Ooperneeche
By Deepak Narayanan
Deepak’s first chapter from the fantasy fiction workshop (and a book that we hope he finishes quickly) takes on the ring — of course — but gives it an unexpected twist — of course.
I’m driven by balance, by equilibrium.
Like the see-saw in the park.
Like yin and yang.
Like treble and bass.
If the balance is off, I’ll fall.
In my weakest moments,
I wish I had training wheels.
— Honest Thoughts of Ooperneeche
Chapter 1
Two things make people nervous: not knowing what’s going to happen in the next five seconds, and knowing exactly what’s going to happen in the next five seconds.
The magician sat on a plastic chair in the wings, feeling nervous.
“Next up, we haaaaavvveeeee…” the announcer announced.
The magician knew exactly what was coming next.
“… Mukaaaaayyyyyyysh Mishraaaaaaaah!”
“Ugh,” he thought as he bounced off his chair and hopped on to the stage, “How many times to tell uncle that he wasn’t Mukesh bloody Mishra when he was doing a show.”
He took a bow. Three of the 20 people in the audience clapped. “Thank you, thank you, thank you… Uncleji, can I ask you a question?”
Uncle nodded, nervously. Magicians, like stand-up comics, only get extremely nervous nods in response to questions — because you don’t know what’s coming next.
“Why are you carrying a frog with you?”
“What frog?”
“This one,” he tapped the announcer’s coat pocket with his wand and three things happened. A frog jumped out, uncle scurried off, and four people laughed. Chalo, one more had woken up.
“My name is Magic Mish,” he slipped the wand into his waistband with a flourish, and slipped the ring off his left hand, “and I’m here to tell you all what’s inside this ring.”
He made eye-contact with a tough-looking guy in the back row. “What do you think is inside it, sir?”
“Hawa,” tough guy sniggered, as if he had cracked some very funny joke.
“Nothing,” said a woman two rows in front, earnestly.
“Frog?” asked a kid who was so close to the stage he was almost on it.
“All wrong, but beta, at least you have an imagination. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THIS RING IS…”
He knew exactly how long to pause here. Because he’d done this a thousand times before.
“MAGIC!”
He flicked the ring up in the air, caught it in his left hand, and with the thumb and forefinger on his right, he slowly, dramatically, reached into it and pulled out a bright, red silk scarf.
Nine people clapped loudly. Promising.
***
Okay, he’d lied there. The scarf was red, but it wasn’t bright. It was old and weathered, like the mop in your house that you keep forgetting to replace. You know the one.
Also, only seven people had clapped.
And he was not annoyed. He was bored. Or maybe he was annoyed because he was bored.
He walked across to the table that he’d set up before the show and picked up a deck of cards.
“Alright everyone…” he said. “Can I have a volunteer, please? Yes, sure, you can come up, it will save time also since you’re already so close to the stage. What’s your name, beta?”
“Rahul.”
“Very good name. Now pick a card of your cho…”
“Ace of Spades.”
The goonda at the back burst out laughing, setting off a few others.
“Ha ha… Not like that beta, take one from here.”
He pulled one out.
“Now look at it.”
He looked at it. Seven of Hearts.
“Now put it back.”
He put it back.
“Are you excited?”
He nodded.
Mish shuffled. So boring.
“Is iiiiiiiittttt this one?”
“No uncle.”
Uncle. The worst thing you can call someone who just celebrated their 40th birthday. Bloody word only should be banned.
“Then it must be this one?”
“No, uncle.”
Forty is the new thirty, you little factory of snort.
“Can you just check what’s in your pocket?”
“Frog?”
Thirteen people laughed.
“Ha ha… funny boy. No no, no more frogs in this show. In your pocket iiiiisssss…”
The boy pulled out the Seven of Hearts.
And stood there wide-eyed. Fourteen people clapped.
Hah.
***
Were magicians even allowed to be bored?
He came from a family full of them. Both his parents were magicians (she was better than him, even though on stage she played his assistant). As was his dadaji, and dadiji, and nanaji, and… you get the picture.
His earliest memories were of family members pulling out coins from behind his ears.
A week before Mish’s fifth birthday, he’d asked his dad what he was going to get. “It’s a surprise,” Papa said. At the end of seven sleepless nights, Papa pulled a rabbit out of a hat and said, “Surprise!”
Neither the rabbit nor the hat were gifts. The surprise was the gift.
And he loved it.
Okay, focus on the show Mish. There are six people still paying attention.
He was on to round four of his Water of Ooperneeche trick. For those of you who haven’t heard of or seen versions of it: there’s a jug of water on stage from which the magician keeps drinking water, but however much he pours into his glass, the jug never runs dry. It’s all the water in the world, you see, all the water of Ooperneeche.
Mish used to love this trick growing up.
Correction: he used to love all tricks growing up.
Of course, most of it was a simple sleight of hand or worse, doctored decks, but the ring had once been truly magical.
He had heard stories of dadaji sneaking into the kitchen and pulling out a meal for 15 from the other side of the ring when his (very large) family paid a surprise visit. There was also the one about his naani chasing away a thief with a lightsaber she’d drawn from it.
Mish smiled. Then felt sad. Unlike his ancestors, all he had ever managed to get from the other side was the same red silk handkerchief. This was rather pointless because it was a simple enough trick to pull off even without a magic ring.
***
He’d reached the last trick of the evening.
“My friends! You remember that little red box that we saw earlier in the evening?”
He got a smatter of hmmms and yaas.
“You remember that it disappeared, right?”
“Yes, yes we remember, hurry up now!” That bloody thug was lucky the ring didn’t allow him to pull a lightsaber out.
“Be prepared to be flabbergasted!”
He liked making a restless audience wait extra long at this point. Punishment.
“Be prepared to be dumbfounded!!”
Hah. Goonda will have to go find a dictionary now.
“Be prepared to see something you will not understand in a thousand years!!!”
This wasn’t strictly true because (a) no one in this audience would live a thousand years; even combined they wouldn’t. And (b) this one wasn’t that hard to figure out. The box was about to reappear at the back of the crowd, next to the fountain, exactly where he’d paid his assistant to place it.
“Be prepared to witness the INEXPLICABLE!!!!”
***
The world ‘inexplicable’ reminded him of bedtime with his parents — every night, they’d sing him a lullaby, taking one line at a time.
The song itself was one all magicians sang but no one believed in— mostly because no one could make head or tail of it. It was one of those things that had been passed down from generation to generation, with no father able to clearly answer the question: “But, Papa, what does that mean?”
A courtyard, a tree.
The roots power the world,
both land and sea.
A rock in the middle of nowhere.
A mermaid swimming up.
“But Papaaaaaa,” I hollered, “what does that meeaaan?”
“Nothing beta. Go to sleep,” Papa said. “It’s inexplicable.”
***
Okay, okay, let’s stop day-dreaming and get this over the line now.
“That box which disappeared an hour ago,” he repeated, “IS RIGHT THERE BEHIND YOU!”
With a giant flourish, he waved his wand at the fountain.
A smoke bomb went off in front of it. Well done, assistant, he thought to himself. High-quality smoke bomb. Can’t see a thing.
As the haze cleared, people stopped coughing — because it’s hard to cough when you’re flabbergasted and dumbfounded.
Where the fountain stood seconds ago, now stood a tree.
A big, blue tree, with many blue branches but not a single leaf.
And right on top of the highest branch was his little red box.
All 20 people burst out into a huge round of applause.
Mish stood staring at the tree.
Everyone took turns shaking his hands, including the thug.
Mish stood staring at the tree.
People selling food and drink around the courtyard abandoned their stalls and came to look.
Mish stood staring at the tree.
The lady two rows from the back handed him her visiting card, saying something about being a talent promoter.
Mish stood staring at the tree.
The crowd left. The stalls packed up for the night.
Mish stood staring at the tree.
Just him, an empty courtyard and the tree.
***
Goggles had spent the better part of the day alternating between naps and meals. She liked this spot. She always got fed here (the Shawarma guy needed to fix salt levels in the special roll, and that idli dude needed to shut shop before he went bankrupt. Hard idlis, ugh).
There was some commotion earlier in the evening, but the courtyard was way too crowded to go investigate so she scratched the back of her ear and went back to sleep.
Now, well past midnight by the looks of it, she was wide awake. Also, she could tell what that excitement was all about. Right in the middle of the courtyard, where the fountain once stood, was a tree. A strange, blue tree. With many branches and no leaves. She stared at it for a while, head tilting this way and that. She walked up to it, tentatively. She sniffed, curiously. Her tail wagged, involuntarily.
And she peed.
A few feet away, a middle-aged man stood staring at the tree.
Deepak Narayanan is an independent writer based in Goa, India.
