Trip to Magic Planet

So dad decided to surprise us with a family trip. Since I was in the middle of a ‘friendly’ quarrel with him (I’d had other plans that day, and I was a bit pissed at having to drop them) I didn’t ask about the destination.

Imagine my surprise when we drove up to this

Not many people would know about this place, even in my home town. So here’s the gist.

Magic Planet is a theme park dedicated exclusively to magic and its practice. It prides itself as the world’s first magic mansion, and was established by magician Muthukad.

Nightmare fuel 1 😐

There was a bus deployed just for taking us visitors from the parking area to the park gate (very walkable distance, but hey, whatever floats their boat)

We were greeted by a peppy receptionist who actually seemed happy to do her job, which made her even more refreshing. We were to be guided as a group of five to seven families each to different arenas where we would be introduced to different varieties of magic.

The first real ‘magic’ we were introduced to was by a man who spoke at the speed of a bullet train and still managed to be understandable (a magic in itself ). He introduced us to various magic techniques which were being misused by con artists to fool innocents.

After that, we were guided to a cave-like structure, where we were told a story speaking of familial love. I wasn’t a very big fan of this,though. The protagonist was a little girl who runs away from her parents (who were always quarreling) and searches for someone to love her. Ultimately she doesn’t find anyone and is hence forced to return to them. I know that the moral was supposed to be something like ‘The greatest love is the love of parents’ but I felt like the girl wasn’t given much of a choice.

(Also, dad kept clearing his throat to emphasise the moral and quite frankly it was annoying)

The settings were nice though

We were herded upstairs, where a North Indian magician was waiting for us. He spoke broken English in a way that made it seem more adorable than the correct tongue. A little boy kept acting up, disturbing his acts, until he called the lad forward and said ,” hey, if you don’t keep quiet, I’ll make you disappear.” and gave the largest grin.

The boy didn’t open his mouth again.

The low lighting didn’t allow my phone camera to give justice to his cute-ness

Our next stop was at an auditorium where we were promised to be acquainted with ‘intimate magic’.

Thankfully it had nothing to do with the affairs of the night. Rather, the term was supposed to signify the fact that the magic would be performed very close to us.

The ceiling was pretty awesome ❤

The magician, Munna, introduced himself to us as ‘not chineese’ (He looked every bit the part,though). His movements were excited, almost shaking the teeth out of his volunteers as he expertly pulled balls and coins from every orfice. He even randomly pulled out a ball from my hair (He he called it a bird’s nest. I was like haha that’s one of my insecurities you just casually mentioned)

Nevertheless, his was the performance I enjoyed the most.

I was laughing so hard that I forgot to take his picture, So here’s another pic of his stage instead

From this small auditorium, we were guided to a bigger one. Here, we were to be introduced to illusion magic.

It was pretty great stuff. We got to see a woman get cut up, impaled by giant scissors, get her arms stretched…. All very convincing illusions, and the  (rather good looking) magician was doing his best too. He was practically panting after every act when he spoke to us about it.

Even so, we found ourselves yawning. A good bunch of the audience had started to nod off as well.

After him came another magician, who claimed to be able to read minds. His session was more interactive, and even those in great slumber woke up.

We were told that the next show was ‘The Tempest’. From the time we sat down in another small auditorium, I had been trying (and failing) to make the connection between Shakespeare and magic.

We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside

The ‘play ‘ was based on what would’ve happened if Ariel had made the ship disappear rather than forcing it to crash on an island. It was essentially a ship vanishing act, but it was rather lacklustre.

We were next treated to what was called ‘naadan magic’ (native Indian street magic).

The magician was dressed in a traditional baniyan and dhoti and was a good conversationalist. He made us all sit in a circle around him as he planted a mango seed into a pot and made it grow to the height of a shrub within minutes!

There was even a (very VERY real) mango, which we were allowed to taste.

He ended the show by telling us he’d bring out a snake. As we watched with halted breath, he brought out what was clearly a plastic toy, shrugged and explained that the use of actual snakes was forbidden by the government!

And Of course, no magic show would be complete without the Great Indian Rope Magic 😆

The day ended with a parade, where the entire staff body of Magic Planet donned costumes and made their way outside the park.

Almost like a festival!

Nightmare fuel 2

There is no escape from the minions 😑

The magicians

So yeah. It was a pretty awesome day.

However, the greatest magic trick of all was undoubtedly this-

The mascot

I mean, c’mon. A boy with black hair and glasses, named Harry. Harry the magician. How did they not get sued?!