by Tahir Shah
The team leader gave me a stern look.
“For exercise, of course! Laughter is the best way to keep the heart and lungs in shape. A powerful spate of early-morning laughter is equal to a three-mile jog.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes, it is,” replied the class in unison.
“Who tells the jokes, then?”
“We don’t use jokes,” called out a scrawny woman at the back of the group. “They’re forbidden.”
“Forbidden? That seems a bit hard going – especially if you’re doing laughter exercise.”
The team leader seemed keen to get on with the routine.
“Sooner or later a joke would offend someone,” he said. “So we've outlawed them. In any case, we can laugh on cue.”
He clapped his hands twice. Within an instant, the sound of the wailing demon echoed out across the hockey field. I would have thanked the fitness fanatics for their time. But they were too busy laughing.
* * * *
At eight o’clock the first spectator arrived.
“Is it going to be here?” he asked.
Bhalu dipped his head in a nod. He pointed to the center of the hockey pitch. The man handed the boy two rupees, then sat down in the middle of the field.
“Is what going to be here? Why did that chap give you two rupees?”
The Trickster told me to be quiet.
By nine o’clock the sun was high. Five hundred people had turned up to watch the mysterious spectacle. On arrival, each dropped two rupees into a large empty paint can held by Bhalu. Whatever it was for, the audience seemed to feel it was money well spent.
An hour later, a thousand people were loitering about on the hockey pitch. More were turning up all the time. Each obediently dropped their two rupees into the tin. I had never seen Indians so willing to pay money for anything before.
“Bhalu,” I snorted, “what are you up to? You could get into a lot of trouble for this.”
The Trickster waved me out of the way. He had entrance fees to collect.
At ten-thirty, an official in a tattered uniform accosted Bhalu. A weighty pouch was handed over. The man turned on his heel and hurried away.
I was growing increasingly alarmed. Always at the cutting-edge of fraud, my traveling companion was now navigating in uncharted territory of deceit. I warned him of the consequences. Again, he brushed me aside.
Then, promptly on the stroke of noon, a man and a woman pranced over to the hockey pitch. Both were heavily laden with accessories and equipment. They appeared to be ignoring each other. Their arrival was greeted by a resounding cheer from the audience.
“You’ve got to tell me what’s going on,” I hollered at Bhalu, who appeared relieved at the couple’s arrival.
“Prepare yourself for a fantastic show,” he said. “I heard two gurus were trying to ‘control’ a group of villages near Tirth – just west of here. Both claim supernatural powers. I went to meet them on your behalf.”
“Why didn’t you take me along?”
“Because,” said the Trickster, running his hand through the paint can of coins, “they wouldn’t have agreed if a foreigner was around.”
“Agreed to what?”
“Agreed to a duel.”
“Are they going to kill each other?”
“Of course they aren’t,” snapped Bhalu. “They’re going to have a duel of miracles.”
“How ever did you get them to trek all the way over here?”
The Trickster stuck his nose in the air haughtily.
“They’re letting me referee,” he said. “As the judge, I said the duel must be held on neutral ground.”
“And what about your tin of cash?”
“Well,” he replied derisively, “you wouldn’t begrudge me my wages, would you?”
* * * *
The crowd was getting agitated. They were ready for the duel to commence. Bhalu had taken great care to advertise the special form of combat. He had hired an army of street children to spread the word in the villages surrounding Sholapur. Potential spectators had been advised that one of the godmen would undoubtedly suffer terrible humiliation. There is only one thing an Indian villager enjoys more than a miracle: and that’s to see someone publicly embarrassed. The Trickster had made a considerable cash profit on the entrance fee alone. But one would not expect a fraudster from Calcutta to stop at that.
To Bhalu, the crowd was not merely a potential audience, but a captive market in itself. The avatars had been ordered to delay for as long as possible. That is, until the referee gave the word. As the spectators waited for the singular blend of miracles and humiliation to ensue, the army of street urchins scurried about selling wares from the Trickster’s pillowcase sacks. Soap bars and shower caps, hand-towels and sachets of French perfume: all were touted at knock-down prices.
Even after the entrance fee, and snapping up a few bargain toiletries, Bhalu noticed that some of the spectators still had money left. And so he turned his hand from soap-bar magnate to bookmaker. The ability to swap one profession for another in a split second is a gift which turns humble entrepreneurs into billionaires. Bhalu had that gift.
I went over to have a look at the godmen. They were both unquestionably odd.
On the left was Sri Kasbekar. Probably in his fifties, he had the appearance of someone who had been dragged round the keel of an eighteenth-century sloop. His features were gnarled; his apparel bedraggled beyond description; and his hands crudely tattooed with indistinct symbols. Yet there was something far more unusual about the guru. He was polydactylic: he had six fingers on each hand. Polydactyly is not uncommon in India. From time to time one sees people with a sixth digit protruding from another finger. Sri Kasbekar’s condition was far rarer – for his two extra digits were perfectly formed.
Without counting his fingers individually, one might not have noticed the difference. Rather, without counting them, I might not have noticed them. The two thousand bystanders observed them immediately. While in the West people are wary of genetic mutations, in India an extra appendage has an uncanny significance. Hindu deities are frequently portrayed with an additional set of arms and hands. To many in the Sholapur district, a perfectly formed sixth finger on each hand suggested miraculous powers.
On the right side of the makeshift arena was Srimati Kulkami. Svelte in a butch kind of way, she had long auburn hair, a square mouth filled with square teeth, and alluring midnight eyes. She was dressed in a vibrant fuchsia cotton sari. But, it was her ears which first attracted one’s attention. Their outer edges were thick with neatly clipped hair. The bristles were about the size and shape of an eyebrow. It looked as if a hairy caterpillar was crawling up into each ear.
The Trickster addressed the gathering, whipping them up into a frenzy. He announced the ground rules. Each seer would be permitted to perform four miracles. No member of the audience would be allowed to participate, although props were admissible. The referee could disqualify either dueler at his discretion. The guru with the best miracles would be permitted to offer divine salvation in the villages near Sholapur.
Seething with anticipation, the spectators swayed forward. I sensed that many villagers’ fortunes were riding on the contest. Bhalu curled two fingers around his tongue and whistled.
The duel of miracles began.
First up was Srimati Kulkami. Brushing back her hair, she addressed the audience in Marathi. She told them she did not like to use her abilities frivolously; but she had to prove her competitor was a fraud. Indeed, she claimed he was worse than a mere con-artist – he was Shaitan, the Devil.
Srimati Kulkarni’s oration went down very well. Bhalu paused from translating for me, and noted down half a dozen last-minute bets.
Without hesitation, Kulkami began to weave her magic. She pulled a hundred-rupee note from her blouse, dipped it in water, and then set it alight. Remarkably, the paper did not burn, although it was engulfed in flames. This was the first miracle.
Feroze had taught me variations o
n the illusion. It can be done with most kinds of paper, cloth, or even wood. In this case, the paper was probably treated with a solution of carbon disulphide and carbon tetrachloride.
For her second act of wonderment, Srimati Kulkami announced that the Shaitan had created an unfavorable atmosphere. If she, a divine being, did not alleviate the hex, a plague would strike the audience down. Such side-comments of impending destruction proved very popular with the assembly. Delighted, they nudged each other in the ribs, and jostled a little closer to the godwoman.
To assuage the evil forces, Kulkarni took up a large brown coconut, and held it above her head. Wailing incantations, she called for the demons to stir from their hiding places and flow into the body of the nut. No place, she said, was safe for them but the confines of the coconut. Then, crouching over, she crimped the nut between her sari-covered legs. As two thousand eyes scrutinized her, the mystic held the coconut at arm’s length, towards the gathering. A minute passed. The same thought went through everyone’s mind: had the miracle failed? Such failure would spell divine disgrace. Another minute passed. As the audience held their breath, the end of the coconut blew out. Like some kind of schoolboy’s bomb, a jet of flame and oily smoke issued from the hole. We all stared in wonderment; this was impressive stuff. But there was more to come.
Seizing the nut in both hands, Srirmati Kulkarni flung it at a stony patch on the arena. It split open. A quantity of what looked like blood soaked into the ground. Raising her frame to its maximum height, the godwoman cried that the villagers were safe now from her competitor’s evil: for the blood had been that of the demons.
Only later did I work out how the illusion had been achieved. Coconuts have three eyes at one end. One of these is soft, and can easily be bored out. The guru perforates the soft eye and fills the nut with a saturated solution of potassium permanganate. From a distance, this resembles blood. The hole is sealed with wax. For the explosion, the mendicant surreptitiously inserts a pellet of sodium through the soft eye. As it reacts with the water in the potassium permanganate solution, it causes a violent eruption.
After Kulkarni’s two miracles, the spectators were beside themselves with enthusiasm. A live display of what they considered to be real magic was even better than the special effects of Bollywood movies.
To further exacerbate the sense of tension, Bhalu ordered that Sri Kasbekar should now present two miracles. This was a popular decision. The godwoman was led away to the sidelines, and the polydactyl addressed the villagers.
He told them he was not their god, but their servant: he would heal them, not dictate to them. If they selected his opponent, they would live below a sky made dark with malevolence. The recitation, which carried on for about fifteen minutes, sounded like a party political broadcast.
Cautioning both duelists to refrain from bad-mouthing the other, Bhalu commanded Sri Kasbekar to get on with his routine.
Before the performance began, the polydactyl waved his fingers at the crowd. Titillated like old women at the sight of a naked man, they edged forward for a closer look at the mutation.
For his first miracle, Sri Kasbekar carried a bucket full of greenish lemons into the center of the arena. Next, he held up a needle and thread and removed his shirt. Grabbing a chunk of flab on his stomach, he stabbed the needle through it, and sewed on a lemon. The audience watched nonplussed as the yogi sewed one lemon after the next on to his belly. Instead of grimacing with pain, he chanted mantras, and maintained an airy smile.
“Isn’t that hurting him?” I asked the Trickster.
“Don’t be so stupid,” he replied. “Watch how he’s pinching the fat tightly with his fingers before jabbing in the needle. Do that and it doesn’t hurt … it hardly even bleeds.”
Bhalu was right. There was no blood. Within ten minutes, Sri Kasbekar had a dozen fruits hanging from his abdomen like spiders on silk. He seemed in no discomfort at all. Fluttering his fingers once more, with the lemons still dangling, he moved on to his second feat.
With great care he pulled a three-foot viper from his bag of props. Dazzled by the sunlight, the snake reeled about as its owner explained to the bystanders that this was an extremely poisonous reptile. The serpent, he told them, came from the wastelands of the Great Thar Desert. One drop of its venom would bring an agonizing death.
The spectators listed backwards. Twisting the viper about his twelve fingers, the godman induced a brave villager to come forward and try his luck with the snake.
The referee shouted out from the perimeter of the arena that volunteers were prohibited under the rules. A communal sigh of relief swept through the audience. The macho villagers had had their pride saved by officialdom. For Bhalu’s part, the rule had been a shrewd calculation. If one of the spectators had been struck down by a Rajasthani serpent, he would have had hell to pay.
With no takers allowed, Sri Kasbekar waved the snake around his head like a lasso. Then he prized its mouth open and forced its fangs on to his neck. A stream of blood issued from the swami’s jugular. He then threw the viper on the ground and stamped on its head. It might have been a harsh move, but the reptile could have killed the godman, who was none the worse after the encounter.
From where I was standing, the snake bite was plausible. The crowd had also been impressed by the stunt. As they applauded wildly, I remembered something Feroze had told me in Calcutta. Standing one morning at the window of his study, he had declared that ninety per cent of Indian snakes are non-venomous. Ignorant of the many species of serpent, most villagers assume that any snake bite is fatal. For his illusion, Sri Kasbekar had used a harmless snake. It didn’t actually have fangs. As its mouth was pulled from his neck, he had squeezed a blood-filled sponge over the area.
Two miracles each. The score was even. Anxious to keep up the tension, Bhalu called for Srimati Kulkarni to perform her next feat.
Taking her place in the circle, she informed the audience that her twelve-fingered rival had used an innocuous species of serpent for his demonstration. The godwoman had hoped to secure victory through denouncing the opposition, but the villagers were far too astute to declare a winner halfway through. Having paid two rupees each to watch the duel, they expected value for money. In their eyes, value meant quantity.
For her third miracle, Kulkarni pulled up the hem of her sari and washed her feet in a bucket of water. As she sloshed about, she emitted a series of shrill gasps. The spectators were unimpressed by the woman’s manner. I sensed the tide was turning against her: largely for her outbursts against Polydactyl Man.
After three or four minutes of washing, Srimati Kulkarni jerked her body about as if it were being entered by angelic forces. She then pushed the bucket away, and walked calmly down a long piece of dusty yellow cloth. Moments later the miracle was visible. Distinct rusty-red footprints had been left where her feet had stepped. The material was held up to the audience. Their reaction was sober. The miracle had none of the anguish of snakebite or of sewing fruit on to the skin.
As with so many other illusions I had seen on my journey of observation, Feroze had accommodated me with a faultless rendering of the trick at his mansion. The deception is very simple. The feet are not washed with ordinary water. It’s a mixture of slaked lime and water. Shortly before use, the cloth is dipped in a light turmeric solution and dried. As the seer’s holy feet press against the fabric, a chemical reaction occurs. A red mark is left where the turmeric and lime meet.
Sri Kasbekar’s third miracle was one I shall not readily forget. It wasn’t that the feat was so impressive; but the response it drew touched me. Like a stage magician of the old school, Polydactyl Man walked into the arena in silence. He had removed the lemons from his belly and replaced his shirt. A thousand people surrounded him, but none said a word. I sensed that they were now truly awed by his presence.
Frivolously, he withdrew something from his lungi and placed it on the ground. It was a thick black ball-point pen, with four small buttons up the side. Chanting a cry
ptic mantra beneath his breath, the godman walked around the pen in a figure of eight. When he had completed the circuit in one direction, he repeated it the other way. He did this seven times. Only then did he pluck the pen from the ground.
I was ready for the implement to squirt blood, or to write with invisible ink. But what happened was totally unexpected. Polydactyl Man held the ball-point out before him in the way a fencer holds a foil. Then, as the mystic closed his eyes in concentration, the pen began to speak. It was no random voice, but that of the godman. Sri Kasbekar was speaking through the pen.
The audience went apoplectic. This was surely proof that he was a higher being. Even Bhalu recoiled at the feat. By chance, I could explain the miracle. About a year before, I had been glancing through an airline’s in-flight magazine when I spotted the same ball-point “Memo Pen”. Advertised as the gadget that every weary executive needs, the pen has a microchip which stores a few seconds of one’s voice. Perfect, the ad had claimed, for the businessman on the move – make a note of that brilliant idea when driving, or when out and about. I wondered whether the American manufacturers had dreamt their executive toy would ever become a divine object.
The villagers had already made up their minds. They liked the oracle pen and Polydactyl Man. But a heckler at the back of the crowd was calling for the last two miracles.
The referee clapped his hands. As he was riding on a high of public adulation, Sri Kasbekar was allowed to go first.
A shallow pit had been dug in the hockey pitch and filled with red-hot coals. I had warned Bhalu that he could get into trouble for defacing city property, but he waved my outburst aside. Calling out a fantastic set of magical words, Polydactyl Man approached the coals. Then, with great self-control, he stepped on to them. Halfway across, his face seemed to buckle from pain. But he continued, without giving voice to his discomfort.
Fire walking has occurred in the East for thousands of years. It’s recently been introduced in the West, too. Tired Memo Pen-carrying executives now hurry across hot coals as part of special bonding seminars. Contrary to popular belief, firewalking is dead simple. The skin on the soles of the feet and the ash which covers the coals are both poor conductors of heat. Anyone can do it. But the villagers didn’t know this. For them, Polydactyl Man was the hero of the day.