On the boy who lived.

I started off to write about re-reading books and the joy of discovering a long-before read book, or simply an over-and-over-again read book that you happened to have not touched in around a year. There may be some books that have touched me, that always help in lifting a dull mood, many that may have been gripping enough to finish in one sitting, but the most re-read book is probably Harry Potter, the Boy who lived, the Chosen one.

Reading this book is like a chain reaction- I happen to open one of the seven when I have some time and no other new book around, and end up reading all of them in the next couple of weeks. There’s something about the way the characters get etched in your memory, the way you remember insignificant details about the book like the colour of Pansy Parkinson’s robes at the Yule Ball or the password to the gargoyle outside Dumbledore’s office. The way you can sometimes replay conversations and scenes in your head using almost the exact words, like Ron having the emotional range of a teaspoon or Hermionie ferociously dotting her ‘i’s and making holes in her parchment.

The amount of discussions the series sparked , whether at school, or years later with people who’s kids went to school, the intense debates, not on usual controversies or criticisms that books have but on ‘doubts’ in the plot, on how Malfoy got the Elder Wand and on how the time-turner worked and on why Dumbledore did what he did. The complexity of the plots, on how Scabbers looking thin was related to a prison breakout, on how Harry catching the Snitch in his mouth in his first match related to destroying a Horcrux, on how even seemingly insignificant chapters like the one on spring cleaning the Black house proved to hold important clues.

The competitions on who would read the book first as they released, and the sadistic thrill of telling someone who hasn’t yet finished it the ‘twist’ in the ending. (I had the misfortune of ‘being told’ rather than ‘telling’ all the major twists, that Sirius Black was not a killer, that Snape killed Dumbledore, and that Snape was innocent after all. Which didn’t actually make the books any less enjoyable!)

A book that actually contributed to a two-hour game of word building with ‘Harry Potter words’  during a long bus ride stuck in traffic , that also lead to a 500-odd comment game on Facebook , where we broke our heads getting stuck at Y after Yule Ball, Yew and Yaxley.

Growing up with Harry was quite memorable- reading about the twelve year old boy depressed on his birthday when we were twelve, seeing the first movie version of the book and endlessly complaining about the omissions and alterations, seeing whether the characters stood up to your imagined versions, waiting to see who the next Defence against the Dark Arts teachers were, watching Neville grow from awkwardly searching for his toad to being a true Gryffindor, cheering with the Weasley twins and crying as Dobby was buried, watching how every loose end tied up in the last book, and finally seeing the victory of good over evil.

The boy who lived indeed managed to live in many minds breaking barriers of age, genre and other ‘muggle’ classifications!