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The Vaishnodevi Experience 2023

My first trip to Vaishnodevi was unimpressive. Climbing was hard, and it only served to highlight how badly out of shape I was, while my in-laws managed to cope so much better. Further, I hadn’t quite realized that the cave experience wouldn’t be the same as I had imagined, since the original cave was only opened at certain times a year, and that we only entered a newly created tunnel, one far easier to access, and hence more manageable with the crowds that thronged the mountain shrine. The resulting experience at the shrine, for barely a fraction of a second, hardly compared to what I had expected / imagined / heard about. So, for me, Vaishnodevi was like any other temple, nothing to write home about, something that was reflected (though not explicitly mentioned) in the blog post I wrote then.
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Magic!

On our recent visit to Mount Abu, we walked to the lake to spend the evening. As we were awaiting our turn for the boat ride, a young boy came up to Shankar and said that he would show us some magic tricks. These days, I  don't have much patience with young chaps who accost us at tourist destinations, and would have ignored the chap, but Shankar said, "Come on, let's see what he does."
So off we went, towards a slightly less crowded section of the park, and proceeded to see just what is meant by 'sleight of hand'! Yes, that was a new term that Samhith learned that day. The young boy was so good with it, that we happily paid him more than we had thought of. But a bigger surprise was to come. As we left, I was telling Shankar that I should have taken a video, and suddenly, the boy turned to us and said, "Koi baat nahin, madam, main youtube par hoon. Aap Fateh Khan Jaadugar search kijiye... mil jayega! (Its ok, madam,I am on you tube.Just search for Fateh Khan Jaadugar, and you will find it!). Of course, I came back and looked for the video, and here it is. Unfortunately, it isnt all that clear and seeing his performance live was a hundred times better, but its still worth a look....


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  1. Prateek_bplJanuary 16, 2012 at 2:13 AM

    i had also seen his magic,it was awesome.........the boy is really good with his magic......hope best for him.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anu ShankarJanuary 16, 2012 at 1:29 PM

    Absolutely!!

    ReplyDelete

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