It’s a little unnerving to look Narpath Raman in the eye when he asks you a question. “Don’t worry, I don’t read minds,” he assures me with a smile. The 27-year-old mentalist goes by the stage name Next Door Mind Reader.
So what does a mentalist do? “It’s a mystery art. I’m a psychological imitator,” he grins.
“In my field of work, it’s important to make sure your audience is comfortable with you. You can’t have an ego,” he adds, as he walks up to a table full of people at Radio Room, where he will be performing every Tuesday for the next one month.
He introduces himself; the diners look part-amused, part-apprehensive. But Raman is used to that. He starts off with his acts of mentalism and soon the ice is broken and the gang relaxes, asking him to demonstrate more of his skills. “It’s not always like this. I have had people who got offended; some even assume that it’s black magic,” he says, and adds, “But what it really is, is a mix of psychological manipulation, body language reading, suggestion, perception and deception.”
Over the course of the night, he makes people forget their exes names, alters their thoughts for a brief while, and makes them think what he wants them to think. It’s all very entertaining. While an act may get done in five minutes, it actually takes him a good few years to put it together. “There are so many elements to an act,” he says.
Raman took to this craft in 2013, as a 23-year-old working in Bengaluru. He started as a software professional and then moved to management consultancy. He used up his salary to buy books from other countries and read, learn and practise mentalism. “After work, I would go to the streets of Bengaluru and approach people, asking them if they would let me show them a trick... yes, it did sound creepy,” he laughs. He was an introvert, and making his way up to strangers was tough. It took him six months to work up the courage to talk to unknown people. “I made a lot of friends through my acts,” he adds.
In 2015, he quit his job and became a full-time mentalist. His first show in Bengaluru’s Rangasthala received 144 people. He was pleasantly surprised with the turnout. He made ₹40,000 in that one day, he adds. But his next couple of shows only fetched around 50 people. That’s when Raman realised that it’s tough to retain audience attention. His hour-long shows needed something more. He learnt stage craft and introduced comedy; it worked.
He moved back to Chennai early this year, to see how his home town receives his shows. He’s got a host of corporate gigs around the country and a show with Sun Music to his credit. “In the next five to six years, magic and mentalism will achieve the status that comedy has today,” he believes.
