P. C. Sorcar

India's great illusionist toured more than seventy countries. The last stage of his life was in Asahikawa, in northern Japan. No other magician is tied to this country quite so directly.

Key achievements

1. Born in Tangail, Bengal Presidency, British India, now in Bangladesh.
2. Through the 1950s and 1960s he toured internationally with a show titled Indrajal.
3. His buzz-saw routine on the BBC programme Panorama in 1956 caused a sensation in Britain.
4. Toured more than seventy countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union.
5. Died of a heart attack on 6 January 1971 in Asahikawa, Hokkaidō, where he was performing. He was 57.

Indrajal

He was born Protul Chandra Sorcar on 23 February 1913 in Tangail, in the Bengal Presidency of British India, now Bangladesh.

Through the 1950s and 1960s he worked internationally under the banner of a show called Indrajal.

This is where his judgement shows. Rather than tracing Western conventions, he went out into the world with an Indian design language in front. The title and the staging alike were presented as Indian. Structurally it is the same choice Haruo Shimada made in carrying a Japanese parasol onto foreign stages.

1956, the BBC

What fixed his name in the West was an event in Britain in 1956.

He appeared on the BBC programme Panorama and performed a buzz-saw routine. The broadcast caused a considerable stir.

At a moment when television was arriving in ordinary homes, a performer from India delivered material nobody had seen into British living rooms. The year 1956 falls five years after Dell O’Dell had her own show in Los Angeles and nineteen years before Doug Henning drew fifty million viewers on NBC — precisely the period in which the relationship between magic and television was being built.

Seventy countries

Sorcar toured more than seventy countries, including the United States and the Soviet Union.

It is worth pausing on that. This was the Cold War. One performer moved between countries that shared neither language nor political system, made possible by the fact that magic does not require words.

He came from a country that Western audiences of the time were inclined to consume as mysterious, used that framing, and then held those audiences with his own work.

Asahikawa, 6 January 1971

The end came in Japan.

On 6 January 1971 he died of a heart attack in Asahikawa, Hokkaidō, where he was staying for an engagement. He was 57.

Midwinter in northern Japan. A man born in Bengal, having crossed seventy countries, ended his life beside a stage in Asahikawa.

Why he is in this archive

This archive is written to be read in Japanese, which is exactly why the fact belongs here.

India’s foremost magician performed in Japan and died in Japan. People who went to see him in Asahikawa in 1971 are, in all likelihood, still living.

The history of magic is usually told from a Western centre, but performers from Asia also crossed the world — and came here. Sorcar’s ending states that as plainly as anything could.

Notable works

• The show Indrajal
• The 1956 appearance on the BBC's Panorama

Chronology

Only years that could be verified are listed.

1. 1913 Born on 23 February in Tangail, British India
2. 1956 His appearance on the BBC's Panorama causes a sensation in Britain
3. 1971 Dies of a heart attack on 6 January in Asahikawa, Hokkaidō, while on an engagement there