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There is magic everywhere
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Magic, sorcery, ‘jhaad phoonk’, call it what you will, a different Hyderabad lives, breathes and believes in a world of impossible possibilities different from Rowling’s world, Serish Nanisettifinds out
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Unreal world A theme park called Wizarding World of Harry Potter might be getting ready, but in Hyderabad magic is very real
The world started getting Potterised only 10 years back after J. K. Rowling created her magical world neatly dividing it between muggles, the non-magical people, and the witches and wizards. But much before Rowling was even born Mohammed Yousuf has b
een practicing the art of spells, incantations that cure illnesses and keep the evil eye at bay. Even on a clear beautiful day it is difficult to spot him as he works out of a watch repairing shop near the Mahankali Police Station where he peers out of a green box looking like one of the goblins from the series without the Dr. Spock ears.
Does he do magic (jadoo tona, jhad phoonk)?
“Sit here, not there,” he says pointing to a small square table. A man used to ordering around people, he demands: “What’s your problem. Is it health or money worries?” Once you are seated he would read from a parchment, holding your hand, then intermittently blows the air on the face of the person and hey presto your worries and illnesses would be gone. “I am 83. I have been doing much before anyone was born here,” he says pointing at nobody.
It is another, a different magical world in a lane in Rahimpura, off the Purana Pul road. As a Bonalu procession wends its way on the street with women dancing with shock wild hair, people come looking for the Baba who gives a tawiz
that will fight the evil eye. A little ahead is a hole in the wall with a few dozen people waiting outside. Between these two places the magical world of the Hyderabadi who walks the fringe of society, life and a living is defined. If the prosperous Baba has cars and two wheelers waiting outside his home with rows of trees the other man who ties tawizs in a boxed room with a table like a doctor with a lamp flickering on a table has a heap of shoes and slippers outside his door and no
vehicles. As a woman in burqa controls a boy on her lap, the man with the peacock feathers pats them on his head, then sprinkles some ashes on his head and then ties a white thread tawiz.
“If someone is trying to cast a spell it will turn black,” he tells the mother. The people waiting outside to meet him swear by his magic.
Both the Babas refuse to speak, but with their peacock feathers, the ashes in an urn, the green turban they create as much an impression as the muggles find people walking around in funny clothes celebrating the death of He-who-must-not-be-named. But magic for the Hyderabadi doesn’t begin or end with tawizs and jhaad phoonk, it begins at the doorway where you can find esoteric yantras (magical squares, circles or rectangles) or ver
ses and quotes from scriptures that keep the evil eye at bay.
One flower vendor in Tappachabutra has a sign “We read dua for young children”. “We do no magic. We invoke God and the Lord takes care of everything,” says Mohammad Akbar Ali who says prophetically: “If you are looking for people who tie tawiz, you have to look no further. Search for one you will find 21. They are doing it for business. What we are doing is reading from the scriptures and this banishes the evil eye and pulls the children out of harm
217;s way,” he says. A little later, a small boy sits besides him as he reads some mumbo jumbo, then does phoo-phoo on the face of the boy, then sprinkles some water, the puzzled boy starts playing with a plastic sheet.
Is it magic or sorcery? “What we do does not harm anyone, only good can be done with magic. There is nothing like evil magic where you can harm your rival or trouble him. If some murshid says he can do that, he is lying to cheat you,” says Akbar Ali.
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