ROTI KAPADA AUR MAKAN By: Sukesh Pattanaik

Magician asks the audience members, “Which are the bare minimum necessities to live a comfort life?” Spectators answer to the question whatever they think. Magician says, “but I think that Food, Cloth and Shelter are the minimum requirements for a person to live on this earth, in other words we can recall an old classic movie named ROTI-KAPADA AUR MAKAN, released long before, based on this subject. People’s choices vary, someone might think among these three, ROTI is the most important thing, because without food it would be difficult to survive. But believe me, I have come across with some people, they struggled a lot through-out their lives just to have a small shelter, a house to live in. Their priority was a House. But most of you might have seen some people spending a lot on clothes, they even can manage with street foods or can sleep with an empty stomach or even would prefer to live in a rented house through-out their lives, but they can’t compromise on dresses, they say –“ people will judge you from your appearance, they do not know whether you live in a multi roomed apartment or just ate a three course meal in an AC restaurant”. Okay we are not here for a debate on this subject, but for an experiment of mind reading using the subject matter. I have here 3 sets of beautifully printed cards”. Magician introduces the cards.  One of the cards bears picture of Food, 2^nd one has a picture of dress and on 3^rd card a house. He displays the card on the table, dealing those in a row, from left to right. Assume that the left one is FOOD, middle one is DRESS and the last one on right is HOUSE card. He has 2 more sets of same picture cards, he hands over one of the sets the assisting spectators and keeps one for his own use.

Now experiment starts. Magician places one of the cards from his set face down below the FOOD card without showing its identity, same way one below the DRESS card and the last one below the HOUSE card. He says “these three cards I placed face down below each face up cards are his predictions. In a moment I will disclose their identity. If everything goes well as per my plan, I will be successful in this experiment.” Indicating the first face up picture card on the table which is FOOD, he asks the assisting spectator “if you had enough food to eat, what is the next, on which you would prefer spending your money? On Dress or on House?” Suppose, he answers- “on dress”. Spectator is instructed to place his choice card, in this case Dress card above the face-up food card. Now magician points the center face-up card in the row, on the table, which is a Dress card, and asks to the spectator “if you have enough dresses to wear then what next you will spend your money on”? Suppose, he answers –“House”. Spectator is advised to keep his House card above the Dress card on the table. Spectator is left with the last card in his hand which is the Food card, it will be placed above the House card on the table.

Looking at the spectator’s choice or answer cards, magician smiles and says to assisting spectator that he knew from before that he would answer to his questions this way. He draws attention to his prediction cards, which he kept face-down below the tabled face-up cards from the beginning. He turns over these cards face up to reveal that his predictions match with spectator’s cards.