What do you think?
Rate this book
Godman
When his stage show goes spectacularly wrong, celebrated magician Harry Singh, a.k.a. The Great Maharaja Malipasse, becomes a laughing-stock and outcast. Having resorted to two-bit performances in the pouring rain on Blackpool Pier, the down-on-his-luck conjurer is talked into travelling to India by his best friend and assistant, Bitu, in an effort to restore their luck.
After twists and turns, the pair find themselves at the Kumbh Mela. Billed as the greatest religious event in human history, it’s teaming with pilgrims and mountebanks, gurus, and godmen. Through a simple misunderstanding, Harry finds himself being attended to by a clutch of earnest devotees. The more he begs them to leave him alone, the more they believe he’s a genuine healer, rather than what he is – a washed-up stage magician.
Before Harry and Bitu know it, they’re running an immensely successful ashram in the sacred city of Varanasi. Their multi-million-dollar operation draws devotees from across India and the world – all of them desperate to get a glimpse of Harry’s new incarnation... His Celestial Highness Sri Omo-ji.
Inspired by true-life events, and at times reminiscent of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Tahir Shah’s brilliant novella, Godman, is in many ways a cautionary tale. Making use of first-hand knowledge of Indian illusion and magicians (described in his travelogue Sorcerer’s Apprentice), the book holds a mirror to society, questioning why we feel it necessary to venerate certain people, in place of thinking for ourselves.
After twists and turns, the pair find themselves at the Kumbh Mela. Billed as the greatest religious event in human history, it’s teaming with pilgrims and mountebanks, gurus, and godmen. Through a simple misunderstanding, Harry finds himself being attended to by a clutch of earnest devotees. The more he begs them to leave him alone, the more they believe he’s a genuine healer, rather than what he is – a washed-up stage magician.
Before Harry and Bitu know it, they’re running an immensely successful ashram in the sacred city of Varanasi. Their multi-million-dollar operation draws devotees from across India and the world – all of them desperate to get a glimpse of Harry’s new incarnation... His Celestial Highness Sri Omo-ji.
Inspired by true-life events, and at times reminiscent of Monty Python’s Life of Brian, Tahir Shah’s brilliant novella, Godman, is in many ways a cautionary tale. Making use of first-hand knowledge of Indian illusion and magicians (described in his travelogue Sorcerer’s Apprentice), the book holds a mirror to society, questioning why we feel it necessary to venerate certain people, in place of thinking for ourselves.
250 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 23, 2020
2 people are currently reading
9 people want to read
About the author
Tahir Shah
162 books633 followersTahir Shah was born in London, and raised primarily at the family’s home, Langton House, in the English countryside – where founder of the Boy Scouts, Lord Baden Powell was also brought up.
Along with his twin and elder sisters, Tahir was continually coaxed to regard the world around him through Oriental eyes. This included being exposed from early childhood to Eastern stories, and to the back-to-front humour of the wise fool, Nasrudin.
Having studied at a leading public school, Bryanston, Tahir took a degree in International Relations, his particular interest being in African dictatorships of the mid-1980s. His research in this area led him to travel alone through a wide number of failing African states, including Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Zaire.
After university, Tahir embarked on a plethora of widespread travels through the Indian subcontinent, Latin America, and Africa, drawing them together in his first travelogue, Beyond the Devil’s Teeth. In the years that followed, he published more than a dozen works of travel. These quests – for lost cities, treasure, Indian magic, and for the secrets of the so-called Birdmen of Peru – led to what is surely one of the most extraordinary bodies of travel work ever published.
In the early 2000s, with two small children, Tahir moved his young family from an apartment in London’s East End to a supposedly haunted mansion in the middle of a Casablanca shantytown. The tale of the adventure was published in his bestselling book, The Caliph’s House.
In recent years, Tahir Shah has released a cornucopia of work, embracing travel, fiction, and literary criticism. He has also made documentaries for National Geographic TV and the History Channel, and published hundreds of articles in leading magazines, newspapers, and journals. His oeuvre is regarded as exceptionally original and, as an author, he is considered as a champion of the new face of publishing.
www.tahirshah.com
www.twitter.com/humanstew
www.facebook.com/TahirShahAuthor
http://www.youtube.com/user/tahirshah999
www.pinterest.com/tahirshah
Along with his twin and elder sisters, Tahir was continually coaxed to regard the world around him through Oriental eyes. This included being exposed from early childhood to Eastern stories, and to the back-to-front humour of the wise fool, Nasrudin.
Having studied at a leading public school, Bryanston, Tahir took a degree in International Relations, his particular interest being in African dictatorships of the mid-1980s. His research in this area led him to travel alone through a wide number of failing African states, including Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Zaire.
After university, Tahir embarked on a plethora of widespread travels through the Indian subcontinent, Latin America, and Africa, drawing them together in his first travelogue, Beyond the Devil’s Teeth. In the years that followed, he published more than a dozen works of travel. These quests – for lost cities, treasure, Indian magic, and for the secrets of the so-called Birdmen of Peru – led to what is surely one of the most extraordinary bodies of travel work ever published.
In the early 2000s, with two small children, Tahir moved his young family from an apartment in London’s East End to a supposedly haunted mansion in the middle of a Casablanca shantytown. The tale of the adventure was published in his bestselling book, The Caliph’s House.
In recent years, Tahir Shah has released a cornucopia of work, embracing travel, fiction, and literary criticism. He has also made documentaries for National Geographic TV and the History Channel, and published hundreds of articles in leading magazines, newspapers, and journals. His oeuvre is regarded as exceptionally original and, as an author, he is considered as a champion of the new face of publishing.
www.tahirshah.com
www.twitter.com/humanstew
www.facebook.com/TahirShahAuthor
http://www.youtube.com/user/tahirshah999
www.pinterest.com/tahirshah
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 3, 2020
Tahir Shah, great writer that he is, reveals us to ourselves, but in a way that allows us to share in the fun of the world he creates.
September 25, 2021
What a great read - entertaining, funny, profound and instructive, all at the same time! Thank you, Tahir Shah!
September 13, 2020
Harry Singh, second generation indian from Blackpool, gay, magician, leaves England for India with his indian friend Bitu who gets expelled after 30 + years in the country. Tahir's imagination is border-less and here he goes off with a lot of humor and tenderness in a story about some of our worst characteristics: our desire to be fooled and ruled. Formidable and entertaining. A guaranteed box-office success if made to a film. Loved the dialogue.
July 31, 2020
Godman is a fictional narrative about a washed up magician named Harry Singh, an Indian Brit, who believes he shares the curse of Harry Houdini because they bare the same name. After visiting the Indian Holy festival of Kumbh Mela, he and his sidekick Bitu, decide to use his stage magic to set up shop with Harry posing as a real life Godman. Before they know it, droves of followers are worshipping Harry’s every move, wearing photos of him around their necks, donning the color he wears and idolizing everything about him. In the process, Harry and Bitu become fabulously wealthy with an ashram of epic proportions, but Harry starts to question his newfound status as a Godman and long’s for his old life eating greasy fish n chips in his English hometown. In this brilliant novella, the best fiction author of our time, Tahir Shah illustrates how people will and do believe anything just to have something or someone to believe in as they often focus on the container and NOT the content, the man and not the message. As Rumi said, “Look not at my outward form but take what is in my hand.” Godman has a wonderful ending only a writer as magical as Tahir Shah can conjure up from his own bag of tricks.
August 22, 2020
A grifter story which does not make me feel I need a shower after! (Quite the opposite) Deeply humane. Can you believe that? If we all need to believe in something what can we choose consciously? Or believe in everything lightly? Or -what to do with belief? And its consequences. Is the design of ISF hinted at? Engaging protagonists, using theater and ad mass skills give a riotous show on two continents with the world watching. Nothing spared, but our hearts, in this
incendiary mix.
incendiary mix.
June 18, 2024
“Men must be governed! Often not wisely, I will grant you, but governed nonetheless.” -- Capt. Jack Aubrey
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews