Ques 1. What is mentalism and what do you do as a mentalist?
Mentalism is an art form where the mentalist(performer) creates an illusion of reading the minds of people basically, he/she creates an illusion of getting inside someone’s head. As a mentalist, I read the body language of people by looking for micro-expressions in a person and trying to figure out what is going on in someone’s mind. I use a lot of different techniques(like hypnotic suggestions, NLP, body language reading, mind-influencing, etc.) to demonstrate how miracles can be created by our human mind. As a mentalist, I ensure that every person feels they are a part of my show/act.
Ques 2. What milestones have you achieved in your entire journey?
In my mentalism career, I performed for top corporate companies(like TCS,Wipro,IBM,etc) and also performed for top colleges(like IIM, DU,Sophia,VIT) and performed for celebs like Blacksheep Tamil,etc. I am the winner of a talent competition known as VIT’s Got Talent where I won amongst 1500 people who took part in it.
Ques 3. What challenge you had to face to become a mentalist?
Whatever I have learned till now is something that I learned on my own, I have no teacher or mentor, I’m self-taught. To this day I’m learning on my own and this can be tough as I don’t get a third person’s perspective when I have to experiment with something new, so I go to open mics to test my material before it makes a part in my show. The biggest challenge is to learn to deal with people as sometimes they want to show me inferior and don’t cooperate with what I’m doing, this can sometimes be very annoying. These are some of the biggest challenges I had to face.
Ques 4. What is the inspiration behind starting the brand ‘Nirbhik The Mind Hacker’?
Nowadays people are stressed in their ongoing monotonous life, hence performing magic/mentalism is a stress reliever for them as it is so unique that it fascinates and intrigues the people watching it. I want to spread the unique art form mentalism in front of as many people as possible to popularize mentalism. Also making people happy makes me feel happy as well and this is what has inspired me to start the brand Nirbhik The Mind Hacker.
Ques 5. Where do you want to see the company five years down the line?
I want to take my business to an international level and perform corporate shows as well as theatre shows outside of India and spread this artform in front of as many people as possible. I would also release my products of magic/mentalism so that, I can teach people this art form.
Ques 6. What makes you stand out from other existing competitors?
I’m constantly learning new things and improving my craft, Also I can perform a combination of mentalism, magic, hypnosis, and reading the body language of people which is something that leaves a long-lasting impact on the audience. Whenever I’m on stage I give more than 100% to entertain the audience and demonstrate this unique art form. My show is very audience interactive, hence everyone feels a part of my act, where I’m reading and influencing their minds.
Ques 7. What is your signature effect?
The signature effect that I have been doing for years is “Guessing Someone’s, ATM Pin”. This freaks out people because it is very personal information and I guesswd it during my act.
Ques 8. How did you start doing mentalism?
At the age of 10, I started as a magician. I did a lot of card tricks, coin tricks, etc. Basically sleight of hand magic. I used to go to people on the streets and perform magic for them. At the age of 15, I first saw Derren Brown(He is a UK mentalist) perform his mind reading effects which fascinated me a lot, and I decided that I want to do the same thing that he is doing, so I started to read books and practice whatever I read from the book. At the age of 18, I decided to do mentalism full-time.
Ques 9. What is the craziest experience you had while performing?
Once I was performing in my college for a group of people when I decided to perform for my phone unlock effect. So I took a girl’s iPhone and soon enough I guessed her passcode and unlocked her phone. She was so shocked that her phone fell from her hand and the screen of her phone shattered into pieces. This was a reaction that I had seen for the first time in my life, the reaction shocked me as well and I just froze in my place for a few seconds.
