In which we wish Harry and JKR a Happy Birthday

Before we go on to the topic of our post, let me also tell my readers that today is also the birthday of another literary great, Munshi Premchand a.k.a. Dhanpat Rai,born on 31st July 1880 in a village near Benaras.

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In my mind, there is clearly a before Potter and after Potter.

Rowling is one of those beautiful people who think of humanity beyond the me-and-mine, and for that, she is my hero. Every Potter reader knows the story of how it all happened. Not many know of the rest.

1990: The idea for the Potter books came to Joanne, a single, impoverished mother of a daughter.

1997: Seven years later, the first Potter book was published by Bloomsbury in June 1997. The consecutive books were published in June 1998, July 1999, July 2000, June 2003, July 2005, July 2007. The release of each book saw unprecedented frenzy at book-stores the world over. JK Rowling had truly wrought a miracle: reading had become cool!

2001: Rowling wrote : Quidditch Through The Ages and Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them. Both purport to be curriculum books followed at Hogwarts, and contain interesting back stories about Hogwarts, the game of Quidditch, and detailed references to magical beasts, most of them from actual mythology. Both books are supposedly copies belonging to Harry, with a lot of amusing marginalia by Harry, Ron and Hermione. Worth picking up for a true aficionado.

All proceeds from these books until 2009, and a percentage of all published after that goes to Comic Relief, a UK based charity working for eradicating poverty.

2008: Tales of Beedle The Bard was published. Initially published as a limited edition of 7, six were given away to persons closely associated with the Potter books, and the seventh was auctioned to raise a whopping 1.95 million pounds for LUMOS, a UK based charity founded by Rowling herself, that works towards bettering the lives of disadvantaged and institutionalized children. The book was then published for the public by Bloomsbury in collaboration with LUMOS, and a percentage of the sales goes to the charity.

She has also set up the Volant Charitable Trust, named after her her French great-grandfather Louis Volant a decorated WW1 hero. Quoting from the objectives of this trust:
The Trust has two broad areas of funding:
1. Research into the causes, treatment and possible cures of Multiple Sclerosis.
J K Rowling is supporting major research into neuroregeneration and Multiple Sclerosis at the University of Edinburgh. The Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic is being set up in Edinburgh with the substantial donation J K Rowling made in 2010. The Trust is therefore not considering any health care applications, including other medical research, for the foreseeable future.
2. Charities and projects, whether national or community-based, at home or abroad, that alleviate social deprivation, with a particular emphasis on women’s and children’s issues.
At present the Trustees consider the funding of major disaster appeals and this is the focus of the Trust’s International support; therefore, applications for other projects overseas are not being considered for the foreseeable future.

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Over the years, JK Rowling has been the recipient of a multitude of honours and awards, notable among which are the OBE, 2001, for services to Children's Literature and Hans Christian Andersen Literature Award, 2010, which is given to a writer of enduring and rich children's literature.

Come September 2012, Rowling will be releasing her first book after the Hogwarts books, this one for adults. The Casual Vacancy, published by Little, Brown, promises to be quintessentially British.

Other than all of this, there have been the Harry Potter movies that have spread the magic of the Potter books further. I know of at least six of my daughter's friends who are not big-time into reading, but who have been inspired by the movies (and the constant nudging by A) to pick up the books and read them through. Enjoy them thoroughly too.

The spell of Potter has gone to enchant the online world, too. A and I are members at Pottermore, which gives one an insider's experience of Harry's world. This is a safe site for your children, where one joins, gets a wand, gets sorted into houses, all based on questions one answers about what one would do given a particular situation. One then goes on to discover exclusive and intriguing back stories on the various characters, places, spells, events, etc., that comprise the wizarding world. No personal information is asked, and one is even given a magical username, so that one can be anonymous.

There will be much more that happens around JK Rowling in the future. I leave you here with the Commencement Address given by her to Harvard Graduates of 2008, the full text of which can be read here: The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and The Importance of Imagination.

For those who would rather listen to it directly from JK Rowling, here is the video link..

One is struck by the honesty, humour and humanity of feeling.

"So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life."

Think not just of the books she has created and the charities she has given so generously for. Think of the worldwide phenomenon that has created so many jobs, fed so many mouths, and interested people again in the art of reading. She is truly a hero.


Have a very Happy Birthday, Joanne Kathleen Rowling! And a very Happy Birthday to Harry, too, the Boy Who Lived!