A crowd has gathered around the repetitive sound of a damaru being played in Sunder Nursery. The laughter and gasps from the group is pulling more curious strollers in, and it is getting bigger by the minute. At the centre, under posters announcing a magic show by “Incredible Ishamuddin”, the magician is ‘swallowing’ an iron ball, the size of a child’s fist, much to the delight of onlookers.
Street magician Ishamuddin Khan had read the writing on the wall quite some time ago and knew that one of the ways he could keep his art alive was to shift his performance from the ready drama and the unpredictable energy of the streets to the polite manicured environs of tony localities such as Sunder Nagar. And he was ready and willing. He managed to get a spot at the Nursery with the help of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture; they pay him for the performance. He does not know what the future holds, but for now he has an audience. His next performance at the nursery is on October 22.
Khan has a lot of tricks up his sleeve, and as many feathers in his cap. In 1995, the street magician from Delhi performed the Great Indian Rope Trick -- a trick of such legend that it was thought to be impossible -- in front of a small but awestruck crowd at Qutub Minar. The trick involves a rope being made to stand erect in the air for a child to climb. Two years later, he repeated it at Malpe beach in Karnataka to a roaring crowd of over 25,000, and shot to international fame. Channel 4 of Britain ranked Khan and the rope trick 20th on its list of 50 Greatest Magic Tricks. He has since toured over 10 countries in Europe and Asia, astounding spectators wherever he goes. What the magician has managed to conjure up from thin air, however, has always been weighed down by the grim realities at home.
Sitting in his stuffy single-room housing in Kathputli Colony, a temporary resettlement camp since 2013 in Anand Parbat, Khan, 52, reminisces about his performances abroad. He moves from the streets of Poland to the public parks in Japan, then suddenly to the squares in Britain and France. His eyes light up and his gestures are deft. One almost expects the glass of water he’s holding to disappear, and reappear, in a swift sleight of hand. “My ancestors travelled and performed from Turkey to Cambodia,” he says of the Madaris, his tribe of street performers, whose biggest patron was Mughal Emperor Akbar, due to their connection with a Sufi order. “We were always on the move. That was our way of life,” he says.
No respect, platform
Khan rues that his community can no longer travel or perform freely, especially in their own country, which has a centuries-old tradition of street performance. “When we perform on the streets, we are arrested and sent to the Sewa Kutir, the poor house,” he says. He cites laws like the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act (1959) that has been used by the authorities to deny his community a space to perform, which has affected their livelihoods. “We are not considered artistes or performers, but beggars and thieves. The lack of recognition of indigenous artists is killing a culture that goes way back in our history,” says Khan.
From magicians and snake charmers to acrobats and puppeteers, Kathputli Colony houses over a thousand residents. The community has always been plagued by poverty, and it seems to be getting worse. People are jettisoning their ancestral art forms as they are convinced they have no future. Altamash Khan, Ishamuddin’s eldest son, who is also a magician and a juggler, worked a desk job for an NGO for a while to sustain his family. He had to leave because employers did not find him “efficient enough”.
Altamash started performing at the age of 13, after being an apprentice to his father. He learnt juggling, however, from his “foreigner friends”, who would visit his father at the colony. “I was spellbound by my father’s performances growing up and had always wanted to become a magician,” he says. But unlike his father, Altamash completed his schooling and holds a degree in Theatre Arts from Dibrugarh University in Assam. “Life as a street performer is difficult. You barely make a living,” he says. “People always want new tricks every time, but nobody wants to pay you so that you can get new equipment or take your time in perfecting your craft,” he adds.
He believes that street performance is a dying art, at least in India. “Most developed countries have robust street cultures. There, everybody is used to buskers and street performers. They enjoy and support them,” he says, hoping to go abroad one day.
“Unlike other art forms, street performance is not formally recognised in India. There is no college or institution that certifies someone as a qualified street performer. Society looks down on it as a poor man’s entertainment,” says Altamash. Though he is disheartened at times due to financial struggles, he has decided to stick to it because he loves making people laugh, doing a good show. He is always bettering his act, innovatively fusing elements of theatre and various other tricks he has picked up along the way.
A busking policy
Ishamuddin Khan started the Indian Street Performers and Artists Trust (ISPAT) during the Covid-19 lockdown as a forum to address the issues of the community. Over the years, he has been actively working to bring the discrimination and injustice faced by street performers to the notice of the government and the public. He proposes a “busking policy”, like in the countries he has visited, that would legitimise his community’s art and protect their livelihoods. “I am starting to lose hope,” he says, sitting in the room filled with magic paraphernalia. Even so, the father and son are preparing for future shows and are determined not to lose their magic. “We are born magicians. It’s like in the Harry Potter movies, everyone else is a Muggle,” Khan laughs out loud.