Me and Babulal

The apprentice…part 2

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After two rounds  i leisurely walked towards the bench by the side of lake to enjoy the cool breeze blowing. Not much crowd was there, i was enjoying the solitude in the cool shade of the tree.

I heard a feeble coughing sound, looked up from my book and found Babulal standing  with a broad smile. I was pretty surprised to see him though I had given him 500 rupees about two weeks back but I could not keep my promise to engage him in some work. I rather hesitantly asked him how he was managing to keep himself engaged.

“I used a part of the money given by you to purchase some dot pens and rest I spent for food.” He said unabashedly.

So many questions were crowding in my mind about him so I asked those related with his shelter, spending time, earning money etc ,the usual things required for sustenance.

He disarmed me by his reckless answer.

“I have managed to make friend with that muscular guy who used to chase you for massaging, of course I promised him that I will help him to convince you in getting messaged by him. He took me to a football club located at the other half of the lake facing Menaka cinema hall and introduced me with some young men of my age. One of them took pity on me and offered a bed in the shanty near Tollygunge.”

I remembered to have brushed off that muscular guy who very often would try to befriend me. It was my mistake that initially I exchanged some pleasantries with him when he told me that he did massaging, he had a rolled up yoga mat with him. Then I understood his interest in me and I started avoiding him and now Babulal has again brought that fellow back. Babulal could sense that I was not happy, he hurriedly said, “ Don’t worry about that guy I will manage to keep him away from you.”

I was relieved and asked, “ Ok! Are you doing any work?”

“I told you I purchased some dot pens, I sell those pens in front of temples. Just now I was selling opposite to that Lake Kali temple. Seeing you I quickly changed my dress and came here. When I am selling then I am dressed up as sadhu, you know that I was with sadhu so I have that garb with me. I sell these dot pens at 200 to 300 rupees whereas I paid 2 rupees each.”

“Why someone will purchase the silly dot pens for that kind of money?”

With a beatific smile he and said, “ The scam runs like this “ and he narrated .

I have targeted a few temples and this one at Lake is one of those. I have fixed up some street urchins at each of the temples. I put on my Sadhu garb and sit outside the temple. These boys surround me keep on shouting , “ Show some miracle! “

I will pick up a retractable knife and push that on my cheek, for any onlooker it will appear that I have pierced my cheek. All will be in awe. Then one of them would ask ,”what do you eat?” I will show them coal and pick up a lump of coal and will start chewing it. By the time a crowd will gather around me. Then one of them will ask, “Have you brought those miracle pen which my friend purchased from you before the examination?”

“You mean that pen where I have put special power so that any student purchasing that and using in exam will pass?” saying that I will pull out three sealed boxes and say , “Last night I could put mantra in three only as moon was visible for a very short time.”

Then that boy will ask me the cost. I will say, “ It is 400 but to you I will give for 300.”

As he is my side kick so happily he will pay 300 and take one sealed box of pen. I will warn him not to open the box now. He should go back take bath and should open it when no one is around. Once he did the purchase there will be scramble from other on lookers to get the magic pen as the final exams are within one month. After that selling the first one other two hardly takes 10 minutes ,as you know every second a sucker is born.

“Wait wait not that fast!” I said.

“The retractable knife thing I understood but chewing lump of coal! How can you digest those? They are unhygienic!”

He laughed loudly and said, “No no those which I ate are not coal, those are black sugar crystals kept in the heap of coal.”

That was very clever of him.

He quickly told me about his ploy of the magic pen. “As the exams are one month away so till then merrily I can sell these pens in front of temples. I pay some 10 buck each to those urchins and I have a neat margin. As of now my business of selling the miracle pens is going well, later on with this capital I will think of other schemes or you may have some assignment for me. I am usually available in front of that temple in the morning.”

I was impressed by his business acumen and timing. Those  parents who purchased those pens with divine power will never know that they have been fooled. If the students pass then it will be because of the pen and if they fail then the parents will conclude that even God could not help their son or daughter in passing the exam. It was neat trick where fooled guy doesn't declare that he has been cheated.

I patted him, to keep him in loop gave 500 bucks and promised to call on him for any exigency.

It is all about humanity

It is all about humanity

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The other day Dr.Kamal Charaborty, a renowned social worker of Bengal was in my office. He had a lucrative corporate job with TISCO,Jamshedpur but left that to serve the poor tribal of Purulia. He located a barren land and started the school Bhalopahar and planted more than 30 lacs trees. The school offers free education and midday meal to the poor children free of cost. He has undertaken organic farming after creating ponds by rainwater harvesting. The day he came a knowledge sharing session in our office was in progress. One young engineer Rangam Das was sharing his experience of EHV testing of transformer witnessed by him in ABB works.

At the conclusion I took Dr.Chakraborty to the conference hall and requested him to address the young engineers of our organization ,Techno Electric Engg Co. He shared his experience of establishing that school in that remote location and graphically described the poverty of that region. He narrated that they are so poor that the ladies have only one saree, after washing the saree she would hide behind the trees waiting for the saree to dry up. While describing this facet he broke down, practically every one of us had moist eyes, got touched by the plight of those poor Indians whereas here we were relaxing in AC hall. He said that he runs the setup by donations from corporates and individuals. He made a request for donation of any kind.

After the lecture in my chamber he asked my opinion, I was skeptical and expressed so.

To my utter surprise I was proved absolutely wrong in judging the young lot. One young engineer came to my chamber and thanked me for the interaction with Dr.Chakraborty and expressed that he wanted to do something. While talking about the poor ladies of Purulia he broke down and I too could not check myself. Later on my PA Shubhra informed that many of them were approaching her for donation. I met a bright engineer who has passed out of Shibpur , he came to me and said he will organize a donation box where old clothes, books, stationeries can be donated. That boy who first came gave a cheque of 2000 as donation.

I am flabbergasted by the spontaneity of the reaction and it is beyond my imagination. All of them said, “ We always wanted to do something for the society but did not know which is genuine organization. We are sure about Dr.Chakraborty who has given his life for those poor by remaining unmarried.” I shared with them that as he is a renowned novelist and poet so all his earnings go to the school. I too in my small way make monthly contribution in addition to organizing corporate contributions from Techno and WPIL where I am Independent Director.

The above incident has opened my eyes about the younger generation as they externally don’t show but has that spirit dormant in them which requires a small nudge to make them act in the right direction. The firs engineer who came to my chamber travels from outside Kolkata for office and gets dialysis of his father done twice a month; with this burden he donated 2000 bucks. I am happy that though there is lot of negativism projected by the social network, print media, electronic media but there is a silent majority who are pure , think about others and they are young. This makes me optimistic about the future of India.

I thought of sharing this incident with you all.

My sketches

Cacophony because of mobile

Sketches done by me

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approximately me

Floating cube
(optical illusion)

Coins on a floating cube
(optical illusion)

Some of the sketches done by me. some are pencil sketches and then crayon or sketch pens used. Some paintings are done on tablet using digital pen and app.

A leaning ladder
(optical illusion)

A coin on a pyramid
(optical illusion)

River front

Village

Coconut tree in a village

Village house

sea beach

a house

just a face

A boy under a palm tree

Tram

trees

A girl with umbrella

My morning walk track along the lake

A hilly road

me with my sketches of kids with computers

Kids with computers

deep gorge and a road on the hill

Reading a book

The apprentice

Sadhu

The apprentice

As usual I was completing my round around the lake in the morning, my usual bench was vacant, I sat down and started enjoying the beauty of the lake in cool breeze.

I was absorbed in my thoughts when I felt the presence of someone coming and sitting by my side, I was irritated and did not bother to acknowledge his presence.

“Sorry to disturb your concentration.” I heard a meek voice addressing me in Hindi. I looked from the corner of my eyes still ignoring the guy, a short thin young man of less than 5 foot height in shabby cloth was looking at me with a broad smile. His honest smile disarmed me.

“Yes” I said.

“Do you have some time to listen to my story? I am not asking for any money”

I frowned at him and thought why not, I may hear an interesting story; I am always looking forward for a fresh plot.

“Why chose me?” I asked him mischievously.

“I am coming to this lake for the last one week and have been observing morning walkers, from my experience of dealing with various cross sections of people you looked to be the one who will sympathetically hear my story.”

His words inflated my ego and I was all ears for his story.

Babulal started his story, oh yes I forgot to mention he said that his name was Babulal.

I am an orphan from Moradabad, I was adopted by a Sukhram, a madari.” I hope you know what a madari does?”  he asked me.

“A street magician!” I said and added , “I am from Delhi and during my childhood I was fond of watching these street magicians performing tricks without any proper props , pretty challenging with people all around.”

“Yes that’s it and I was his assistant.”

“Then you must know secrets of some of those tricks?”

“Yes certainly I do.By the way Sukhram and me moved to Delhi, there is money in Delhi. We were performing mostly in North Delhi. I will go in advance and hire some people who will become the initial crowd and also they will be helping us indirectly without others knowledge.I will memorize their names and tag those with the colour of their shirts.”

“Oh, I have seen this magic. So you are the one whom Sukhram will pose as though hypnotizing and then you will fake a fall like a dead wood on the ground, Sukhram will cover you by a white cloth. Then Sukhram will ask you to tell the names of the people from the crowd whose colour of shirt he would mention.”

“Yes, you got it!” he said sheepishly.

I was enjoying this discussion as now a days I consider myself to be a good YouTube magician. I remembered that during my school days in Gol Market ,Chummeries once I have seen a Madari performing a trick which I could not figure out, now I got the chance to know the secret of that trick from Babulal.

“Did Sukhram perform rotating bidi trick? In this trick the magician sticks a nail on the ground and then on that puts a bidi horizontally, the bidi starts rotating.”

Babulal smiled and said, “Yes I know that trick.It is very simple, it requires preparation. I will go in advance and bury an old watch mechanism in the ground  where Sukhram will come after ten minutes to show magic. After that I don’t have to explain you how it works.”

“Oh! you rascal, then it is simply pushing the nail where the shaft of the watch would have been, as the nail is round so it’s slow rotation is not noticeable, once the bidi is placed then the bidi becomes the seconds hand of the watch and rotates.”

“Yes, that’s it!” he won over my heart.

“Ok, how come you are in Kolkata now.”

He continued his story.

The street magicians were harassed by police, whenever any robbery was there we were the first to be hauled up, whereas it was the gypsies from Rajasthan who were the real culprits so we had to windup our business; I joined a Sadhu and helped him to perform miracles. The job was similar, the tricks were more sophisticated. Because of my small frame I was chosen to help the Sadhu in levitation. I will be holed up below the throne of Sadhu for one hour in the evening when during the peak kirtan time with lot of smoke coming out of incense sticks in the dim light the Sadhu will start his meditation and I will crank the hydraulic jack below his throne when the disc on which he is sitting would slowly rise above the throne. His white robe will screen the hydraulic shaft, the chanting devotees will see the Sadhu by yogic power levitating above the ground. There would be madness all around, for those ignorant it was the ultimate show of divine power. It was a better life but then that one hour was so claustrophobic that one night I ran away from the ashram and came to Kolkata by hitching a ride on a truck.

“Now you guide me what should I do for a living. I can be a good apprentice of a magician as i know most of the tricks.”

Babulal offered me a choice unwittingly, after my retirement I always thought of an alternate career , here is that opportunity for me of either to become a full time magician with Babulal as my assistant or  also i can become a corporate Sadhu with him helping me in all those Sadhu stuffs like ashes falling from my pictures or water of India etc.I thought that Babulal with his small frame can remain invisible in a crowd , his exposure with the street Magician and the Sadhu has made him street smart. He is an asset  worth investing time and money.

I gave him 500 rupees and told him to meet me at the same place after a week.

I am still thinking about my future course of action..…….