'Magical legacy' of PC Sorcar: Show experience

The Legacy

The name PC Sorcar has been synonymous with magic in India, from as far back as I can remember. In my school days, I remember a few occasions where the bandwagon of PC Sorcar Magic shows had rolled onto my hometown, Madurai. Then, it was the 2nd generation magician from the same family, also called PC Sorcar Young who performed.

I did not get an opportunity to watch this earlier, and my exposure to magic was solely through movies like The Prestige, Illusionist, Now you see me or through TV shows of street magic by the likes of Dynamo or David Copperfield.

I recently caught up with my first magic show in-person, couple of weeks back, when we took our kids for the PC Sorcar magic show playing in Hyderabad. Currently, its a person from the 3rd generation of the family who is the key performer, named Pouroosh, also called PC Sorcar Master. With their legacy spanning generations, looks like the family is fast running out of unique & differentiable names.

The Show

When I checked the schedule to book tickets, what first surprised me was that the 2-hour show was running twice-a-day and everyday, continuously for over a month. Not very different from a movie schedule, but for much longer, considering that movies these days exit theatres in just a few weeks! Also, the seat pricing was reversed, with balcony seats being the cheapest and front-rows commanding a premium.

After a good introduction, the show began with some legacy acts, handed down several decades from the first PC Sorcar. Classic acts like pulling a warehouse of items out of an empty cube, making pigeons appear & then vanish, cutting a lady using multiple swords, impaling a man with spears were spellbinding. There was a special appearance by PC Sorcar Young, the 2nd generation legend to do the 'X-ray vision' act, wherein he not just guesses what people write on a board, but also does impossible mathematical computations on them or converts plain markings to master sketches, defied all logic. 

While most of the acts were good and held the suspense element, the show did seem a bit of a stretch for the 2 hours duration. Perhaps due to the prolonged build-up done for some of the acts, which looked a bit dreary and dull, or because the final act, performed in pitch darkness wasn't as great a climax to the show.

3 generations of PC Sorcar on stage (Young, Pouroosh & his toddler son)

But the show is worth a watch and it definitely captures the imagination of kids. In an age of short movies, Youtube & WhatsApp entertainment, keeping the attention of audience through shows like this sure calls for showmanship, acting skills, screen presence and above all great stamina to perform 400+ shows, right through the year.

Simple pleasures of having your coffee hot: Some ideas

I'm all for having my coffee or tea extra-hot. Its a disappointment every time, when it quickly loses temperature in the space of a few minutes. And I hate it to finish off the beverage cold or at best, lukewarm.

I am the kind who usually runs back to the oven to reheat my tea when its half done. To confess, there are times I've ended up reheating the same tea a couple of times, before actually finishing it.

This has made me wonder whether there aren't any elegant solutions in the form of a custom, improvised coffee mug.

Googling got me some options. A popular one was the insulated coffee mug, which doesn't really solve the problem.

Thermos insulated mug

Then, there were the reheatable mugs that could be plugged into a power socket or even through a car charger. A bit messy and certainly not one you'd want lying around your table.

Stainless steel coffee mug from Alibaba

I was looking for a combination of a mug -cum- thermo flask that retains heat best, one which comes with a reheat option without those ugly props.

Concept by Green Lama and Design HMI LLC

And, I landed on this page which seemed to offer quite an elegant solution. This kickstarter campaign had originally been launched with some issues, and then relaunched to completion.

Product launched by Green Lama on Kickstarter

With this campaign getting closed, the product doesn't seem to be in the market yet, but with limited availability on their home site.

Looks like I'll have to wait some time until I can have a steaming cup of coffee, all the way to the end!

Autobiography of a Yogi

I had just completed reading Autobiography of a Yogi. Its a fascinating read, packed with abundant learnings, so much so that you'll have to re-read it many times over to absorb it all.

Swami Yogananda has truly established a bridge not just between East and West which is the stated overarching purpose, but the book transcends several dual worlds with ease - yogic mysticism vs science, ancient vs modern worlds, ascetic life vs materialistic pleasures. The writing style alternates between light stories, spiritual messages & heavy stuff on self-realization. As with most philosophical stuff, one can conveniently absorb whatever they can at the moment and skip onto other portions.

The book chronicles the life of 4 yogis at available levels of detail, and also talks briefly about several other saints. Interestingly, you get to hear not just a capsule of their teachings, but also get a first hand account of their lives, including their innate flaws in formative years and how they were reformed by their gurus. Understanding the human compulsions of yogis, their emotions and attachments to loved ones (though subtle and fleeting), makes this all the more relatable to rest of us, ordinary mortals.

This book fills an important void, because the real yogis have always been mystic, secretive and hence their ideals and life accounts have been largely lost on the general population. In an age where there is rampant misinformation & misuse of spirituality with an overflow of charlatans, its truly a remarkable attempt that someone has gone into great detail to demystify, explain the science behind what is perceived as magic and make it all relatable.

Some important takeaways for me from the book were:

• Influence of a guru in shaping one's life
• Importance of yoga - that magic can happen through simple control & regulation of one's breath
• Listening to our inner call by understanding the higher purpose - and that you don't have to necessarily give it all up and live in a Himalayan cave (though thats an attractive proposition!)

No wonder the book is listed amongst the 100 best spiritual books of the 20th century, and is highly treasured by several renown individuals, including Steve Jobs.

Goodbye 2016 and Hello 2017

Its time to reflect back on the past year and set some broad goals for the one just begun. By comparing notes with a similar post I made around the same time last year,  here is my reflection:

• 1. Done a decent job with execution by sticking to things planned at the start of the year.

• 2. Spent time learning new things, primarily around data, analytics, design and technology. Feeds through feedly and other modes of reading I had setup for myself have proven to be effective. Though I couldn't hit my Goodreads challenge of 20 books, I think the learning has been good, and some of this catchup can be done in 2017.

• 3. Maintained the rhythm of writing through the past year with 4 blog posts every month. There is an increasing intent to find time to write more and on varied interests, and hopefully that would happen this year, including the impending migration out of Blogger.

• 4. I had called out self-organization and house-keeping stuff as areas to focus on. There has been some progress here and I've recently started logging my daily time to understand this better. With close to a 3 weeks of data, time-logs are proving to be quite helpful in this area and I intend to continue this for atleast a few months.

• 5. Travel & Movies had taken a slight back-seat in the past year, and this is one such instance where the balancing act needs to improve.

Here's to a Happy, Healthy and Spirited 2017 for all!!