Madari: India's street magicians fighting to keep a disappearing art alive

Ishamuddin Khan is one of India's most famous street magicians. Sitting in his cramped Delhi home, Ishamuddin Khan can still make a rope appear to rise into the air. The 55-year-old magician spent decades performing a trick once dismissed as legend, and still keeps photographs and newspaper clippings from his years of international fame. These days, he spends more time looking back at those memories than performing the trick.

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"The times have changed," he says. "Street magic is dying a slow death. It is on a ventilator."

Khan's story reflects a wider change in India, where traditional street performers are finding it increasingly difficult to make a living from their craft. Magicians, jugglers, puppeteers, and acrobats once made a living from crowds in public spaces. Changing entertainment habits and tighter restrictions have made audiences harder to find, pushing many out of the profession.

Khan, one of India's best-known magicians, comes from the Madari community, which has a long tradition of performing in public spaces. There are no official figures, but Khan says community records identify about 400 Madari families in Delhi, with hundreds more in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Telangana. Despite their small numbers today, the Madaris trace their roots back centuries.

Historian Ashok Mathur says Madari traditions have roots in Indian folklore, mythology, and the long history of travelling performers.

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"For generations, these skills were passed through families," he explains.

Restricted access to community spaces has made it difficult for street magicians to find an audience. Khan followed the same path, learning magic from his father and uncles and performing from the age of 12. By his early 20s, he had mastered the rope trick that would later make him famous. The trick – in which a rope appears to rise into the air before a boy climbs it – was long associated with the mythology of Indian street magic and widely considered impossible until Khan performed it.

He says it took six years to master the trick, which he first performed publicly in 1995 outside Delhi's iconic Qutub Minar. Two years later, he performed it before 30,000 people on a beach in Karnataka. His trick brought international attention, leading to tours in the UK, France, Germany, and Japan. Khan hoped the fame would shine a light on India's traditional performers. For a while, it did. But the attention faded.