Making waves in the magic world with his tricks

HYDERABAD: Cheruvu Ravi Chandra is the first deaf and dumb magician from the state to receive an invitation to perform at the 14th World Deaf Magicians Festival in Finland, to be held from April 22, 2012. For Ravi Chandra, who has performed about 2500 magic shows across the country, this will be his fourth performance abroad.Ravi Chandra (27) is one of many examples of how a person can be successful, if they are given support and encouragement from the family and society. Ravi Chandra, who received a national award in 2010 from president Pratibha Patil as the Outstanding Creative Person with Disability, is now aiming for entry into the Guinness Book of Records.Twisting his fingers into letters and signs Ravi Chandra said, “I cannot tell in words how happy I am to be invited to perform at an international magic festival.” Without my father’s help I would have been nothing, he added, pointing to his old father sitting beside him. Cheruvu Sitaram, a retired employee of IDPL, has been a rock of support behind his son, ever since Ravi Chandra lost his ability to hear and speak after an attack of meningitis. When Ravi Chandra was 14 years old, Sitaram used to take him regularly to magic shows at Ravindra Bharathi. That was where Ravi Chandra met Chokkapu Venkataramana, a renowned magician who turned mentor for the former. “Venkataramana readily agreed to teach magic tricks to my son magic. I spent most of my time accompanying him to the classes and shows,” a proud father Sitaram said. He even refused promotion at his job to spend more time with his son and took on the role of magician’s assistant during his son’s shows.Ravi Chandra got an entry in the Limca Book of Records by performing 100 shows in a year and in 2010 broke his own record by performing 120 shows. He attended three international magic competitions before and won the first, third and second prizes respectively. Sitaram said, “In 2008, when the competition was held in California, I approached Air India with my son’s profile and they sponsored our travel. For registration, the Disabled Welfare department helped with `1 lakh.”