They queue
outside bookstores at 6 am, wearing black robes. While others are busy studying
or out partying, they revel in spinning theories and writing fan fiction. And “in
their not so humble opinion, words are the most inexhaustible source of magic;
J.K Rowling’s to be specific. Well, they are the Potterheads and they solemnly
swear that they are up to no good, except when they are reading or
discussing Harry Potter.
June
26th marks the 20th anniversary of the inception of the
magical journey that is Harry Potter (HP) or the publication of the first book
of the series, ‘Harry Potter and the
Philosopher’s Stone’. To commemorate the two decades of J.K Rowling’s wizarding
world, Bloomsbury has republished the first book
with special Hogwarts House themed covers. Harry Potter fans across the globe
are paying tribute to their favourite series by taking part in literary events
and theme parties. But no celebration of Harry Potter is complete without a
celebration of its most beloved fans, the Potterheads.
Gayathri
Potter Gopalakrishnan, as her Facebook profile reads is a self confessed HP
addict with a never waning 16-year-old crush on Harry. Like most Potterheads, Gayathri’s fondest memory
is of waiting outside a bookstore for the release of a new title and shouting
with ecstasy when the van carrying the books swerves into vicinity and
sharing/reading the book with her sibling in 4 hour shifts. Later when the
movies released, Gayathri and Varsha Bharath, her friend from college, wore
hand- sewed robes, made witches’ hats and wands out of black chart and watched
them, first day first show.
Last year during Navratri, Gayathri set up a small Harry
Potter golu next to their traditional one. “Since I'd be at office during the
day when guests came, I trained my 86 year old grandma to learn (and pronounce)
words like "Quidditch" (after a lot of Ennas’? and forcing her to
repeat it after me) "Monster Book of Monsters" "Hogwarts"
"Spectrespecs" "Time Turner" etc. I wrote the words down on
a piece of paper and she took it so seriously that she made every guest play a
guessing game of what was what in my HP corner!”Gayathri giggles. An employee of
Flintobox, Gayathri manged to convince her office to not only celebrate HP week
but also come up with seven Harry Potter-themed DIYs to teach children the importance of the books.
Harry
Potter, as a literary fantasy, seems to bewitch every coming generation. The
books are fast-paced with a gripping plot and easily comprehensible English and
are devoured by both children and adults alike. Thanks to its quality of being
both simple and complex at the same time and replete with multiple layers, they
make ideal books for re-readings. “Every time you go back you can take away something new from it. Rowling
has put in so much thought and details into the side characters as well as the
main. I think no matter what age or phase you are going through you'll find a
character that resonates with you,”says Aurelia Frederick,HP fan and owner of Fred’s
studio, Chennai.
Can you
imagine Nymphadora Tonks,
Professor Trelawney, Dolores Umridge, Luna Lovegood and Bellatrix Lestrange
riding the same cab? Yes, that happened. When ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ released
last year, Gayathri, Sneha Sivakumar, her best friend from college and bunch of
their friends attended a HP Witches and Wizards costume party at Phoenix Mall,
Chennai. “It was definitely the craziest thing we had done as
25 year olds. We were so excited about the chocolate frogs, flavoured beans and
a magical drinks that they gave us for for breakfast,” gushes Sneha. The six- member team won the prize for best
costumes that day.
Over the years,
mutual HP fandom
has united several friends. Yogita Dakshina, a political communication graduate
who works with an NGO, shares a HP tattoo with her best friend of nine years,
Sneha Ramkumar.The friends tattooed a half of the snitch on the back of their hands,
which when put together, forms the snitch as a whole. "I open at the close" is very
symbolic of our relationship as friends as well,” says Yogita. This year,
Yogita’s mother threw her a Harry Potter
themed party that started with a Hogwarts Acceptance letter and ended with
personal wands and butterbeer for all.
Hogwarts is not just a fantasy school and
Harry Potter is not merely a fairytale. Life lessons are aplenty in the book and
often Potterheads use the book to guide them in life. Afterall, Dumbledore did say that "Happiness can be found in the darkest of
times, if only one remembers to turn on the lights!"
One of the recurrent themes of the book is the concept of good and evil.
Rowling’s nuanced portrayals of the shades between good and bad and that they cannot
be distinctly compartmentalised as right and wrong rings true for most fans.Themes
such as love is the greatest magic of all, dementors as a personification of
depression that need to be warded off with happy memories, equality and human
rights are peppered throughout the books.Hermione
stands up for house-elf rights (and magical creatures in general) and finally
it’s the equality between all the creatures, the muggle-borns, half-bloods and
pure-bloods that saves the world from Voldemort during the Battle at Hogwarts.
Recent
research studies have also corrobrated this idea, that
HP inculcates values of empathy and love among its readers
"Every
character in HP was flawed in someway and the series showed me that flaws are
ok as long as you are willing to work on it. It showed me that being evil is a
choice it’s not something people are destined for,” adds Aurelia. The character Severus Snape is an
example of this philopsohy and is a favourite of Sneha’s.Snape taught Sneha
that everyone has their own story and it’s wrong to judge a person before
knowing theirs. “It is our choices, Harry, far more than our abilities,
which define who we truly are" - all my beliefs, everything, is
wrapped into this one sentence,”adds Yogita
Besides these nuggets of personal
philosphy,the books also serve as a substitute religion
in a secular era. The great symbol of malevolence is Harry’s nemesis, Lord
Voldemort who wants to rid the wizarding world of Muggles (people from
non-wizarding heritage) and is obsessed with the idea of blood purity.These
books thus teach that bigotry must be fought at all costs, and that tolerance
and difference must be celebrated.
Varsha, Gayathri’s friend and Assistant Director to popular Tamil film Director
Vetrimaaran, opines that HP was her first lesson on inclusion, that it’s ok to
be weird. She identifies most with Luna, a character, who doesn’t fit into the
traditional definition of ‘normal’.
Gaythri’s love for the series made her write a dissertation on ‘The
Prisoner of Azkaban’ during her third year of graduation and Yogita for her
part hasn’t stopped decoding the texts.She loves reading into the interplay of
the motifs of life and death,and the ‘’normalisation of death”that Rowling often
experiments with. Dumbledore’s quote, “And of course
- its happening in my head, but why would it mean that it is not real?” speaks most
to her.“Never kill your imagination; never belittle another person's mental
health issues. Two teachings, from one amazing quote,” she says.
The Potterheads chorus that
the Harry Potter series is timeless and that the current generation needs it
more than ever.“We live in times when we have all the facts staring at
our faces and we still choose to ignore what is true, what is right. I find
myself increasingly being surrounded by a Rita Skeeter-reading, Dumbledore
bashing, Muggle-born hating crowd of Voldemort deniers. Rowling's world- the
kindness, empathy, humour, love and magic is more relevant now than ever
before,” Varsha concludes.
It’s been 20 long years. Harry Potter craze, even after all this time you ask? Always,
they say.
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