How to Be a Faquir

I Am a Qualified Faquir—or, as we professionals term ourselves, a jadoo-wallah. Stain me brown, equip me with a turban from Dazian's Costume Emporium, and I'll guarantee to duplicate any of the mysteries of the East except how those taxis manage to drive 60 mph through the Chandni Chowk without hitting a sacred cow.

Ever since childhood, I've been fascinated by the lure of Oriental magic. At the age of six, my parents told me that if I didn't stop wrapping towels around my head and playing an ocarina in an effort to make the vacuum-cleaner hose rear up and dance, they'd shoot me from the mouth of a cannon. Later I joined a carnival as a professional magician and gave magic shows while enveloped in a crepe beard and speaking fluent Hindustani (well, I was able to say "sahib" and "rupee"). However, this didn't satisfy me. I wanted to see the real thing. Finally I was able to take a trip to India—the Homeland of Magic.

In New Delhi I sought the advice of a prominent Indian writer named Suresh Vaidya. I explained that I wanted to be initiated into the Order of Faquirs, starting with the snake charmers. Suresh was the soul of cooperation.

"To learn the secret of their strange power over these deadly reptiles, you will have to handle the snakes yourself, wrap them about your neck, put their heads in your mouth—hey, where are you going? You can't run all the way back to the Imperial hotel in the midday sun without a topi. I'll take you to the village of Badarpur, some 12 miles north of here, where lives the hereditary caste of snake charmers known as the Kom-Jogi. Ten minutes after we reach Badarpur, you'll be up to your colon in cobras."

No one could remain indifferent to such an offer. I hailed a taxi and soon we were headed north past the Diwan-i-Khas, the Jamma Musjid, the American Express Company and other exotic spots.

At last we came to a community of about a hundred mud huts lying against the ruins of an ancient mud fort. At one time Badarpur had been a thriving community, but with the coming of the English the fort had been abandoned and the gypsy Kom-Jogi took over the ruins. The Kom-Jogi wander as far north as China and as far (continued on page 156)How to be a Faquir(continued from page 135) west as Arabia with their baskets of snakes, often being away from Badarpur two or three years.

"The Indian government would like them to adopt some other way of life, but they cling to their snakes and their ancient ways," Suresh explained.

I was afraid that these strange people would be loath to allow a visiting American to pry into their deepest mysteries, but I needn't have worried. When Suresh explained what was wanted, the headman shouted to the attentive crowd some strange words in Kom-Jogi, which translated would be "Lads, here's a prime American sucker loaded with moola! Let's give him the works!"

Never, not even on the midway of the old Krinko Combined Shows, which was the crookedest rag bag east of the Mississippi, have I ever seen so instant a reaction. From every hut came pouring hordes of men, women, children and dogs, all carrying snakes. (I'm not sure about the dogs, but that was my impression at the time.) At least 30 people were playing on gourd flutes, others were beating on drums, tambourines and tin cans. They had king cobras, Asiatic cobras, brown cobras, green cobras, black cobras, Russell's vipers, saw-scaled vipers, pit vipers, Malayan kraits, Wall's kraits, Himalayan cat snakes, striped keelbacks, checkered keelbacks, painted bronzebacks, pipe snakes, rock pythons, reticulated pythons, banded racers, grass snakes and rat snakes. Naked children, scarcely able to stand, came toddling toward me dragging furious cobras by their tails and yelling "Baksheesh, sahib!" Old, toothless women hobbled across the compound plastered with pythons, and decrepit men left what must have been their deathbeds to crawl out of the huts dangling kraits. Badarpur is an ideal place to have your nonalcoholic d.t.s; everything's provided.

I asked the headman if the snakes were defanged. He replied frankly, "Of course they are, sahib. What do you think we are, crazy?"

A defanged snake, although not entirely harmless, is most reluctant to bite, as his mouth is sore and swollen. Even if he did, so little venom would be discharged that simply sucking out the wound would probably be enough to keep you from having more than a sore arm. Next I asked about the flute playing.

"Snakes are completely deaf," the headman explained. "The flute isn't to charm the snake, it's to draw a crowd."

He gave me a demonstration. If you put a cobra in a basket and then suddenly take the lid off, the cobra will rear up (especially if you give the side of the basket a kick at the same time) and stay reared up watching you. If you move to the right or left, the cobra will move also, never taking his eyes off you and always ready to strike. If you sway your body, the cobra will sway with you, sparring for a blow. This swaying suggests the undulating motions of a nautch girl, and so it can be said that the cobra is dancing. So the performer plays some musical instrument, usually the gourd flute, at the same time swaying his body. The cobra sways with him, thus "dancing to the music." The performer can also accomplish the same effect by playing a sousaphone if he keeps swaying.

But it was not until three weeks later, in Benares, that I saw my first jadoo-wallah—sleight-of-hand performer. I watched with interest while he did card flourishes, the multiplying billiard balls, and produced a stuffed rabbit from his turban. After the show I asked him if he knew any Indian magic. He was highly insulted.

"I am an educated man," he told me proudly. "I get my apparatus from Maskelyne's in London, Geisaud's in Paris, Hull's in the United States——"

"I'll pay twenty rupees to see a good routine of Indian magic."

Bringing his hands together in a beautiful gesture, he bowed and said quietly, "Sahib, for twenty rupees I'll bury myself alive and you can camp on my grave for three days."

As my time was limited, I asked him if he could do the mango-tree effect. This famous trick, consisting of making a mango tree grow before your eyes, was described by Madame Blavatsky, the founder of Theosophy, as an undoubted miracle. The jadoo-wallah said it was a little old-fashioned, but agreed to perform it.

He began by putting a mango pit in a tin can full of earth and then erecting a framework of three sticks tied together at the ends over it. A cloth was thrown over the sticks to make an improvised tent. After a few incantations, he whipped away the cloth and, sure enough, there was the young mango shoot beginning to sprout from the tin. The cloth was replaced, more incantations, and when it was removed there was a sapling. At last came the full tree, some three feet high. There was even fruit growing on it, which he broke off and handed to me.

It was a good trick, although it took nearly an hour to perform, mainly because the flimsy tripod of sticks kept collapsing and each time the jadoo-wallah had to reach under the tent to adjust the sticks. When he first covered the tripod with the cloth, he had concealed in its folds a small mango shoot which he later inserted in the can while fixing the "tent." When he snatches away the cloth to reveal the shoot and the audience is staring at it, he drops the cloth over his collection of bags, sacks and other bits of apparatus lying on the ground. Then when he picks it up, he has the next-size mango concealed inside. He continues this routine until he finally produces the three-foot tree with the fruit. The trick can be done only with a mango, as its leaves and stem are very flexible and the whole works can be rolled up and put into a small space without damaging them. When unwrapped, they snap into position like the rubber-flower bouquets American magicians produce from hats. The illusion that the tree is actually growing is very strong, especially as at each stage the jadoo pulls up the tree and shows the roots becoming longer and longer as the tree increases in size.

The jadoo-wallah showed me a coup'e of other tricks I'd never seen before. He had several small bags, each containing a different-colored sand. Then he produced the old tin can again, filled it with water and poured sand from each of the bags into the can, mixing them into a muddy mass. He then asked me to name a color. I suggested red. After showing that his hand was empty, he reached into the can and pulled out some of the variegated mud. Squeezing the mass, he poured out a stream of perfectly dry bright-red sand into my palm. He did the same for any other color called for.

Anyone can do this trick, although it requires a little preparation. You make up some small balls of the different-colored sands, coat them with grease and then bake them hard in an oven. A ball of the right color is put into each bag of sand and, being the same color as the sand around it, it's almost invisible. When you pour the different sands into the tin, pour the small balls in with them, making sure you keep track of their positions. If someone asks you for the red sand, reach into the tin, pick up the ball of red sand and as you bring it out, crush the ball in your hand.

The jadoo men also have another striking effect that, when properly presented, does really seem like magic. The jadoo produces some small pieces of broken crockery, each about the size of a postage stamp, and has you select one. He give you a piece of charcoal and tells you to make some design on the piece while his back is turned and then turn it over so he can't see what you've drawn. He takes the piece, being careful not to look at the design, and puts it on the ground, design downward. Next, you stamp on the piece, grinding it into fragments, and wave your hand over the bits. When you turn your hand over, the design on the piece is found stamped on your palm.

When the jadoo takes the piece of pottery, he casually presses his thumb against the design before placing the piece on the ground. The soft charcoal transfers the pattern to his thumb. After you've broken the pottery, he tells you to wave your hand over the spot. As you do so, he says, "No, closer to the pieces" and moves your hand into place, at the (continued on page 174)How to be a Faquir(continued from page 156) same time pressing his thumb against your palm and again transferring the design. Try it yourself, using a lump of sugar for the pottery and a soft-lead pencil for the charcoal.

Although I had trouble finding faquirs, there was one bunch of miracle workers who were down on me like dandruff on a velvet collar whenever I left the shelter of a hotel. These were the astrologers. Having no great desire to pay ten rupees to be told that some things are about to occur that have not yet already happened, I let the bearded Sikh doorman run interference for me, but one day a little fat man with a Brigham Young beard got a hangnail caught in my sleeve and I couldn't shake him off.

"Mister, you are very lucky!" he screamed. "Today you will meet beautiful light-skinned girl. She likes English gentlemen very much. For five rupees I tell you where she lives."

"I'm an American."

"She likes Americans even more. Let me look at your palm. If I cannot tell your name and date of your birth from looking at lines, I give you girl's address free."

What could I lose? I let him look at my palm. He became excited.

"Mister, what did I tell you? I said this was your lucky day. How did I know that before I saw your palm?"

"What's my name and the date of my birth?"

"Ha, ha, mister! I can read your mind. You think I'm a fake, please answer yes or no."

"Yes."

"See, I read your mind." He produced a piece of paper about four inches square from his pocket and drew a circle in the center. "Write your name and birth date in this magic circle. I stand back so I cannot see what you write."

"I thought you could read my mind or tell from my palm."

A pained look crossed his face. "Mister, I did this for the Sultan of Zanzibar, Bulganin and Khrushchev and Mister Dulles. All write down to make it official. But if you like better, I give you complete psychoanalysis for twenty rupees."

I wrote in the circle. "Now, mister, fold paper across the middle. Good! Now fold the other way. Now give it to me."

He took the folded paper and dramatically tore it into little pieces, which he tossed into the air. After suffering agonies of concentration which required him to rub his forehead several times, he at last called out my name.

"Now for ten rupees I tell you when you were born."

"OK, if you'll shake hands on it."

Wonderingly, he began to extend his hand. Then his expression suddenly changed. "Mister, you are going to have very bad luck today!" he shouted and stalked away.

By folding the paper down the center and then folding it again crossways, the circle with my name and birth date was in the corner. The astrologer had torn the folded paper across, put the two halves on top of each other and torn them across again. He had continued tearing up the paper until it was in small pieces, which he'd then thrown away—all except the piece containing the circle, which he'd kept in his palm. While talking to me, he'd opened the folded corner and, still palming it, had read what I'd written while pretending to rub his forehead. As the open piece of paper was still in his hand, he couldn't very well shake hands.

There were several famous Hindu magic stunts I hadn't seen: the Indian rope trick, the bed of nails, fire walking and being buried alive. While other tourists were going to see the Taj Mahal by moonlight or Kashmir in the spring or the temple at Karnak at any time of the year, I was crawling through the slums of Shahjahanabad looking for a man who'd sit on a tack or jump into a bonfire. I saw all of these stunts but the rope trick—and that's because an American going to India to see the rope trick is like an Indian coming to America to see Paul Bunyan yoke up Blue Babe.

The rope trick first appears in the Upanishads, written some 2000 years ago about a mythical magician who could do anything. Ever since then, travelers have been claiming they saw it. Ibn Batuta, the great Arab explorer, says he saw it in 1368. "I was so impressed I had to take another drink," he adds, which probably explains a lot. There's an old story of a photographer who took pictures of the trick, but when the plates were developed the pictures showed nothing but the faquir and the boy standing by the rope coiled on the ground—thus proving the trick was done by hypnotism. Anyone who can hypnotize people like that shouldn't waste his time as a jadoo-wallah.

If you ask the faquirs about the rope trick, they pop their turbans laughing. In 1920, the American magician Howard Thurston toured India and offered $1000 to anyone who'd do it. He finally had to invent his own version for the stage. John Maskelyne, the English magician, offered £5000 to anyone who could do it, and the Magic Circle in London has a standing offer of 300 guineas for anyone who can give them even a lead on the stunt. It's still unclaimed. In the 1880s, Captain F.W. Homes of the British army heard that a magician was doing the trick in Poona and rushed over with his camera. He got there as the boy was climbing the rope and snapped a picture. The boy didn't disappear and the captain never saw the rope rear up or even collapse after the stunt was over. Later, when the captain's photos were examined under a magnifying glass, the "rope" proved to be a section of bamboo which the magician was balancing on his chest while the boy climbed it, a common act in all circuses.

A feat of Hindu magic I especially wanted to witness was the buried-alive effect. This is absolutely forbidden by the present spoilsport authorities, yet it seemed to me that some Indian would be sporting enough to let me bury him alive just to see what would happen. There doesn't seem to be much doubt that it can be done. In 1895, Dr. Hem Chunder Sen tested a faquir by locking him up in a masonry cell six feet square for 33 days. When Dr. Sen took the man out, he had no heartbeat or pulse beat. After he'd been rubbed for an hour, the doctor could detect a slight heart flutter and fed the unconscious man a few spoonfuls of warm milk. That started the faquir's pulse and three days later he was sticking needles in himself as normally as possible. How Dr. Sen talked the faquir into making the experiment he doesn't say.

I saw several faquirs who claimed to be able to suspend their bodily functions, which is the first step in samadhi, the trance state that makes being buried alive possible. They offered to stop their pulse beat for me, which they could do, but only through the old trick of having a rolled-up cloth concealed under the armpit so when they pressed down on it the roll cut off the flow of blood to the wrist. I was getting pretty discouraged, when I heard of a faquir at Lohardi, near Jodhpur, who'd had himself buried alive and was being dug up by the police.

I raced out to Jodhpur in a 1932 taxi, amusing myself during the long journey by watching the oxcarts whiz by us. The faquir had been unearthed by the time I got there, but I managed to see him. He was only a boy of about 18, very skinny and nervous. He had been entombed 24 hours before the police heard about the stunt and interfered. They told me he was mentally deficient (which, after talking to him, I could well believe) and had been conned into attempting the feat by a group of unscrupulous sadhus who hoped to make a killing from the crowds who collected at the grave. Even so, being buried for a day and surviving struck me as quite a remarkable example of samadhi.

Another bunch of sadhus at Chaziabad had better luck with their faquir. He was interred for 40 days before the police found out about it. Unfortunately, when they dug him up he was dead. The crowd was furious and attacked the police, as the sadhus claimed the faquir would have been all right if the fuzz had only left him alone.

Being buried alive is unquestionably a genuine feat. Faquirs can so reduce their bodily functions that they pass into a trance state somewhat resembling hibernation. While in this condition they use virtually no oxygen and require no food, although how long they can remain in this condition is hard to say. In 1963, two doctors—M. A. Wenger, professor of psychology at the University of California, and B.Bagchi of the University of Michigan's Medical School—studied four Indian yogis. Three of these men could reduce their heart action to such a point that no beat could be heard through a stethoscope. Dr. Wenger explained, "This is known as the 'Valsalva maneuver.' The subject by tensing his muscles can slow the flow of blood sufficiently so all normal sounds stop." The men's heartbeat still registered on an electrocardiograph, but the fourth man was actually able to stop his heart completely.

At one time the streets of India were full of earnest gentlemen sticking hatpins through their cheeks, driving nails into their eyes or sitting on beds of spikes, but not anymore. The Indian government feels about such exhibitions the way Southern legislatures feel about having hillbilly evangelists twisting live rattlesnakes about their necks. It gives tourists a false impression of the cultural achievements of the community. After I managed to see a few torture faquirs, I could understand what the government meant. Seeing a man carrying lota jars full of milk pinned to his nipples, pulling a decorated cart by hooks sunk into his back or strolling along with a forest of two-foot sharpened wires stuck into his body in artistic designs might make the average lady tourist unwell. I saw these fellows' friends—if that's the word—pushing the pins through their naked flesh and after a careful study of the technique involved, I know how it's done. They just do it.

The pins don't go very deep, not nearly as deep as a hypodermic needle, and after a while you can get used to pain. The nerves simply give up. If you want to, you can run a needle through the flesh of your wrist, sew a button on yourself, and button your shirt to it. I know, because I've done it. It looks bad, but it's not especially painful. The crowd gives them plenty of baksheesh and it's one way of making a living, probably easier than carrying 200-pound cement sacks in 120-degree heat, as plenty of manual workers do in Bombay. As long as the faquir doesn't hit an artery, he's all right.

The bed of nails is slightly faked. The nails are so close together that they virtually form a solid surface and support the man's weight. If they were six inches apart, lying on them would be a real feat. For a few rupees, the man will puta boulder on his chest and let his assistant break it with a sledge hammer. It has to be a big rock, though. A large rock absorbs the force of the blow, so the man feels almost nothing. If you put a small stone on his chest and hit it hard, you'd probably kill him.

Because fire walking is a religious rite, it is still permitted, at least in Banki, a village not too far from Calcutta. The ceremony takes place shortly before the rains break, when it is plenty hot enough without building fires. The fires are built in trenches and each man decides how long his trench is to be. They vary from ten to a hundred feet. Each man soaks his feet in water before walking, and the fellows with the long trenches started running toward the end. I didn't blame them, since the charcoal in the pits was so hot I couldn't get near it. Some of the real enthusiasts did it a second time and even a third.

Curiously, this stunt can be performed only under conditions of intense heat. The soles of the man's feet must be moist. The heat causes a thin layer of steam to form under the sole, so the foot never actually touches the fire. If you pour a drop of water on a red-hot frying pan, the drop does not spread; it slides across the pan and keeps its shape. Also, the water inside the drop takes a long time to heat, because it is protected by the bottom layer of steam. This is known as "Leidenfrost's phenomenon," and the same principle enables fire-eaters in sideshows to put burning torches into their mouths. The fire walker is more apt to be scorched on his ankles or legs than on his soles.

The faquirs' most remarkable tricks aren't really tricks. The torture feats, the fire walking and being buried alive are uncanny, but can be reproduced by anyone willing to take the risk. Western performers have duplicated all these feats at one time or another. In America, Harry Beano, the "Human Pincushion" who worked for years in carnivals, used to run everything from scissors to awls into himself; and Leo Kongee, a Pittsburgh Negro, drove tenpenny nails up his nose and hatpins through his tongue. Fire walking has been demonstrated by K. B. Duke in England and Mayne Reid Coe, Jr., in this country. It's dramatic, but soon over. It also requires a lot of outdoor space and plenty of costly charcoal, so for a Western showman, fire walking isn't practical. Harry Houdini and Randi proved that a man can not only be buried alive, but even submerged in a waterproof coffin for amazingly long periods and survive, as long as he keeps still and takes short breaths. The question is, who's going to pay to sit looking at a submerged coffin?

Personally, I'm glad the Orientals still have a few wrinkles that we don't. But you'll have to hurry if you want to see them. Mechanical tricks are cheap and easy to perform, and not many faquirs are going to go to the trouble of learning the traditional routines if they can buy the Phantom Tube from a mail-order house.