Harry Potter and Me

DISCLAIMER: This is neither a book review nor a promotional attempt.

What is your favourite book?

If this question were asked before I came to Hyderabad, I would have said “The Da Vinci Code” or “The Godfather” or something like that. But something happend when I came to Hyderabad that changed my opinion.

When I first arrived in Hyderabad, I hardly knew anyone here. All my friends and such were either in Pune or Mumbai (I prefer to call Mumbai rather than Bombay like any good Marathi person ). Although I got to know people from my project at Oracle, I could hardly count anyone as friend at that time. My daily schedule was pretty boring. Getting up @ 9, reaching to office @ 10:30, working (?), leaving for home @ 6:30PM and sleeping @ 11PM. I was very frustrated.

Then, I decided to read Harry Potter.

Now, I had already heard of this book and even watched one of the movies. And I had always believed that this was a book for kids. I knew friends who loved this book and I always made fun of them (you see, at that time I counted myself as an adult).

At first I purchased only the first part. After all, my decision to read Harry Potter was born out of pure frustration. I thought that, by the time I finished this, I might as well have found new friends and hoped against all odds that I won’t need to read the other parts. How very wrong I was!!!

Well, as it turned out, the more I read the book, the more I wanted to stay home and keep reading it. It was addictive, though in a good way. In no time at all, I had finished the first part and I found myself in the Hyderabad Central looking for the second part. I read all the 6 parts within 3 months. The seventh part was yet to be released then. I think, that was the fastest I had ever read anything, considering that I had to be in office for 9 hours every day. I was soon craving for the last part to be released. I could not read anything else due to the anticipation of the seventh part and hence read the first 6 parts again.

This was the first and only book that I had managed to read more than once. And I am including my textbooks in this also. This was a real surprise even for me. I started surfing the net looking for articles related to Harry Potter, started searching for clues of what might be coming in the last part. I even joined one of the fan sites. In short, I was taken by the PotterMania. When the last part was released, I was 2 weeks away from my end-sem exam. And still, I could not help but finish reading it within first 72 hours.

Now, its 18 months since that moment when I had bought the first part, and I have read the whole series more than 3 times in paper and listened to the audio version more than 4 times (I somehow don’t like the movies this much). I dont know why I liked it this much. But I think, it was the fact that I was feeling lonely and I found a friend in these books. I have always liked reading. But this was something special. The characters in the story were lively and friendly. These characters were living the life I had always dreamed. I was living my dream through these books. There were times when I could even picture the characters moving and hear them talking while I read the story. I found it easy to go through my dull work life when I was listening to or reading these books.

I don’t know how many more times I will read these books or listen to its audio versions. But I am certain of picking them up whenever I feel low or frustrated. It always lifts my mood.

Now my friends make fun of me because of my Potter Mania (Just like I used to do with my friends 2 years earlier). But I tell them that this is my passion. And atleast, I have one.

So if anyone asks me now what my favorite book is, my definite answer would be Harry Potter. Other books will come and go, I might read them, I might even like them, but I doubt if there would be another Harry Potter.