Inside Magic

Danger is His Middle Name

Mumbai’s Indian Express
Newspaper presents a flattering piece on Vimal Sil a/k/a Prince Sil.

The
columnist describes him as “the only magician in Asia and one of the three in
the world who has established his identity in the field of magic through a rare
item ? catching a bullet by the teeth racing towards him from a 12 bore shot
gun.”

The paper points out the danger associated with this trick. Many magicians, it is reported, all over the world have accepted the
challenge of performing this feat and faced death so far.”

We are assuming the columnist confused a shotgun with a rifle. We are not
aware of any magician currently attempting to catch a mouth full of steel shot
propelled from a shotgun. Catching a single bullet is tough but mouthing 220
steel bb’s is something even a trained professional would wisely avoid.

The columnist reports Prince Sil was almost killed on January 26th while
performing the bullet catch. How? Here’s the description apparently provided by
Prince Sil.

His marksman, who generally shoots from a certain distance outside
the stage, made a blunder in measuring the distance.

Sil did manage to catch the
bullet with his teeth, but found the splinters kiss the area around his left
eyebrow. Senseless from the pain, Sil had to be admitted to a hospital.
He
recuperated, and didn’t give up. Within 17 days of his accident, he again
performed the show, this time with the astounding precision he is known
for.

While the back story doesn’t hold too much water — after all, how was the
marksman hoping to moderate the bullet’s velocity to adjust to distance — but
it’s a great piece to bring out the crowds.

Prince Sil tries to break the mold set by legendary PC Sorcar.

You can say the other name of Indian magic is PC Sorcar. And there
are more than 2000 registered magicians in our state. Most try to copy this
legendary magician and only a handful has involved creativity in their
performance.

I have always tried to establish my identity by presenting offbeat
tricks, the bullet-catching item is one of those.

[We note Quinlan's Inside Magic has always opposed all attempts to require
magician registration in the United States. In fact, our political action
committee (Magicians and Allied Artists Political Action Committee "MAAPAC")
recently assisted in the defeat of H.R. 2143 and S. 22, The Omnibus Variety
Artist Registration Act.

If you are not already a member of this important lobby group, you really
should check it out. Under the applicable IRS and FEC rules, we can't offer a
full prospectus here but when you receive our solicitation in the mail, consider
becoming a member to help keep Magic free from unnecessary governmental
regulation and inspection.

We'll ask the smarter folks in the PAC office whether we can even give out
the web site address for MAAPAC and if so, we'll update you later.]

Sorry for the digression.

Speaking of…
Continue reading Prince Sil of India to Present Bullet Catch Despite Injury