Everyime a newspaper columnist faces an approaching deadline and realises that he has run out of topics to write on, he faithfully goes back to the tried, tested & proven ruing on how mobile phones dictate our lives & how we cant get away from them & how dependent we have become on them & how soon the world will be ruled by mobiles. Not true Ive realised, courtesy a 7 hour long power outage on a blissful sunday.
Unaware of the impending powercut, I had nearly drained out the charge on my PSP. (well its not my fault that I spent hours in the preceding days on my PSP trying to crash my car into trucks, pickups, buses & even autos - Burnout is pretty addictive). The charge on my HP lappie lasts only for half an hour these days so that was not an option for killing my time. My phones were on extremely low charge & my sunday calling ritual was thus given the boot. A long ride looked to be the perfect solution but that was until I saw the extremely cloudy sky. Reading the paper from end to end could only take that much time & I switched to the book which Ive been reading for the last 3 months which consumed another hour. With nothing left to do I began to rummage through my stuff looking for something to keep myself busy.
Which was when I spotted a book of mine which I had bought way back in 2002 - World's Best Card Tricks. Its taken me 7 long years to open the book & find myself a deck of cards (well in this case a deck of UNO cards). Whenever I used to spot the book I could never find a deck and when I would finally find a deck I would forget where I had kept the book. But that’s another story.
The next few hours were surprisingly quite memorable. I really struggled to perform the tricks of various complexities that were described in such great detail that when I first read them I thought to myself that it had to be a cakewalk. I had such a tough time that I think I ended up reinventing those expert tricks though I have no idea how I did it. Of course no two attempts ended up with the same results. I even struggled with something as elementary as cutting the deck in the right manner. In fact the only thing I am good at in the art of 'magic' card tricks is talking to the (imaginary as of now) audience. But it sure was a blast. I had to keep trying the tricks again & again & again till I could finally figure out what was happening (well at least supposed to happen). Which would come as a welcome second wind & was the impetus for me to start attempting the same trick again & again & (of course with different results each time) .... Eventually I reached a stage where my mind knew what was to happen but try as I might, my less than fleet fingers couldn’t match the instructions. Well, all that’s left now is to practice.
Im not trying to be David Blaine or Criss Angel. Hell, Im not even trying to be one of those Indian magicians who come on stage all snazzily dressed with a turban & what not & end up saying water of ganga and make an empty vessel pour out water. Its just for kicks. And what do you know, it proves to be a worthy topic to blog on.
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