Wunderbaar

The weirdest thing about being an Iyengar is watching the incredible happen. One by one, all the geeks of the Iyengar clan – aptly named Venkatesh, Srinivas, Varadarajan and even the rare Ashish (as was the case yesterday) are falling in love with surprisingly beautiful girls (way out of their league) and getting married to them. Why is all this happening now? Correctly when I have denounced all hopes in love and declared my allegiance to the land of Single!

What’s worse, I got to stare at the happy couple up close yesterday. Apart from the beads of sweat and kilos of makeup that was plastered onto their faces, I saw something else, something I wish I hadn’t seen. It was love. Just by the way they were looking at each other at the very moment the priest yelled ‘Gettimellam’, the 3-piece band started blaring the naadaswaram and he tied the knot around her neck. They looked into each other’s eyes for perhaps 3 seconds, but in those horribly disgusting seconds, a dam of love burst open, and everybody could ‘feel the love’.

I tried to keep my head up and out of the love flood. Others were just too happy to be drowned in it. At once, I could see the predatory eyes of the Uncs and Aunts seeking me out. I was live fresh prey, and within distance too! They slowly circled me, even my fellow herbivores (cousins Amrita, Naveen and even my lil sis) abandoned me and ran with their tail between their legs. But I was not going to give in, if I must go under, I will do so with pride!

So I ran, as fast as my feet wrapped in an onion-coloured silk saree would carry me, towards anyone who cared at least a hoot about other aspects of my personality. I’m Senior Reporter, I shrieked out. I’m going to Nainital. I write!!! But my cries were drowned by the howls of the Unc and Aunt wolves.

They won the battle this time, but the war’s not over yet. Like all the melodrama queens of Bollywood say, “Over my dead baady!”

Sometimes, it hurts so much inside that you just want to rip your skin off so your bleeding heart can empty all the pain into the streets, down the gutters.

Falling in love is, yes, the most beautiful thing in this world – because there is no other thing in this planet that will make you want to scream out in pain while you’re enjoying being horribly miserable inside. You want to tear your hair out, strip down naked and bang yourself against grid iron walls because you cannot pretend to hide it anymore.

When you do fall in love, you will see no sense in living at all. Every single cell in your body will rush to your head, banging blindly against your cranium in full force in an attempt to reach the heavens.

This world will ties you down. It will grab at you with its steely claws, pin you down with a vice like grip as you scratch and tear your nails and skin trying to break loose. The heavens, the heaven is where you will want to go, but no. The world will trap you in barbed wire that will slowly cut through to your heart.

The sweetest form of madness is love. It’s the best disorder anyone can have.
Madness is taboo in this world.
The heaven is where I want to go.

At the end of life and all its ups and downs comes death, bringing along with it answers and explanations. The Harry Potter series ends the same way — questions answered, doubts quelled — a satisfying closure to a story of 4,000 pages.

I am not here to give spoilers, for facts and surprises must be read only as JKR meant them to be. The fun of reading the seventh book lies in keeping pace with the super-fast story; you won’t get a minute to rest.

Each and every page, starting from the very first of Deathly Hallows, has action, suspense, and a whole lot of surprises. You may not even believe the things that happen in Harry’s 17th year — Harry returns to Privet Drive before his birthday and there are twists there. The Order of the Phoenix comes to take him to headquarters, and again the unexpected is thrown at you. But of course, this is the last book, things are not going to happen at a lazy pace. You must understand that, finally, the Dark Lord is going to take matters into his own hands and that too immediately.

By now, with all the gaps left in the overall story, you must have formed quite a few theories about who’s good, who’s bad, what happened when, where and why.

And with all the hype and speculation (in the form of unofficial leaks) that has been circulated over the Internet, many of these theories may have been confirmed. Many new theories may have also been formed. However, it is best that you wipe the slate clean and read Deathly Hallows with no pre-formed ideas. It’s more fun that way. You may even feel stupid for believing some theories, which in Book 7 prove to be nothing but decoys or red herrings.

Granted that there will be a lot of “I-knew-it!” moments, but Rowling doesn’t leave them bland. RAB is revealed in such a way that will leave you puzzled and shocked with a change of heart.

In between all these shocking twists and turns, as you reach the middle of the book, the Deathly Hallows are introduced. Questions about what the Hallows are answered in slow motion, but spectacularly. It is only towards the end of the book that you realise how important they are to Harry in his battle against Voldemort.

The battle itself is poetry that comes to life. It takes place over a couple of chapters – after all, that is the highlight of the entire book. Not a word is wasted, every action is described with crisp detail so that you feel you are right there, fighting with Neville, Aberforth and the rest of the crew.

There is one distraction in the entire book and it comes in the form of the chapter ‘King’s Cross’. It divides the final face-off between Voldemort and Harry in two equal parts. When you’re that gripped with excitement, this slow chapter can make you impatient and irritated, because it is all talk and no action. In your first read, it’s ok to read through it fast to get to the actual action. This chapter is meant to be re-read once you have finished the book. It is the most crucial one, where all the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle are fitted together.

In parting, I would suggest not obsessing over whether Harry will live or die. As you get towards the ending, you realise that it is immaterial. What matters is that he defeats Voldemort, that good triumphs over evil. That is a happy ending.

Fifteen years ago, if anyone saw a skinny bespectacled boy with a scar on his forehead on the streets, they’d probably scowl at his scruffy hair and dismiss him as any other ragamuffin.
Six books and fifteen years later, Harry Potter is as much a part of our lives as sliced bread and mixed fruit jam. Perhaps even more.
We’ll never know if it was the fact that he was as normal as the next person, or that he was a lonely abused orphan, that endeared him to us. Whatever the reason may be, the world loves Harry Potter. They may not like the way the books are written, they may hate the fact that JKR killed Sirius and then had the audacity to finish Dumbledore with a flick of a wand (How dare she!), but they cannot hate Harry Potter.
But making Potter lovable was not all that easy. When Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was first published, critics compared JKR to legends like Roald Dahl and C S Lewis. Taking baby steps in the area of fantasy is one thing, but JKR plunged in head first.
Philosopher’s Stone begins with Albus Dumbledore and his PutOuter. From the very minute Harry was placed at the Dursleys’ doorstep, a large and complicated story began. But JKR wastes no time in unleashing the world of magic.
In the beginning, the magic in Harry comes out here and there, as he unknowingly sets a snake loose on his cousin Dudley at the zoo. By the time a few chapters are up, Harry is redeemed from his tormenting foster family – he learns he is a wizard and enrols in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. From there, JKR takes us on a whirlwind journey, introducing us to out-of-this-world concepts. The Great Hall with floating candles and a magic ceiling, the Sorting Hat, Charms lessons, flying on broomsticks, Quidditch, an invisibility cloak, wizard’s chess and even a three-headed giant dog – the first book is all about exploring and discovering the wonders in the world of magic, where almost everything is possible. Almost.
Magic may be able to make the world a better place, but it can also corrupt. This is exemplified in Voldemort, the madman who killed his parents. Harry comes face to face with evil at the tender age of 11, but embraces his destiny without fear. He is brave, sometimes fearless to the point of stupidity, but with a strong sense of right and wrong. From this book begins Harry struggle to vanquish He Who Must Not Be Named.
But JKR does not make this her only premise. The books are not all dark, brooding and full of conflicts. She blends in comedy and drama in measured proportions. Take, for example, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.
The second book has the wonderful comic element of Professor Gilderoy Lockhart, the vain fool who turns out to be bogus at the end. We also see a better picture of little Ginny and are introduced to Tom Riddle’s diary. From here, a highly intricate and complicated plot. We may not have noticed but the second book is littered with hints of JKR’s Great Plan, and it only gets bigger as we go on.
Book Three, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, emphasises the most important aspect of the series – family. Harry has his first encounter with his godfather Sirius Black, meets his parents’ good friend Remus Lupin and learns of the traitor Peter Pettigrew. Details of how the Potters were murdered come out, and the ground work for the Voldemort’s return is laid. We learn of the previous generation and pave the way for the next.
Goblet of Fire is the book where the darkness actually begins. While the magic in the first book was all rosy and good fun, it gets serious in Book Four, what with the Quidditch World Cup and the TriWizard Tournament. We see the first death in the Potter series, that of innocent Cedric Diggory. We also see Voldemort return. From now on, Harry has only one mission – kill Voldemort or be killed himself.
Many people feel that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix had a lot of unnecessary details. “Get on with the Voldy battle,” I’ve heard some say. But few realise that it was necessary to show Fudge denying Harry’s claims. That was what Voldy wanted, to make Harry feel isolated and be called crazy, to make Harry mentally weak. You Know Who scored one point that way. By destroying the prophecy, but still learning its contents, Harry scored too.
Many, if not all, loose ends were tied in the sixth book. By far the most important thing is that we all learnt of Voldemort’s past, of how and why he became the grotesque aberration that he is now. This is the weapon Dumbledore gives Harry; his armour made from the love of his friends, extended family and sweet Ginny. When Harry says he won’t return to Hogwarts, we know the battle has begun, there’s no avoiding it.
Harry, and we, have lost dear ones on the way, but that’s the way life is. It gives Harry, just like it gives us, something to fight for.
People can speculate on what will happen in Book 7, they can give out spoilers or just fib for the sake of fun. The truth is that no one can predict what will come out of JKR’s mind. All we know is that deaths will be avenged, wrongs will be made right and the Potter series will finish with a magnificent flourish. That is what will make Harry Potter one of the most treasured books in history – that we lived life all over again with it, that it had a wonderful beginning and a beautiful end.