any trace of the original flavour. So, I bid you to relax and enjoy the tale of the exposed magic conjuror.____
The first thing I did upon my arrival in Jodhpur was to satisfy the flame of my curiosity by going around the city, if only to enjoy the sweets of liberté. I spent several days abandoning myself solely to this pursuit of wanderlust. How delightful it is! This life of child’s play! I spent my god given hours roaming and prying-open the curtains of this muddling theatre. Amongst the hawkish denizens I ambled. Shoulder to shoulder I jostled with the best of them, delighting in the sweetmeat stalls, savouring the piquant foodstuffs and munching peanuts and tossing the shells behind me as I wended my way through the gaps. Suddenly I came across a tight knot of people up ahead. I could hear raised voices and spied frantic hand gestures amidst the crowd: 'Ah, an argument' I thought. Having nothing better to do with my time and feeling mischievous I decided to see what the fuss was all about. I asked one of the spectators what was happening. Apparently one of the street conjurors, that band of itinerants who dabble in 'magic' street displays, had been exposed as a fraud. The crowd was not pleased and were getting into an angry huff. This man (in the image above) standing in the middle of the crowd, proudly, imperiously, had been ratted out as a trickster. He knew no magic! He had no powers! He couldn't summon daemons at will nor could he talk to the dead or levitate or live till one hundred and fifty years old on water and solar-energy alone. He was a charlatan and the crowd was enjoying witnessing his toppling from his lofty perch! Crowds love that don’t they? The mob enjoys nothing better than to marinate a good man in the mud, to witness the public lynching of a person of previous repute. Justice and equality! ‘We’re dirt and now you’re dirt too!’
I looked on amused. The man was looking clearly defiant; back straight, chin up, his eyes un-wielding in their stubbornness. This was his patch and his livelihood and he wasn't going to budge. I decided there and then that I liked him. Yes, I liked him. He was my kind of personage and deep down I was rooting for him. Eventually somebody informed him that if he didn't move he'd be clobbered and set upon by the indignant crowd; their frustrations now boiling up inside, mounting to a frenzy, ready to pounce. Instinctively (for I don’t recall actually thinking this through), I grabbed my camera, jumped to the front of the crowd and commenced taking pictures of the accused. ‘Travel magazine! Travel magazine!’ I cried out in loud clear English. The crowd who were ready to pounce stopped in their tracks and looked on bemused. You can imagine the scene. Now, there are two rules one must abide by in such potentially lethal situations: a) look confident, b) never look anyone in the eye and just keep taking photographs (and if you have run out of memory space? – just pretend). I was shoving people around getting them to move out of my way - all an act designed to feign importance. Why did I do it?
Good question. You see, the thing is; and I am going to be brutally honest to you my dear readers, I have a compulsive-impulsive side to my character. I am prone to impulsive actions especially if they carry the risk of doing me harm. Sometimes, and this my readers may find abhorrent, I long for harmful situations. I actively seek them if only to enjoy the exalted pleasure of wriggling myself out of them! In short I am a masochist (but not a sexually deviant one). Luckily for me, the crowd immediately dispersed and it was all over in an instant – I thanked providence that I wasn’t another statistic in an Indian public lynching. What intrigued me most about the whole affair though, was that, not more than a few yards away, stood another street conjuror performing the same 'magic' trick. Not a single person in the crowd bothered him! Surely they've all been exposed I thought? But no! I asked one of the spectators who was still mulling about, why the other man performing the same 'magic' was not being slandered and abused by the crowd. His response was typical of a certain type of impoverished mind whose wondrous workings I shall try and illuminate for you:
'How do you know he is not performing magic?' he challenged me.
The retort surprised me at first. But I was quick to answer.
'Well, if the man who was caught is a trickster and fraud surely they all are?' I said, and then feeling more confident of my argument, I added 'especially if they're performing the same magic trick?'
'Not at all' he said with utmost conviction and with the air of a conceited academic. 'That doesn't logically follow. Your logic is false. That man over there. The one you claim to be a trickster. I know him. His magic is real'
I almost choked on my peanuts. I looked on dumbfounded. Was I really hearing this? It felt surreal at the time. I also recall developing a sudden urge to punch him in the face. His crime in my eyes? imbécilité.
'You know him? You call that logic?' I scoffed with some annoyance
'Yes. I do. Jadoo (magic) is real. There are many sages who have true light in them. But not everybody is blessed with the ability to express it. Some people, who are fraudulent characters, try and exploit the gullibility of simple people by pretending to know magic. It is fortunate we have this 'good' one. There are other good one's too'
'Did it occur to you' I asked him in restrained tones 'that the only reason that man was exposed is because somebody wanted to take over his patch?'
He shrugged his shoulders. I was going down a path he had no intention of walking.
The man I was speaking to was clearly intelligent. He was well spoken and, I would hazard a guess, had a university education and a good job somewhere. I reasoned that if this man represented the upper echelons of the educated elite, what horrors would I find; I asked myself not entirely unmischievously, if I was to poke around the skull of a pure rustic - a country bumpkin - a yokel?
I have no idea what I would find. For I have no intention of poking about such a persons skull lest it consume my own. And the moral of this story? I’m not sure exactly. Does every story have to have a moral? ‘Yes’, you say. Well in that case I suppose the moral of this story can be: people with impulsive-compulsive disorders have no business wandering about in third world countries amongst blood-thirsty crowds, who would no sooner lynch their own grandmothers, if they were discovered to be witches!
Yes, I know it's a bit silly, but it's all I can think of right now. I've been typing for far too long and I need to surrender myself, wholly and totally, to deep sleep.
The End
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