Happy Birthday, Joanne and Harry Potter!

Yesterday evening I received a message from Crossword which said: "Join the magician and celebrate Harry Potter's birthday at Crossword.... Call-... Sent  30-July-2010." It was a message like any other I get as a Book Rewards Member. What amused me was that there was no mention of the date on which the event was supposed to take place. After all, everyone should know that Harry Potter's birthday is on July 31st, right? Yes, if you are a Potter fan. Obviously, Crossword thought that the date of the event was obvious to everyone! Such has been the popularity of this series created by J.K. Rowling, whose birthday, too, falls on the same date. So much so, that book-readers of the world have been divided into those who like Harry Potter, and those who don't.

This isn't a post about the books. It is about my association with the books, my experience of them.

In 2004, we were in Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK for a period of 9 months. I had a two-and-half yr old, and hardly any time for reading for myself. Always a book person, I had been reading to A since she was old enough to sit up on my lap. So one of the first things I did was to check out the Council library.

It was here, in the library that I first encountered the Harry Potter series. I sometimes wonder how I missed them before, as 5 of the books had already been published by then, but I can only ascribe it to other pressing matters, not the least of which was the birth of A and her early childhood.

Anyway, I had read the first four by the time we returned to India. At that time, three of the books had also been made into films, the first two of which we watched on DVD. Prisoner of Azkaban was released in May 2004, so I went to watch it at the local theatre. I remember I dropped A off at her summer camp, and took a bus to the theatre, reached it just in the nick of time, watched the movie and rushed to pick up A. We had been to Scotland just a few weeks before this, so we could identify the locales at which some of the filming had been done. We had also passed Winterbourne enroute to Wales. This was the town where Rowling had gone to school, and had had as neighbours the Potter family, whose name she used for her protagonist.

After coming back to India, I bought books 1-5, and waited impatiently for the last two. In the meantime, A had started school here, and I made a friend, one of the mothers, whose daughter too is with A. She is as Potter-mad as I am, and we have seen all subsequent movies together. I also have a niece in Bangalore (who is now a collegian) who is a fan, and we would compare notes often.

The release of The Deathly Hallows on July 21, 2007 had all the hysteria of a rock concert. I remember I had pre-booked it at Strand Book Stall, something I had never done for any other book. All news channels were full of the news of the release. Half-blood Prince had already shocked us with its ending, and there had been a lot of speculation about the outcome of the next book. My niece had gone so far as to not take any calls from any of her friends for a few days prior to the release (all equally book mad) so that no-one could be a spoil-sport and reveal the end.

I remember that the husband was in the US on a business trip at that time. A and I were by ourselves. The day was a Saturday and A had had a birthday party to attend. After the party, which was at lunchtime, we went to Strand, picked up my copy, and came home post-haste. I started reading some in the evening, but had to be patient and wait till we had had our dinner, and A had gone to bed. Then, without further ado, I sat with the book and finished it around 5am. In the morning, my niece and I had a very long, interesting conversation about the book. When the husband came back, he had got me a copy of the newspaper in the US which had a cover feature on the release.

Since then I have re-read the book many times. It has many layers, like all really good books, and yields something new at each reading. I have also gone to this book in search of strength at difficult times, and have found it. Not every Potter fan will identify with this experience of mine, but there may be some who do.

Since then, I have had reason to re-visit the books with my daughter A, who has also been charmed by them. Since I feel they may be slightly beyond her, I have been reading them aloud to her. She has many pertinent questions, like:

 "Aai, but I did not understand why Voldemort wanted to kill Harry."        OR
" But why did Dumbledore leave Harry with the Dursleys? Why did he not take him with him or someone else who would not be so mean to him?"

My answer to such questions have always been, "I don't think I should give you an answer to that, A. You will get you answer in some later book. If I tell you, it will spoil your fun in finding out."

So now if she has a question, she comes to me with: "Aai, I wanted to ask you this about Harry. Tell me only if you think it will not spoil the fun for me in finding out myself."

I firmly believe that the book should be read before one watches the movie made on it. I have been trying to impress this upon A, and to her credit, she has shown incredible restraint. Since we have read books 1 & 2, she has watched those movies. Book 3, I think, is darker, and we want to wait for a few more months before we read that. In the meantime, A has read the books once more by herself, coming up with many more questions.

I have been a bit disappointed with some parts of the movies. I think Ms. Rowling has a perfect plot, and all her dots connect perfectly. I feel that the storyline should not be deviated from, not one bit. But that is not something I want to discuss here. In the meantime, we have the movie version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows being made in 2 parts in 3D.  These will be released on 9th Nov 2010 and 11th July 2011 respectively. So I need to start re-reading the book in October, so that I refresh myself about the details.

Writing and publication of the series by J.K. Rowling and her meteoric rise to fame has been a fairy tale of sorts, one that may make many a struggling writer dream of success too. In this talk to Harvard students, in June 2008, Ms. Rowling makes an excellent case on the role of failure in attaining success. She should know.

In the meantime, Happy Birthday, Joanne Kathleen Rowling. And Happy Birthday, Harry.