Merlin award for magician

"The Merlin Award is awarded to a few select magicians from all over the world to acknowledge their extraordinary talent and contributions to the art of magic. (It) is to magic what the Oscar is to movies,” wrote Tony Hassini, chairman and chief executive officer of the International Magicians Society based in New York while announcing that 18-year-old Zenia Bhumgara of Bombay had been selected for the honor. Hassini presented the coveted award to Bhumgara on September 21, 2015 at the Jai Hind College auditorium, mentions an email received from her father, Mhelly Bhumgara who is also a trained magician as is his older daughter Pearl. Zenia, a student of first year BMM at Jai Hind College, has been making magic since the age of four.

Zenia Bhumgara: making magic

At the International Merlin Award ceremony top ranking magicians, including Zenia, performed before a large audience. The "Best Female Teenage Magician of India” title was bestowed on her on the occasion. Zenia’s earlier awards include Most Popular Magician Award in Bangkok in 2014, first prize at the Choomantar Magic Contest in Hyderabad in the same year, a workshop with world renowned illusionist David Copperfield in Las Vegas in 2012 and a tour of Japan in 2011 where she performed in several schools and old age homes for tsunami affected people. She also participated in Namaste India in Tokyo, one of the largest Indo-Japanese festivals, the press release notes.
On reading about the Merlin award, Beauty Without Cruelty founder Diana Ratnagar wrote to Parsiana regarding the cruelty that magicians subject doves and other animals to while making them vanish during performances. A piece by Israeli magician Magus Cagliostro, forwarded by Ratnagar mentions "doves with trimmed wings and painted bodies, chickens bouncing off electrocuted cage floors, fish with needles stuck through their bodies and parrots crushed in their eggshells.” Cagliostro writes he stopped using animals in his magic shows 10 years ago and advised that the "next time you get a magician home to make your child happy on his birthday, make sure that he doesn’t bring living creatures” as too much suffering is involved.