The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : On a magic tour to knit the country together

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 27, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

On a magic tour to knit the country together

Staff Reporter

A troupe from Academy of Magical Sciences on a yatra

— Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

MAGICAL INTEGRATION: Gopinath Muthukad of the Academy of the Magical Sciences performs magic for national integration in Chennai on Monday.

CHENNAI: Bharat Mata is dismembered by fundamentalism and separatism. Blink. She is whole again. A troupe from the country’s only Academy of Magical Sciences is travelling between Kashmir and Kanyakumari to knit the country together with magic.

The standard illusionist trick of a woman in a box into which swords or blades are thrust and the segments moved about to make it seem like she was cut into pieces was performed with a twist. The woman represented Bharat Mata and the blades that seemed to cut her body up were labelled ‘fundamentalism’ and ‘separatism’.

Awarded

The ‘Vismay Swaraj Yatra’ has covered 17 destinations, and was in Chennai on Monday to give a special performance at Gandhi Mandapam. Gopinath Muthukad, who has established the academy and is the star of the show, was given the National Integration Award by the All-India Malayalee Association (AIMA) at the event.

For his acceptance speech, he performed magic tricks to integrate the nation. A wave of the hand and three threads coloured saffron, green and white and knotted together unfurl as a single thread with three bands of colour.

The going has not been all smooth for the yatra. Heavy security accompanied the performance at Jammu and Kashmir. The troupe had tense moments with hostile locals in the northeast when they were travelling in an area during a suddenly-announced bandh, Mr. Muthukad told the audience.

Sponsors of the event too got special magical events to promote their own products. The safety of a financial institution was demonstrated by putting a Rs. 100 note into an envelope and cut in two. Mr. Muthukad then pulled out two Rs. 50 notes from the two halves of the envelope.

The nation cannot be torn apart easily, he had said earlier, seeming to tear up a map of India into several fragments, crumpling up the paper into a ball and unfurling a whole map.

Representatives of the AIMA felicitated his services to the nation.

A representative of a sponsoring company said Mr. Muthukad had shown the world that work and the nation need not be separate entities.

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