India rope trick?

I’ve been busy writing my next book about crossing the Indian Ocean in 1975 during an extreme monsoon season. For several days now, I’ve gone back in time to Bombay, India where I played tourist before flying onto Sri Lanka and boarding a yacht I would help crew from Trincomalle, Sri Lanka to the Seychelles. Fortunately, notes from my travel journal about this exciting adventure have stirred vivid images.

As a writer, I delve into making descriptions in my story come alive for readers. Yesterday as I wrote about the highlights of Bombay, I remembered my shock at seeing not one but two snake charmers sitting on street corners of Bombay in June 1975. Even though this practice had been banned since 1972, it was for me mind boggling and very strange that people wanted to see sedated cobras and vipers dance in a basket to the vibrations of their master playing flute music. When I had researched the practice before visiting India, it had seemed cruel to keep snakes captive, de-fanged, sedated, and starved in order to entertain tourists.

I didn’t join the crowd around the snake charmers in Bombay; so didn’t see the scene up close. The hotel clerk had warned us of pickpockets who pushed and preyed on curious tourists who were busy watching this inhuman practice.

Happy to report that the snake charming business is prohibited by Indian Wildlife laws; both the python and cobra are now listed under endangered species of wildlife,  thus discouraging this practice.

I was however hoping to see a magician perform an Indian rope trick. Unfortunately,  I didn’t see any baskets filled with levitating ropes ascending skyward. Have you ever seen the Indian rope trick?