ILLUSIONIST

I was forty-ish then. I was interested in occult. Then I met a person who said he too was into occult. He told me that by seeing a person’s features he could tell their personality type. To prove it, he made observations about a few passers by. I did not know Sanskrit, but he did. He chanted lots of hymns. 

There used to be an open play- ground before my house, on which was a huge cement stage. That became our meeting point. Every night after dinner I used to go there, and he with his few friends and I used to hang out there for an hour. Those were the days when TV programs ended by 8PM, so we depended on friends to entertain us.  He said he was into occult palmistry. The difference being, the client had to stand 20 feet away from him, and show the palm. He said that he could see the palm lines clearly, even in darkness. Then he would make the predictions. This overconfident, cocky, boastful, brash person fascinated me. He could really bluff. He could keep me amused .

He then learnt a healing technique called “ Pranic healing.” Within weeks he self promoted himself as a powerful healer’s healer. He claimed that the other healers in the healing institution were astounded, by his capacities.

He also claimed to be capable of describing people’s features, just by hearing their name. He once struggled to describe my grand father.  After I let him visualize for sometime, I showed him my grand dad’s photograph.  There was a visible difference. He said his tuning-in capacity was down that day.

He wanted to be an achiever in life, without the hard work that is unavoidable for success. Therefore, he compensated the lack of hard work by pretending to be larger than life.

When he turned forty, he fell in love with a twenty-year girl. He begged me to convince her to marry him.  I reasoned with him, that within five years, he would be on the other side of virility, while she would be on a high. This would lead to incompatibility issues.  When he insisted, I refused categorically, stating that I could never spoil the life of a young girl.

After his mother passed away, he got his share of family property. With the unexpected windfall, he took to liquor everyday. Soon all the ideas of greatness were replaced by drunken stupor.  His companions for boozing were the poor people, like auto-rickshaw guys, and guys of the manual labor class.  With low immunity, he fell ill and was in the ICU for some time.

He recovered, but drank away the entire fortune. One day in a drunken state as he leaned from the terrace, he lost balance, and fell down three floors. He died a few days later in a hospital when medical treatment failed.

He was a vagabond by nature, and lived his entire life in self-created illusion about himself.