It was 2001 when I first heard about the boy wizard "Harry Potter". Also, it was precisely two years before when I rolled my eyes as the 'nerd' of my class walked out the library with this impossibly fat book in his arms...
It read "Harry Potter and the Goblet Of Fire."
However, it was precisely three years into the future in 2002, when I walked out the state library with a fat book bulging in MY arms and a big gloating smile pasted on my face. Guess what it read?
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire....ladies and gentlemen! I was hooked.
Nailed. Floored.
You might wonder why I talk about it 10 years down the line, when Harry Potter has stormed the world in full fury and gotten over with it? Now...at a time when Stephenie Meyer's Robert Pattinson is charming the world with his fangs? When voldemort and the 'boy who lived' is so passe?
Well, I'm 20 years old now, its been a long time since I wrote full fledged 25 chapter fan fictions for this Harry 'Potty', wrote numerous fan mails to J K Rowling that I never sent, stuffed my computer's RAM with folder after folder of information and pictures of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and the others. I should say that I've grown over it. I should say that it was a childhood fling with Rowling's work. But I won't.
I still get looks from my peers when I admit to people I love the novels. Still. The smug faces that look at me when I tell them its still one of the best works I've read...are priceless!
"My god....grow up! It seems you haven't read enough then!"
I'd say I haven't. I've no shame in admitting that. And who wants to grow up any way? As if a dark novel about terrorism and in your face reality is going to end up teaching me a thing or two about life any more than the boy who flies on broomsticks and saves the day?
However, what I refuse to believe is when people say Harry Potter is a children's novel. I do admit, it started out with just that intention, but by the fourth book, i might rethink my evaluation. I still think Rowling's work is poorly perceived by half the world as a children's book about wizards. Why is it that fantasy can never be taken seriously, as much an idealistic novel like the fountainhead?
If JK Rowling isn't being practical, so isn't Ayn Rand. No offence to the author, I'm a huge fan of her work.
But that is besides the point.
Arundhati Roy won the booker prize for her exceptional novel "The God of Small Things." It is all about love. Believe me when I say, so is Harry Potter. He isn't superhuman, has mediocre magical abilities, is a love starved humble boy who one day stumbles upon the huge responsibility of being 'The Chosen one'. The ones who havent read it, might assume the ending to be exceptionally extravagant like Neo in the Matrix, as he suddenly realises he is 'THE' one and begins to see his enemies as minute inconveniences and erases them like rubble.
Yet the most charming aspect of the novel is that Harry Potter is never central to the elimination of his enemy, Lord Voldemort. He is a part of a bigger wider web of complications. He is never the sole person responsible for killing Voldemort, he is only there to put it all together. The ending is not about a far fetched magical fight with lots of flashy effects, but a simple conclusion that some people can never understand what the world is really about. It is that simple mistake that Lord Voldemort makes that leads to his death. Ofcourse there is magic involved but when you read the books, it is surprising how secondary that is to the whole story.
The beautiful part is that in the end you don't want to be a wizard as much as you want friends like Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. Its not the fantasy but his courage that you end up wanting. You don't awe him for his super powers, trust me he's not superman, but for his humility.
You love and hate him for how real he is. You laugh with him and you cry with him, and he becomes a lot more than just a fantasy novel protagonist. Intriguing, irritating, confused and extremely lucky. Thats what he is. Thats what I love him for. He is by far the most ingeniously written character sketch I have ever come across in a novel.
I still feel the movies have never lived up to the books and never will be able to. They are a supreme injustice to her work. But they have worked wonders for the book's popularity. I, of all the people cant blame them, for it was only after my elder brother brought in a CD, precisely 10 years ago in 2001, for me to watch.
Guess what it read? *smirks*
