Expecto 'Potter'onum!

I was six when I discovered him. He was hiding inside the closet, on a bookshelf in the spare bedroom, sandwiched between two dark blue paper covers. I couldn't understand much of his story, what he was trying to tell me. But I held on. It would be romantic to think that I never gave up trying to know him because it was meant to be...but it was probably because I was a stubborn girl and I kept trying to read, even what I didn't understand.

I was seven when I actually fell in love with him, which is strange considering that a lot of things in his life came in sevens, and so did I.

He was eleven at that time, with black hair and wide, curious eyes, and that strange mark on his forehead we never understood...He lived with his family and remained unloved until a certain giant barged into the little house upon the rock and presented the little boy his birthday cake, and handed him a life-changing, fate-altering...envelope. (The envelope which I'm still waiting for...I mean come on, I can't be a muggle!) The envelope which took him to Diagon Alley and to King's Cross, which took him to his destiny.
That envelope must have been pretty proud of itself.

Destiny, in other words, means Hogwarts.....the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It's where he met Ron and Hermione and Ginny and Seamus and Dean and Snape and Draco and the-one-we-must-not-forget, Mrs. Norris the cat. Oh, and Voldemort too. Who tried to kill him like once, or twice, or a gazillion times. Voldy sure liked killing.

My love managed himself through all that. He managed himself through fights and betrayals and deaths and hormonal changes of adolescence. He grew into a brave, selfless man, a man the world loved.
That I loved.

By now you must have guessed my first love: Harry Potter.

Come on folks, come get to know him, come meet him, grow up with him, and love him, just like I do, just like I did, just like I always will...  

Y I Loved IAYP

IAYP (The International Award For Young People) is a program started in the UK to encourage youngsters (14-25) to take up various activities. The levels (or prizes) are bronze, silver, and gold. There are slightly different requirements for each of them. For the bronze award, for instance, we 9th graders have to do social service, play a sport, and practice a skill for a set number of weeks under a teacher. One of the other elements of IAYP is adventure. To complete this part, our school took us (with Woody Adventure) to Ramanagar (yes, where Sholay was filmed) for 2 days and 1 night. We did many adventure activities, and pretty much had one heck of a time.

These were my thoughts on it...

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The Suicide Point. A light blue sky streaked with fierce strokes of gold. Fanta. Chocolate. A dog named Gabbar. A lamb who was often chased by Gabbar. More chocolate. Muthu. Papanna. Rocks, boulders, stones, and trees. Shrubs. Tent. Bonfire. A village. Clapping, gupshup. Bus. Friends. Smiles...

And chocolate.

This is what the IAYP trip meant to me. Two days that I will remember forever. The 7^th and 8^th of October in Ramanagara belonged primarily to my class, 9F.

We had activities of all sorts – an 8 km trek, rappelling, ziplining, cooking chitranna (during which a bunch of us sat doing absolutely nothing and enjoyed that fact), a village interaction, all sorts of games…

The activities were challenging, taking their toll on us, both physically and mentally. While the trek left us sweaty and drained, the village interaction left us feeling sorry, a bit broken, for having discovered the pitiable plight of the poor in India. And most of them smiled through nearly every obstacle.

Those 36-odd hours affected most of us personally too. We felt an intimate connection with nature, fear, happiness, freedom, calmness, peace.

Besides tiring us out completely, the trip helped us bond. It brought us together in a way nothing else could. And for that, I'd like to thank IAYP for coming up with the idea of an adventure trip.

What I will always remember is the way we laughed, the way my friends helped me up every single time I fell (which was the norm), the way our secrets came tumbling out, the way we were all aware of the growing closeness between our classmates.

We were a family for those two days: Our classmates, our guide Shalini ma'am, our other instructors, Muthu and Papanna, Gabbar. Even the lamb. 

I'll end this article by recalling one of the many memorable moments of the trip. It was an hour or so before we left. I was sitting on a large rock, overlooking the dorm, with my friends. We watched the boys play cricket. The sun shone, the breeze was soft, and there was a bitter-sweet feeling in the air. I remember, at that very instant, feeling happy for no particular reason. Life seemed perfect, though it was so clearly not. I felt happy, despite all odds, and that's the best kind of happiness there is.

Thanks IAYP. 

Muerte

I’m scared. I’m scared and insecure and bundled up in worries. I’m scared to death…of death. It’s really rather a morose thought: Death, but it’s always been there, always at the back of my mind. Unfortunately, it’s the ultimate truth, the final destination. If there’s one thing every single living thing has in common, it’s that they die.

Maybe it’s because of the way I think, of the constant plots that I work up. I don’t know, but whether characters in a story live or die, the narrator is always there, the creator is omnipresent, and infinite – always existing. So how is it, that I, or anyone for that matter, how can we disappear? We are the narrators of our own story, how can we…end?

It’s the most troubling question, and unfortunately, the most unanswerable one. The truth of death is, we don’t know what it is till we face it, and after that, there’s no going back. Literally.

I’ve driven myself to tears, to hysterics thinking about it. Panic swells and overwhelms me, and I have to fight it down. Force away a fear, a fear which may never leave.

I guess that’s why I read books. They’re my safe haven, my escape. I’ve passed half sleepless nights re-enacting parts of Harry Potter in my head, that’s the only thing that calms me. Harry Potter is my home and in ways I’ll never leave, because I’ve latched a part of my own being onto the hope that magic exists, and that goodness does too, and that one day goodness will prevail over evil. After all, as Richard Castle said, “The one reason to believe in magic is that if you don’t, you’ll never have even the slightest hope of finding it.” Or something close to that at any rate. But maybe there’s another reason I like fictional characters so much: thinking about them means not analyzing my own life, my own fears. And sometimes, thinking outside the self is a relief.

I’ve thought and thought again about writing this, and I decided too, because along with all the good and fun in this world, the bad, the dark cannot go unacknowledged.

I don’t really know what this is about. There’s no point…exactly. There are times when I imagine dying, and as scared as I am of the whole concept, the only thing I really want is to die happy. And that’s going to happen. I’ve got a great family, friends, so much beauty and love surrounding that I can’t really stay caught up thinking only of death. There are certain moments which make me smile wide and think, ‘this is what I want in life. And I have it.’ It’s a nice thought to have. It’s happy, and sweet, and hopeful.