Harini Nagendra writes about the street magicians of India and how these performers of jadoo fascinated Westerners, who copied their ‘tricks’ unashamedly. But the jadoogars, unlike some of their cobras, still had fangs.
Growing up in India in the 1970s, I read widely, but was especially fascinated by books that featured animals, and magic.
Enid Blyton’s Circus series was a natural favourite. I read the books in the series multiple times, fascinated by stories of animal trainers, acrobats and magicians. Blyton’s series was written and set in England of the 1930s and 1940s, but I encountered similar scenes around me in Delhi and Bangalore, where I lived.
Until the 1980s, it was common in many parts of India to encounter street acrobats, fortune tellers and street magicians, jadoogars, of whom many used parrots, bears, monkeys, elephants, even defanged cobras, in their acts – performing in local markets and temple fairs to earn a few coins.
These performers and their captive animals have now disappeared from the Indian urban and rural countryside – thanks in part due to much-needed animal rights action.
However, the communities that practiced these arts of street magic have also been systematically marginalized and discriminated against over centuries, an unfortunate legacy of the colonial British labelling of entire communities of jadoogars as ‘criminal tribes’, to be distrusted, harassed and exploited.
The exploitation of Indian jadoo was especially clear in 1920s India, the period in which my series, The Bangalore Detectives Club, is based. By the late 19th century, Calcutta – then the capital of British India – featured circus performances and artistes from Europe, Russia, Africa and other parts of Asia.
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Indian magicians and performers also began to travel across the oceans to perform in the west. Stories of Indian jadoo began to circulate in European and American circles, inspiring many well known writers, magicians and stage personalities to imitate Indian acts.
A little known fact about Charles Dickens is that he loved magic, and frequently gave amateur performances at parties. In 1849, he darkened his face with makeup, and dressed up as ‘The Unparalleled Necromancer Rhia Rhama Rhoos’.
A few decades later in 1893, Harry Houdini – just 19 years old, well before he became known as the world’s best escape artist – also stained his face, wore a white robe, and claimed to be a Hindu fakir at the Chicago World Fair. Howard Thurston, Houdini’s leading rival, travelled to India to learn the secrets of oriental magic, taking the acts he saw back to the USA, and developing them further using elaborate mechanical devices built in his workshop at Whitestone, Long Island.
The conjuror Hugh Simmons Lynn even paid Indian jadoogars to perform in his hotel room, attentively noting down what they did, and using it to create acts of his own. An eight-page booklet published by Lynn in 1876 touts the acts he brought from the land of ‘Hindoo conjurors’ to England.
While these British and American magicians exploited the exotic appeal of Indian jadoo to lure western audiences, at the same time they also sought to display the intellectual superiority of rigorous Western scientific methods over these street and circus acts, which they dismissed as ‘trickery’, writing dismissive articles in magazines such as Popular Science.
Meanwhile, Indian circus owners found ways to capitalise on the increasing global interest, employing Western magicians and integrating them into shows performed in Calcutta and other Indian cities. Some Indian magicians also travelled to Europe and North America, wearing western clothes to perform indigenous acts to foreigners, trying to reclaim their heritage – but with indifferent success.
By the time of the early 20th century, as calls for the British to leave India began to grow, Indian circuses started to integrate acts that bordered on the edge of sedition – but carefully, not going so far as to invite official sanctions.
For instance, when King George V came to Calcutta in 1911, the Karlekar Grand Circus integrated the Great Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 into their show, but then ended the performance with a light animal act, dialling down the tension and bidding farewell to their audience on a happy note.
A Nest of Vipers opens with a circus performance in Bangalore. It is January 1922, and Edward, Prince of Wales, is headed to the city, after a disastrous visit to Bombay and Calcutta, where he was greeted by booing crowds of protestors protesting against British colonization.
A Bengali magician, Das, performs on stage, making mango trees grow from seeds, and escaping from locked cages a la Houdini. However, Das adopts Indian mythological stories for his use. He rejects the standard issue magician kit of coat and top hat, and wears an Indian kurta and pyjama. He tells the audience that he is not a magician but a jadoogar.
His performance skirts the edge of sedition, and Kaveri is alarmed – but even she does not expect to see Das suddenly vanish from stage, mid-performance, after which the circus performance devolves into chaos, as a group of thugs attack the wealthy audience, and a man is killed. What, if anything, does this have to do with Das’s obvious leanings towards the Swaraj movement – and how will this impact the Prince’s visit?
The character of Das – and the mystery of his wife, who died some years before him — were inspired by real-life Indian circus artists and magicians, men and women from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Bold and imaginative, these jadoogars have been largely forgotten today – yet they created new acts that they took to local and global audiences, using uniquely Indian themes.
Historical fiction offers a perfect opportunity to delve into these stories, bringing them to wider attention.
A Nest of Vipers by Harini Nagendra is published on 2 May, 2024.
Read Harini’s feature, 1920s Bangalore, a city of diversities.
If you’re interested in the history of India, you may also like:
Calcutta Blues: why Kipling despised the city and Partition, politics, and a prime minister’s passion, both by Vaseem Khan
It’s time to remember Ganga Singh: maharaja, reformer, statesman by Alec Marsh
Unforgettable legacies of the East India Company by Vayu Naidu
Re-examining the history of Empire in fact and fiction by Tom Williams
Finding empathy – the complexities of writing Robert Clive by Diana Preston
For more on magic and stage illusions, read The Victorian theatrical world of mystery and illusion by Essie Fox and Magicians and film-makers, masters of illusions by Liz Hyder.
Images:
- Snake Charmers and Jugglers, Madras: TuckDB via Wikimedia (CC BY 4.0)
- Snake charmers, probably in Delhi, 1972: FOTO:FORTEPAN / Lőw Miklós via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
- Snake charmer with cobra in India, c1921: Wikimedia (public domain)
- Thurston, the famous magician — East Indian Rope-Trick, detail from poster, c1927: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division via Wikimedia (public domain)
- King George V and Queen Mary landing at Prinsep Ghat, Calcutta during the Delhi Durbar 1911: Royal Collection Trust / © His Majesty King Charles III 2024
