Untitled - Tarom

CAMPIONII The Champions 40
Bunicii lui Khavak / Khavak’s grandparents
O întâlnire istoric\ / A historical meeting
® [erpii. La doar un an, p\rin]ii l-au a[ezat pentru prima oar\ pe un crocodil.
Khavak-tat\l a `nceput s\-l `nve]e pe junior `nc\ de la doi ani s\ hipnotizeze
un pui.
Via]a de circ a purtat familia prin Germania - chiar `n timpul celui deal
doilea r\zboi mondial, apoi prin Cehoslovacia, Fran]a, Olanda... Timp
de patru ani au locuit `n cinci ]\ri diferite. Trenul ducea vagoanele de ®
® several tense moments, he stands
up, safe and sound, and makes for
the other reptiles aligned on the
edges of the arena, while Headtrick
is led off the stage. With several simple
gestures, he wakes them all up
and the audience rips into applause.
“Oh! Master, didn’t you forget
something“ asks the presenter.
Acting surprised, Khavak returns to
recover the last crocodile left on the
stage.
THE WORK DAY OF THE
COLD-BLOODED PARTNERS
Now, after an extended series of
shows attended by crowned heads
of state and international stars, reptile
hypnotist Karah Khavak, 68, is
still presenting his act, this time at
the Globus Circus in Bucharest,
where he will remain until March.
He was born in Hungary, into a
family with a long tradition in the
circus. His grandmother comes
from Arad, in the west of Romania.
Since his earliest days he has spent a
great deal of time traveling the
world. Now he lives in Germany
but spends most of his time in other
countries where he has circus contracts.
Khavak ends his work day at
the same time as his animals, at the
end of each show. He maintains a
day when they again commence
their shows.
After ensuring that his partners
are accommodated comfortably,
Khavak sits down and begins his
story. “There is no secret. You learn
everything just like in school. I hypnotize
them with my hands. I use
my energy and think: “Sleep!
Sleep!“ he says in English infused
with German and Italian words.
“But you can’t learn this from one
day to the next.“
He slips out of his stage costume
for a simple gown, but continues to
wear the make-up. His eyes, contoured
with black, are fascinating.
Quickly passing from one idea
to the next, Khavak tries to squeeze
sixty-eight years of life experiences
into less than an hour.
His mysterious talents were passed
on to him by his father, who in
turn learned them from his father, a
famous lion tamer. Some members
of Khavak’s family chose to work
with elephants, others with horses,
while Khavak’s father chose to continue
the work with lions. But after
an unfortunate incident in the arena,
in which a lion bit his face, a wealthy
Indian spectator would change the
vocation of the family. Impressed by
his father’s struggle with the lion, he
{edin]\ de hipnoz\ / Hypnose session
close watch on the assistants who
take the reptiles in their arms and
carry them out of the arena. Two
burly men struggle to carry each
crocodile a distance of only several
meters and when its fierce tail moves
from one side to the other they
struggle to hold on. The animals are
enclosed in enormous barred cages.
Once the doors are locked, the
assistants push the wheeled cages to
the trailer in the circus’ inner yard,
the real home of the performing
crocs. Two small tanks are placed
here in which they idle until the next
told him he should learn to hypnotize
crocodiles. So, when Khavak
was born in 1939, his father had already
spent several years working
with the reptiles. And his mother,
also a circus artist, danced with snakes.
When he was barely a year old,
his parents sat him down for the
first time on a crocodile. Khavak -
the father - began to teach his son to
hypnotize young crocodiles when
Khavak was only two.
Circus life led the family to
Germany during the Second
World War, then to Cze- ®