Though his real name is Rashik Mohtasin, people know him well by the name ‘Magic Razik’. So how did this youth leave his engineering career and turn into a complete magician? He shared his story with Md Jannatul Naeem.
You are an engineer and had been working as an engineer for a few years. How did you turn to magic?
Magic is my passion. My parents never discouraged me either. However they had a condition: "No matter whatever you pursue as a hobby, you must keep your studies on track." So being pragmatic, I became an engineer and got a job as well.
I used to do magic shows after work. Yet it wasn’t clicking quite right. The job I had in Australia was quite good and it’s not that I wasn’t enjoying it. But a job is a job. It was magic that gave me satisfaction. So I started thinking of turning my passion into my profession.
Since I used to regularly perform in Australian theaters, I have had the chance to share the stage with renowned magicians of the world. I even got a call from FOX sports channel. Then I returned home in 2019, after spending more than a decade abroad.
Magic means a play of different tricks. Science must play a part too?
There’s not much science in there. The main thing is to astonish people by playing tricks. I perform all sorts of magic actually. While showing street magic or using cards or something, many believe there’s obviously something hidden under the palms.
There’s no scope to say this in case of psychological magic tricks. So, I'm drawn towards psychological magic more.
Do you follow anyone as your idol?
American magician David Blaine was immensely popular back when I started working as a professional magician in Australia. It was David who made ‘street magic’ so popular throughout the globe. I indeed took inspiration from him.
How is performing magic as a profession in Bangladesh? And what are the challenges?
As a magician we still recognise everyone’s favourite Jewel Aich only. Since no one else has been that involved in magic after him, a vacuum has been created. There have been a lot of changes in the genre of magic as well. People like street magic or psychological magic more these days.
But there is some misconceptions in Bangladesh. Whenever you say magic, people start thinking that they will get to see a pigeon fly away or flowers to appear out of nowhere.
Many aren’t ready to watch magic shows in theatres as a source of entertainment either. These aspects need to be changed. We have to change our culture by showing people how big the world of magic actually is.
Do you have any interesting incident involving magic to share with us?
I had gone to Turkey to perform in a show towards the end of the pandemic. They used to close down the restaurants early for the lockdown.
The police started behaving badly with everyone for staying up a bit late one day. I then surprised the policemen with my magic. They were very pleasant and helpful after that.
Let me tell you an incident in this country. I was having a hard time collecting a parcel from the post office. They were just delaying the delivery.
So I went to the office and told them, "Every one of you is so cooped up with work all day. Come and enjoy a bit of magic." They were so delighted to see the magic tricks that I received my parcel within the 30 minutes.
If anyone wants to choose ‘magic’ as profession, what would your advice be?
I have seen many young people lose hope within a short period. If they don’t get any result after working extremely hard for a month, they might just leave it altogether.
It doesn’t work like that. You have to move forward with long-term planning. After learning a trick, you need to practice that a hundred times.
Where do you want to see yourself after five years?
I have made an identity for myself at home through social media, stage shows and corporate shows. For now, I want to focus on strengthening my position even more.
I have more than 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube with a bigger portion of them being foreigners. So, I also want to hold regular shows outside of the country in future.
I want to roam the world and stun people from different corners of the world with my magic. I dream of taking myself to the level of the greatest magicians in the world so that people of the country can also say my name with pride.