He can flip a bottle by looking at it, bend a fork, read people’s minds and scare the weak-hearted with his mental powers. Lior Suchard gives Sunday Mid Day a private show on the eve of his final performance in Mumbai
He has wowed Barack Obama, Jay Leno, Kim Kardashian and even our very own Sachin Tendulkar last week. Today is the last chance to catch this mind-boggling genius in action in Mumbai. Well till he returns that is.
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Mentalist Suchard Lior says mentalism is an art. So, complete mastery cannot come through learning. You have to be born with the talent. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar
Lior Suchard has been variously termed a mentalist, mentaliser, mind reader and a ‘wonderman’. We realise why when he asks us to put a perfect specimen of Rs 2 coin in our palm and crumples it like a piece of paper merely by looking at it! He sits several feet away and there is absolutely no chance that he has manipulated the coin in any way.
Yesterday just before his penultimate show in Mumbai, he gave Sunday Mid Day a private show, completely mesmerising two journalists with his array of expertise.
Suchard walks in casually to where we are sitting. He has no idea about our names. He asks one of us to think of a random number even as he picks up a blank sheet of paper and writes a few words and numbers on it.
He hands over the sheet of paper to us (not to one of his assistants) before asking us what number we had in mind. We say it is 28. Suchard quietly turns the sheet of paper we are holding, around. It reads, “You will think of the number 28.” We are left speechless.
But Suchard moves on. He asks us to take a coin out of our pocket, sign the initials of our names on it and then hold it tightly in our palms. All the while he sits a few feet away. He does not even touch the coin. “Massage the coin slowly as it lies covered by your palm,” he tells us as he stares intently at the hand in question.
“Now open your palm and see,” he smiles. We see. And are left flabbergasted: the coin is now bent and crumpled as if it was made of paper. “Sorry but I don’t know how to straighten it again.
But that Rs 2 coin is now worth a lot more. It has been bent by Lior Suchard,” he jokes. Next he asks us to hold a sunglass in our hand. We hold. And he stares hard. Suddenly, the sunglass moves. And before we can react, it does a cartwheel and falls out of the hand!
“I realised I had special powers when I was six years old,” he says. “Adults would play this game with kids where they would hide a coin in one of their palms and ask us to guess. I realised I could guess it right every time,” he adds.
So can one learn the art of mentalism? “To an extent one can. I take workshops, teach people the power of concentration.
The best pupils have amazing control over the minds now. But this is no science. This is an art. So complete mastery cannot come through learning. You have to be born with the talent,” he says, smiling rather mysteriously.
Oh, by the way, before we leave, he asks us to think of a word. We think. He takes off his shirt. The word we thought, is printed on his shirt! Lior Suchard cannot really be explained in words. It was for people like him that the phrase, ‘Seeing is believing’ was coined.
Lior Suchard performs at St Andrews today at 8 pm
Call: 26459667