Kuda Bux (1906 - February 5, 1981) was an Indian mystic and magician. One of his most famous tricks was one in which he would cover his eyes with soft dough balls, blindfold himself, swath his entire head in strips of cloth, and yet still be able to see. He was also a fire walker. In his later life, he lost his eyesight to glaucoma.
Kuda Bux was the subject of a 1950 film titled Kuda Bux, Hindu Mystic, and his apparent ability to see while blindfolded with dough balls strongly influenced British author Roald Dahl in the short story of Henry Sugar, who was taught to develop the same powers.
Most astoundingly, observers noted that the unblindfolded Bux required reading glasses to read fine print. Whilst blindfolded Kuda Bux would read the dates on coins which are held on a spectator's hand, read the fine print of a magazine, thread a needle, duplicate words he had never seen written, shoot a bullseye with a pellet gun, and many other mysteries.
According to Robert Ripley, Kuda Bux performed an astonishing feat in Radio City, Manhattan, on August 2, 1938. According to this account, a hole 3 feet deep was dug in the Radio City parking lot and logs and bags of charcoal were set on fire in it. Kuda Bux, so the story goes, walked back and forth through the pit—twice. Ripley said, "Kuda Bux's feet were not even warm." There is newsreel footage of this event in the TV biography (distributed on VHS) Robert Ripley: Believe It or Not (TBS 1993).
