Sorcerer's Apprentice

Shah Tahir

Description

India is a land of miracles, where godmen an d mystics mesmerise audiences with wondrous feats of magic. In great cities and remote villages alike, these mortal incarnations of the divine turn rods into snakes, drink acid, eat glass, hibernate and even levitate. Some live as kings, their devotees numbering hundreds of thousands; while others--virtually destitute--wander from village to village pledging to cure the sick, or bring rain in times of drought.As a child in rural England, Tahir Shah first learned the secrets of illusion from an Indian magician. Two decades later, he set out in search of this conjurer, the ancestral guardian of his great grandfather's tomb. Sorcerer's Apprentice is the story of his quest for, and initiation into, the brotherhood of Indian godmen. Learning along the way from sadhus, sages, avatars and sorcerers--it's a journey which took him from Calcutta to Madras, from Bangalore to Bombay, in search of the miraculous.In Calcutta, Shah is apprenticed to Hakim Feroze, a tyrannical master of illusion, who sets out to crush his student's spirit through gruelling physical trials. Eventually, his pupil's skin bruised and raw and his temper strained, the magician unlocks the door to his secret laboratory. The miracles of India's godmen are at last revealed one by one: how to swallow stones, to stop one's pulse, turn water into wine, and many more. Next, as a cryptic test, Shah is sent to ferret out the secrets of Calcutta's Underworld--entering the confidence of the city's ageing hangman, its baby-renters, and skeleton dealers. Then, just as Shah is making headway, Feroze announces that he's to pack his bags and set out at once, on a 'Journey of Observation'.A quest for the bizarre, wondrous underbelly of the Subcontinent, Shah's travels lift the veil on the East's most puzzling miracles. The Journey of Observation leads him to a cornucopia of characters. Illusionists all, some are immune to snake venom, others speak through oracles, or have the power to transform ordinary water into petrol. Along the way Shah witnesses a 'duel of miracles', crosses paths with an impoverished billionaire, and even meets a part-time god. Revealing confidence tricks and ingenious scams, Sorcerer's Apprentice exposes a side of India that most writers never even imagine exists.

Informations

• Publié par: Secretum Mundi
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783011148
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Tahirshah.com
Also by Tahir Shah:
Casablanca Blues
Eye Spy
Scorpion Soup
Timbuctoo
Travels With Myself
In Arabian Nights
The Caliph’s House
House of the Tiger King
In Search of King Solomon’s Mines
Trail of Feathers
Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Beyond the Devil’s Teeth
SORCERER’S APPRENTICE
TAHIR SHAH
SECRETUM MUNDI PUBLISHING
© 2012 TAHIR SHAH
Secretum Mundi Publishing
3rd Floor, 36 Langham Street, London W1W 7AP, United Kingdom
http://www.secretum-mundi.com/
[e-mail]
Cover design by www.designbliss.nl
First published in eBook format in 2012
© TAHIR SHAH
Tahir Shah asserts the right to be identified as the Author of the Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
Visit the author's website at: http://www.tahirshah.com/
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Ebook Conversion by www.ebookpartnership.com
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Sayed Idries Shah
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Some names and locations have been changed in order to respect privacy
Contents
Also by Tahir Shah
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
Foreword
PART ONE
1 - He Who Scatters Souls
2 - Snake Jugglers and Liposuction
3 - Land of Warriors
4 - City of Light
5 - Waiting Out the Jinns
6 - Renting Babies
PART TWO
7 - Calcutta Torture
8 - Sorcerer’s Apprentice
9 - Swallowing Stones
10 - Insider Information
11 - Metro Marriage
12 - Curse of the Skeleton Dealers
PART THREE
13 - Dick Whittington and the Black Hole
14 - The Secret Army
15 - Witch
16 - No Little Girls
17 - Disneyland of the Soul
18 - The Yogi’s Last Breath
19 - Real Power
20 - The Penniless Billionaire
21 - Take One Live Murrel Fish…
22 - Lord Elvis
23 - Duel of Miracles
24 - Jimmy, the Part-time God
Glossary
Tahirshah.com
Foreword
I never planned to write Sorcerer’s Apprentice .
Setting down my experiences amid the underbelly of Indian magic was the furthest thing from my mind. The haphazard journeys I had made through the subcontinent on the heels of illusion were very personal adventures – adventures I never expected to share with anyone.
They were part of my preoccupation with the kind of stage magic that was pioneered by Harry Houdini, and by others, more than a century ago.
From the first moment I reached India, I was transfixed by the intense cultural color. It hit me like a bucket of ice water, and was like nothing I had ever experienced before. Whereas Europe is so often little more than thin consumé, India is a mesmerizing, intoxicating goulash of a land.
I found that I couldn’t help but drink it all in – feasting on the details and the interwoven layers of life. For the first time ever I felt that I had arrived at a place with a full spectrum. There was more life in a few feet of the Calcutta sidewalk than in entire cities elsewhere. And, as I was to learn, the most ordinary-looking people were the gatekeepers into a world of mystery and marvel, the kind of place that has bewitched Occidental travelers for centuries.
When I wrote Sorcerer’s Apprentice , the critics were kind but rather disbelieving. Some of them even implied that I’d made the whole thing up. What I have been trying to explain ever since the first copies hit bookshop shelves is that this is a story of India – a land where the unbelievable is the norm.
I wish people who don’t get this point would leave their tedious lives in Europe, North America or wherever, and would travel to the Indian subcontinent. If they left right away, they could be having breakfast there tomorrow morning… and they’d understand that India is a realm crafted in a magic of its own.
As for myself, I was well aware that the idea of writing of my experiences with the incomparable magician, Hakim Feroze, would be extremely unpopular with him.
And they were.
Feroze telephoned me one Monsoon night. I could hear the rain coming down in sheets behind him. And, I can remember the quavering anger in his voice. As soon as I had heard the click click of the international line, I’d known it was Feroze. He was fuming. As far as he was concerned, I had denigrated my time with him to fodder for a travel book.
It is a view that upset me greatly.
I have always held Feroze in the highest respect. When he died in 2001, I felt an emptiness that I have rarely experienced. It was a sense that a life had ended that could never be lived again.
Hindsight is the most remarkable privilege.
I can now look back with some amusement at the trials and tribulations to which I was subjected, a sadistic pleasure for the Master. And, I can smile at it all.
But, far more importantly, I can see that what Feroze had wanted was for me to be exposed to levels of thought and understanding that pass almost everyone else by. He reduced me to the raw mettle and, only then, began the laborious process of building me up.
The quest for illusion was what had kept my attention, and was the catalyst that had got me started. But it wasn’t the thing of real value. The value was in learning to see what I thought I understood with fresh eyes.
My favorite axiom is from Arabia – Much travel is needed before the raw man is ripened . There is no place better for ripening rawness than India. And, there’s no better way at opening oneself to being ripened than following a quest. It’s a theme which has run through much of my work, because I have learned that a quest – however inane and zigzag – can open doors that had been invisible before.
I spend my life encouraging young people to head off into the wild unknown without preparing, or giving a journey too much thought. We live in a society that’s obsessed with preparation, with planning, and with analyzing, but one that is blinkered to the Oriental concept of absorbing through cultural osmosis.
Stand on a street corner in any Indian city, with the maelstrom of traffic swirling around you.
Close your eyes.
Take a deep breath, and let it all wash in.
You can be certain of one thing: that you will leave a very different person than when you arrived.
Tahir Shah 2013
PART ONE
Three things can not be retrieved: The arrow once sped from the bow The word spoken in the haste The missed opportunity.
Ali the Lion, Caliph of Islam. Son-in-law of Mohammed the Prophet
1
He Who Scatters Souls
We failed to realize it was an omen when it came.
Sunshine streamed down through an almost cloudless indigo sky, warming the dew-covered lawn. The gardener had fished out his dilapidated machine for the first mow of the summer. The great yew tree, basking in sunlight, threw long shadows across the grass. Squirrels dashed about in the monkey-puzzle and copper beech. A bank of azaleas perfumed the early-morning air.
Then, quite suddenly, hailstones the size of conkers showered down from above, shattering the peace. A lone cloud in an unending blue sky had spawned the freak bombardment, which persisted for about three minutes. And, as the last nuggets of ice struck the lawn, the doorbell echoed the arrival of an unexpected visitor.
My family’s home in an isolated English village was not unused to bizarre guests. The house was a magnet for the peculiar. One could never be certain whom the next to arrive would be. But, even by normal unpredictable standards, the man standing at the porch, waiting to be welcomed, was anything but typical.
The first thing that struck me about the towering Pashtun was his extraordinary bristliness. An immense bush of wooly beard masked much of his face. Hanging like an inverted ink-black mass of cotton candy, it fanned out in all directions. His hands, ears, and the nostrils of his hooked beak of a nose were also thick with waxy hair. In the few places where the skin was bald – the fingertips, palms and below the eyes – it was creased and scaly as an armadillo’s snout. The sable eyes spoke of honesty and the furrowed forehead hinted of an anxious past.
The giant bear of a man teaseled the froth of beard outwards with a scarlet plastic comb, and dusted down his filthy khaki salwaar kameez , shirt and baggy pants – the preferred outfit in the Hindu Kush. Straightening the knotted Kabuli turban, which perched on his head like a crown, he peered down at the ground bashfully, as the front door was pulled inwards. My father, recognizing Hafiz Jan, son of Mohammed ibn Maqbul, embraced him.
The Pashtun’s luggage – a single sealed tea chest bearing the word "ASSAM" in black stenciled lettering – was carried in ceremoniously. It was heavy as an elephant-calf and stank of rotting fish.
Although received at no notice, Hafiz Jan was welcomed with great decorum. Tea and refreshments were brought and pleasantries exchanged. Blessings and gifts were conferred upon him. According to Eastern Tradition, my father expounded in detail the pedigree of our distinguished visitor.
His forefathers had fought alongside my own ancestor, the Afghan warlord and statesman Jan Fishan Khan (a nom de guerre , translating literally as "He Who Scatters Souls"). None had been so courageous, or trusted, as the progenitors of Hafiz Jan. They had accompanied the warrior on all his campaigns. Many had died in battle, side by side with members of my own family. When, in 1842, their lord had traveled with his enormous retinue of soldiers fro