Magicians dumbfounded at Licy Jacob’s debut in magic

Former Chief Secretary of Kerala is now adept in magical art


Thiruvananthapuram: Dumbfounded at former Chief Secretary, Licy Jacob’s debut magic show were not the laymen, but 150 adept magicians. After four months of magic learning, her first performance was before the magicians who gathered at Vailopilli Samskriti Bhavan here to pay tributes to Vazhakunnam Neelakantan Namboodiri. Mrs. Jacob enthralled one and all by rightly predicting where exactly one of her viewers will ask to cut a strip of newspaper. [Photo: Licy Jacob performing her debut magic.]
Like an experienced magician, Mrs. Jacob began her show, bowing before the audience, senior magicians and more importantly, before Gopinath Muthukad and Rajamoorthy – her masters. In order to weave an appropriate context for her presentation, the former Chief Secretary referred to a recent incident of her dream becoming a reality. Being also a painter by herself, hers was a disturbing dream about the death of her favourite paiter Adimoolam. Precisely a week later, she could not believe her eyes when the painter’s demise appeared in an English newspaper.
Held in one of her hands was the newspaper strip containing this news. She then handed over a ‘prediction’ envelope to magician Haris Thaha, who was on the front row of audience. Then Mrs. Jacob invited Prof. Vadakkeppad to the dais and entrusted the job of telling where she should cut the newspaper strip with scissors. She then started moving the scissors up and down over the paper strip. When Prof. Vadakkeppad gave the signal, she cut the paper exactly at that point. The cut portion began with the sentence: “to be noticed…”. Then Mr. Thaha was allowed to open the prediction. It was a piece of paper on which was written in the magician's own handwriting: “You will ask me to cut above the sentence starting, ‘to be noticed…’. Even though the trick was not unknown to many of the veteran magicians gathered there, what has captivated them was the unique style of presentation adopted by Mrs. Jacob.
As the performer returned with a reverent bow, her audience, mainly magicians, offered a big applause acknowledging the new entrant as one among them.