KOCHI: ‘Magician’ is not a word that Nipin Niravath prefers to describe himself. He would like to be called a mentalist or a psychological entertainer. Familiar to viewers of Mazhavil Manorama’s ‘Ugram Ujwalam’ programme, Nipin has discarded the traditional magician’s garb of the frock coat with the top hat. Gone are the old magician’s tricks like pulling hares out of a hat, or sawing people into two. “Traditional magic shows rely on elaborate stage trickery and props. As a mentalist, my main prop is the mind. Through mind-reading techniques like telepathy, hypnosis, and body language analysis, I influence my audience’s perceptions, and even unlock secrets. It takes a lot of practice,” he mentions. An alumni of the Don Bosco Institute Of Graphic Arts Communication, Nipin is a self-taught mentalist. Magic tricks, he claims, were a fixation for him even while young. “While I took up a course that was related to the arts, I had realised my true calling was in sleight-of-hand,” Nipin notes. Or sleight-of-mind, one should say in his case. Born to a family of rubber farmers in Mundakayam, Kanjirapally, Nipin was alone in his family in wanting to pursue a career in entertainment. “Nobody in my family had the slightest leaning towards anything related to art,” he says, amused. His late mother, he added, gave him encouragement in honing his natural flair. And hone them he did, by reading every book on the subject he could lay his hands on, and watching the work of great magicians like Derren Brown. Nipin, who has been holding shows for the past 15 years, uses his craft in the service of myth-busting, the same way that Brown too does. “Every time I start a show, I tell the audience beforehand that magic is an art form and there are no superpowers involved, only simple tricks like misdirection,” he says. Besides his shows at corporate parties, marriages, family get-togethers and so on, Nipin also hosts motivational talks and has held a workshop, also as part of his myth-busting efforts. Recently, he staged a performance at an event exclusively for jail inmates. “They had never seen such a thing, and they seemed jubilant. It was a very rewarding experience,” he said.

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