Magician Muthukad’s ‘Inclusive India’ tour set for finale in capital
New Delhi / December 2, 2024
New Delhi, Dec 2: Marking tomorrow a grand culmination to his cross-country tour of two months, internationally-acclaimed illusionist Gopinath Muthukad is set for the final show of his ‘Inclusive India’ campaign with the message of ‘magic for social reform’.
The December 3 event at Dr Ambedkar International Centre on Janpath Road will see the participation of ministers and other parliamentarians, besides top government officials and well-known personalities from various walks of life. The 6 pm presentation will cap the 40-stop expedition with a pioneering series of wizardry-based awareness items carrying the fundamental message of ‘Social Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities’.
An array of unusual tricks has lit up the venture which began from Kanyakumari on October 6, even while they consistently stuck to the spirit of Muthukad’s trailblazing Magic Planet, which is the world’s first such theme park that protects public-oriented art-forms and street performers. The journey covered the entire length and breadth of the country and, in the process, bolstered the ethos of Magic Planet’s decade-old goals: familarising the public with wizardry, reviving street tricks and employing this art to empower marginalised groups.
Tomorrow’s climactic presentation will be attended by Kerala Fisheries Minister Shri George Kurian, Maharashtra Social Justice and Empowerment Minister Shri Ramdas Athawale and Shri Shashi Tharoor, MP.
A winner of the coveted International Merlin Award that is considered as the Oscar in the field of magic, Muthukad ventured on ‘Inclusive India’ as his fifth such campaign employing magic to spread social messages while covering the length and breadth of the country. Starting from the southern tip of the peninsula, the tour was punctuated with stopovers along the central plains, the hilly east, Gujarat in the west and Jammu & Kashmir up north before culminating in the national capital.
The shows, invariably, reinforced the need to support persons with intellectual disabilities to integrate them with the mainstream. Simultaneously, they projected magic as an art-form to spread socially relevant messages such as national integration and age-old values, besides working against communalism and terrorism. By lighting lamps, the expedition drew public attention to the benefits and vitality of equal opportunities for individuals with disabilities.
Spearheaded by Muthukad’s NGO named Different Art Centre (DAC), the mission enjoyed non-financial support from the Union government’s Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. It covered all the states, campaigning along the mainland with a total of 40 events that includes the inauguration and culmination. While October 6 is World Cerebral Palsy Day, the conclusion date of December 3 is International Day for Persons with Disabilities.
‘Inclusive India’, which was flagged off from Thiruvananthapuram on October 5, had its Kerala-level inauguration on September 22 (International Day of Sign Languages) by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and a curtain-raiser at Chennai on September 28 (with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin as the Chief Guest), besides a pre-launch event in Lakshadweep on October 2 (Gandhi Jayanti).
Throughout the campaign journey Muthukad showcased unique magic shows that embedded a powerful social message for inclusion of persons with disabilities. Each event had been organised in collaboration with the DEPwD’s regional institute or centre. The idea is not just to spread information on the scope of creating equal opportunities for children with disabilities, but on the need for opportunities that can express their special talent so as to boost their confidence and self-esteem. All these, through the effective use of the boundless entertainment value of magic.
Keralaite Muthukad, 60, resides in Thiruvananthapuram and is the Executive Director of DAC he founded five years ago. The Malabar-born magician’s array of innovations in the field earned him the 2011 Merlin Award, instituted by the Internatonal Magicians’ Society of the USA. Way back in 1995, he became the world’s first magician to perform an escape act in the stunning style of legendary Harry Houdini (1874-1926).
While Muthukad’s DAC originated in 2019 by developing and implementing an innovative program of ‘Magic Training’ for children with disabilities, the NGO has gone on to emerge as a pioneer in facilitating professional performance platforms for trained magicians with special needs.
Muthukad’s earlier missions of with similar spirit have been Vismay Bharat Yatra (2002), Gandhi Mantra (2005), Vismay Swaraj Yatra (2007) and Mission India (2010). Muthukad won the state government’s prestigious Keralasree civilian award for his contributions to magic and employing the art for the benefit of society.
The key tricks have banked on techniques such as ‘mind reading’, ‘time travel’ and ‘transportation’ in magic parlance. The presentations, typically, concluded with the national anthem featuring megastar Amitabh Bachchan on the screen with the sign language of the lines.
ENDS
