Pottering

Somehow this morning reminds me of all things Harry Potter and I will now proceed to traipse down memory lane and re-acquaint myself with how I first met Harry and his gang...
I must have been 13 when  a very sad reason drew my family away from Bangalore, the city I was living in then, to Kolkata...the passing of my beloved grandfather, and a man who was kind hearted and generous and good down to the last sigh of existence...and it was on that trip, back to my eternal city of Joy, that my uncle and aunt gifted me the third part in the series..."The Prisoner of Azkaban!" ...and that was my first brush...and I was mesmerised from the word go...I slipped into the alternate universe so creatively moulded by Rowling...in an age where we were becoming increasingly reliant on technology, the book relied on magic...and I loved the way in which Rowling crafted the dynamics between the various characters! So I met Sirius Black, the eponymous prisoner of Azkaban, I hated Peter Pettigrew with every corner of my thirteen year old soul (and why am I assuming that souls have corners?) I was excited to be exactly as old as the characters in the novel...and boy, did I dislike the Dursleys...and did i want to try butter beer...
I've always ended up reading books in a series in a haphazard order...so it was only once we were ensconced in Kolkata post the Bangalore episode, that I began perusing the books again...I should have wriiten about this earlier, because now I am forgetting who it was who had lent me the second book to read...in vague recollection, I think "Chamber of Secrets," was lent to me by my dad's colleague's daughter...ahhh, yes, now I recall...by her indeed, my friend, named Nandini! This was a spell in my life when I was about 14, and a copious writer, who would eagerly contribute to ZOETROPE, the magazine publication of my dad's office, VESUVIUS! And at every office gathering, people kept coming up to me and asking me about stories I wrote...and ineveitably the discussion would always be diverted back to The Harry Potter Series... and it was so funny because often I asked them more questions about my own writing, than coming up with answers..(.Socrates exists in one and all)...I am also beginning to come to the conclusion that this post is also akin to a glimpse into my own childhood and adolescence...with Harry Potter as a central theme but also functioning as an excuse...okay, post that, I went to the annual Kolkata Book Fair and purchased Book number one with much glee! I reember discussing it vigourously with my many friends from my Grandma's building in Mayfair Road......Now to come to the next book. It was my beloved brother, who now lives in far away London, who got me very excited about " The Goblet of Fire," but this was also at a very sad juncture because it was the time during which my brother was staying with us as we took care of our ailing and ill grandma...so I always associate the fourth bookwith that time in my life...my dad's mum was diagnosed with liver cancer...and she was really dying by slow degrees before our eyes...and the most plaintive thing of all was, we hadn't told her how grave her illness was...and though we knew, we had to smile and be happy before her...and SHE in turn would comfort me and tell me that she would be better soon...there are some inexplcable emotions attached to " The Goblet of Fire..." I think I might have lay next to her, perusing it, while my brother smiled at us and smiled some more...a sad, sad smile...I remember that house in Jodhpur Park where I was living then, which I never liked , as to my young self, it seemed so different from the verdant wonder of Diamond District, the  complex I had lived in, in Bangalore...where my room had looked upon groves of coconut trees and the old airport...this room stifled me, but in retrospect, I now realise that it had liberated me...it was the place where, owing perhaps to a lack of excessive beauty in the surroundings, my imagination flew off, on the wings of birds, mostly crows, but sometimes, perhaps birds who were flying to far - off lands...I remember rushing back from school to discuss the Hogwarts Triwizard tournament with my bro!! And I am sure he had a crush on the Veela girl while I secretly liked the Quidditch player Krum, replete with his accent!
Book 5 came to me on my 16th birthday, I still remember that being the day when a German friend of my dad's sent us a bottle of white wine and I was deemed old enough to have a small glass full...we never have alcohol in the house, but white wine was an exception that day...and my grandfather had bought me this exquisite chocolate mousse cake, and the texture of the cake and the tang of the wine, and the company of my family, form a symphony in my mind till this date, interspersed with the text on the pages of "The Order of the Phoenix," stained by my tears to mourn Sirius Black's Death and how I hated Bellatrix Lestrange, despite grudgingly loving her name...
I was in CIS...my precious school, all the way until book 5...book 6 and I went into the college at the same time..."Half Blood Prince," was my way of bonding with all the various new friends I met at college...so it is special that way... and believe me when I say that I always suspected a hint of something between Snapeeeeeeeee and Lilyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.
Book 7 came at the time of post-grads...and somehow the craze was getting watered-down...so,e people said J.K. Rowling had become too commercial a writer, which was affecting he rart...but I immensely enjoyed all that came with the book...and was rapturous until the last page surfaced...
So, what makes the books special to me? Perhaps the fact that they are so intrinsically linked with my growing up years, they have peppered so many of my conversations with my friends....the fuel they have provided for thought and debate...the lessons learnt from studying the human relationships in the novels, the emotions so relatable to us, the sadnesses so stinging, the little joys so worth smiling for...

Well...

This is one of my long days at work, and I have been mostly diligent! Having finished with my lessons for the day and wrapping up my consults, I am now trying to accomplish the glorious tasks of eating my dinner, marking essays and resisting the temptation to write...the best way to stave off the final temptation, as Wilde would note with pleasure, is by me ending up yielding to it.
Sigh. That's a happy sigh, if a bit tired. My days have been glorious in all their difficulty, joyfulness, eccentricity, childishness, complexity, boisterousness and simplicity. In the midst of trying to figure out where I,indeed where we, figure in the complicated scheme of things, where laid out plans are foiled, carefully contstructed castles, (whether they float on air or are rooted on terrestrial soil) are pulled down and apart with alarming ease, I have been trying hard, often in vain, and sometimes with dim glimmers of evasive epiphany, to realise what offers one peace, contentment and stability in this seemingly mad maelstrom of event after event, emotion after emotion, place after place, face after face, small pleasures, small stings of pain, snatched moments of peace which seem unreal amidst all this chaos...what keeps one ticking?
I have also been wondering why I relentlessly think upon every issue I can possibly ruminate upon with such intensity these days...and whether it's a good thing to have all these parallel events so worthy of thought...

Increasingly, I find myself being told to let go, of old and perhaps childish ideals. Because childish is a bad word, is it not, in a world where the faster one grows up, the more chances one has of succeeding, of negotiating this complex maze of woven chapters...really? Weeell, not necessarily for me...for I have noticed that though life grows us all up, soon enough, that we begin to behave like uber responsible adults, do our work sincerely, meet deadlines, speak in tones of measured politeness, all these things have little to do with letting go of the eagerness and sincere emotions, the undiluted joys and the unadulterated pains a child feels...if one lets the child within die, one loses the concentrated elixir of pure emotion, that ultimate essence which makes life so exciting, so colourful, so vivid, so beautiful, so wondrous, so strange and yet so hopelessly hopeful. And retaining that innocence, if that could be the appropriate term, doesn't make one naive, stupid, foolish or an easy target for bullying...NO, I vehemently disagree...this innocence is not synomous with stupidity or silliness, it is protected by a charm of great wisdom, the golden keys are possessed by those who are wise enough to realise its worth, and not dismiss or discount its merits...
Am I rambling? I hope I am...it's so therapuetic to get all these thoughts out...does this innocence (will think of perhaps a better word), make one vulnerable to get hurt? Because one goes in to a myriad of situations, not armed with the well-worn defences of a weathered cynic, but with a great degree of hope and enthusiasm, which could get squashed, but which could also bloom...of course, the difference between childhood and adulthood being, perhaps, that a screen of caution is always on site, in sight, with varying layers of net...maybe
In other news...I have been enjoying the company of people...of friends who make my life so meaningful, who take the trouble to go out of their way, to help each other, be it answering my overseas phone calls, and calmly philosophising, be it going out of their way to accompany me when they sense I might need it, being there, in far and distant lands, like silent songs, waiting to spring into harmony, at the slightest touch of the musical chords.