Indian Talent, Global Content
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Indian Talent, Global Content |
New and Improved: May 2012
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The Street Performer
It was about 5:45 in the evening on a working day; I was still a schoolboy, and on that particular day I was sitting on a sofa in the veranda of our house. I hear the sound of the gate being opened and look up to see my uncle coming back from office. I rush up to him with a motive but it’s pretty straight forward. “Hello Uncle, I need a rupee from you,” I say. He is not surprised and says, “So, you want to send a lollypop on its journey to the unknown.” He does not make much of a fuss about that rupee and fishes out his wallet from his pocket. “Thank You Uncle, you sure are very good.” I rush out to a nearby shop just about a 100 yard away. As I walk along, office goers are streaming back to their homes. Just before the shop, in an open space by the side of the road, is a street performer and his assistant— a small kid— vigorously promoting their show. He has succeeded in getting a comfortable circle of spectators but it seems like he wants a full house. So, he targets every individual walking by, announcing, “This is the biggest show you are going to see in this town! Why only in this town it could be the whole country. Be sure you don’t miss it because otherwise you are going to regret it and I won’t be coming back to this spot again. I am booked for the whole year.” He pauses and glances at the people already planted around him. When he sees a prospect coming his way, he yells, “Hey Mister, looks like your boss gave you a rough day! You could cheer up watching this show of mine.” The man is surprised, looks at him and says, “How did you know that?” “Your face says it all,” he says. And that convinces the man to watch the show. To another man he says, “Mister, you look like you were given a rough time by your wife.” The man is jolted and says, “What do you mean? Do you mean that my face says all that? It’s very embarrassing.” He says, “I’ll hold this mirror in front of your face, my assistant will remain at the back and you’ll find out how I came to know. It’s science, not clairvoyance.” The man in the dhoti is perplexed and says, “You mean my hairstyle at the back reveals that my wife administered Malacca cane therapy?” “No, the mirror at the back focuses on your bottom,” says the street performer. The man looks up at the mirror, and says, “Oh, this is terrible. This see-through dhoti screams about it.” “Anyway, I am going to watch your show,” declares the man. By this time, the street performer decides that he has enough spectators for a decent collection at the box office, and decides to start the show. However, he begins by making a small pitch about what his show is all about. “I may not be a renowned doctor but my colleagues over here in the country and other parts of the world are only toying, experimenting with head transplantation on monkeys. They are paranoid about applying the procedure on humans but I today will separate the head of this kid from the body for ten minutes and then ‘reinstall’ it to bring him back to a brand new condition. Now, I am sure you haven’t seen this kind of a live show before.” Yes, everybody was a bit surprised for how can a person do so without any surgical implements? And he only had that dirty bed sheet. One of the spectators over there was a studious kind of person. He raises his hand to ask a question and the street performer says, “Yes, what is it?” “Well, Doctor Who, I would like to ask you a question.” “That’s an unforgivable breach of protocol on your part; it’s Doctor Donkey over here.” “Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t know that… no offence intended.” He continued, “They say that application of this procedure results in a loss of IQ. Anyway, what I wanted to know is if you have any recorded statistical data over here that when you separate the head of this kid from his body and put it back in place again, there has been no observable erosion in the intelligence level? Say if he can count to ten can he still do it?” The street performer looks up and says, “Well, let me tell you this Mister, like all good teachers who pass their examinations by arming themselves with cog sheets, I don’t say this is a very good question mainly because I happen to know the answer. But actually the question is quite silly.” “How do you say that,” asks the young man looking a bit foolish. “Well, it’s like this I am going to use some modern calculus to show that there is no erosion in the IQ of this kid, even after doing this procedure on him a hundred times. In classical calculus, delta x is a very small quantity but in the modern variation, it is a significant figure. And suppose this kid loses that amount of intelligence after each show, then after a hundred performances his loss is a huge 100 delta x’s . Anybody can see that after such a big loss of IQ, this kid would become like Einstein...” The spectators were amazed by this sensational disclosure. Someone even shouted that Dr. Donkey be nominated for an award.” “Now, let’s begin the show,” said the street performer The boy lay down, chest facing up and the street performer put the sheet over him. The sheet was dirty and the studious questioner says, “They say you are financially embarrassed; this sheet of yours has not been washed for a long time.” Anyway, the show starts, with the boy prostrate and covered. The performer puts his hands under the sheet, on either side of the head of that kid. And then he starts pulling a spherical object, the head obviously, from the kid’s body. It seemed that the boy must have blown a balloon and the performer pulled that away because the breathing oscillations of the nostrils were glaringly visible. There was spontaneous commotion, resentment at such a tremendous let down. The man next to me was the first to start the verbal bombarding “This donkey, what does he think? Let’s expose him and report him to the medical council. I am going to pull that sheet up.” I was also pretty worked up and thought that if that fellow backed out, I would take the sheet off. For a trifle, the street performer was jolted, then he looked serious and angry. He walked up to the belligerent threatening man and shouted “Be warned!” Then, he looked at the other spectators and continued, “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, because anybody who touches that sheet will find his torso upright and his head will roll to the ground and they will play tomorrow’s world cup final with it!” The aggressive man immediately clamped up, I may have backed out before him. The street performer came to the errant spectator and said, “You look like a cowboy about to go for the draw.” “It’s like this. Your vision saved the life of this reckless man.” I was not honest enough to admit to the spokesman of ‘they’ that the street performer saved my life also. Anyway he continued, “Sir, if we can use your vision a little further and know the score of tomorrow’s world cup final, we can clean out the bookies.”
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