At nine, when you say a kid is juggling a lot of things, you assume he’s busy with school and after-school activities, playing, cricket camp or some such. But when Tejaswi Ananth turned nine, he started juggling — with silk handkerchiefs, balls, then clubs, and now at 16 he’s graduated to steel daggers. And he does it when he’s hula-hooping. All this while he’s balancing on a rolla bolla!
It helps to have a hobby magician for a father. And Anantha Padmanabha has designed their whole house, far beyond Electronics City, to cater to the young boy’s talents. “While building this house, my father had installed a spotlight. When I asked him what it was, he introduced me to shadow play,” says Tejaswi. His hand transforms very quickly into a mini animal kingdom as he takes you through birds, elephants, dogs, and into lands of a rising sun, and Tipu Sultan and a myriad other things.
By the time he was four, he had given his first magic show in his father’s company. Tejaswi studied at the Lorven Public School, Chandapura and is now a PUC student in Spurthy PU College in Marsur. “I took commerce so I’ll get time to do all this. I’m serious about this as a profession,” he declares. Like most children who drop all extra curricular activities to face the dreaded monster of board exams, did he stop? “I could manage to stay above 90 so I did this too, with studies. I don’t believe in hard work; I do what I like.”
He’s always been the class entertainer. Friends throw erasers and pens at him and ask him to juggle in class. “I got into a lot of trouble when in class nine, I learnt balloon modelling (that too is part of his show). When he stepped into college this year, he charmed his seniors with his juggling act and has been nicknamed ‘Juggling’ on campus.
His dad introduced him to some YouTube juggling videos and Tejaswi just picked it up on his own! He graduated to the other things he was fascinated by — he started the rolla bolla balancing act (balancing on a see-saw like board mounted on a wooden roll), then taught himself uni-cycling. “Now I can juggle six balls. I have performed more than 600 shows since my childhood,” he says casually. He was featured on TV shows such as Hindustan Ke Hunarbaaz and Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega . He can chat like he’s sitting on a sofa even as he is seemingly immersed in his juggling, balancing on the unicycle.
Tejaswi is very clear — his dad is his mentor and he doesn’t really need any other teacher; of course the power of the Internet has meant that he is in touch with jugglers and magicians from all over the world.
He does a total of 10 acts now, including the ‘ultimate wheel’ which is a single cycle wheel with two pedals stuck into its sides; no seats, no handlebars — it’s an amazing balancing challenge. His dad fabricated the contraption for him, like he has many others. He’s currently practicing juggling on it. He also does a Japanese eight-ring act, blindfolded juggling, Devil’s sticks, Chinese plates etc.
He’s now sitting right under my nose and playing tricks with my mind with the Ninja Rings magic trick — the rings take on a life of their own as they jump between his fingers. It’s mesmerising watching the rings suddenly interlink without any seeming gap in them, clang… clang… clang. While he finally reveals his sleight of hand, I ask “How much of all you do is tricks and how much is skill?” Only magic is the ‘trick’ part. Everything else is skill, he grins.
