An extract from a letter from me to my lil cousin sister :
Hi Pooja,
Now you dont start off asking me to call u ''poo'' coz I simply aint
gonna do it. The actual Poo along with her elder sister, has been aptly
named Champa-Chameli by your very own dear premjit uncle. So let me
now tell you about something real special that I know you've been
waiting for a long time.
An explanation for the miles of bandages on my sprained hand.
No I didnt get it from any heroic efforts to save any damsel in
distress. Nothing quite so melodramatic. It was more so from reading
the latest edition of Harry Potter. Lemme tell you one thing bout this
one. Its goddamn heavy. I am planning to ask my gym trainer to
substitute all the dumbells in his gym with rowling aunty's latest
offering on her creation which has caught the fancy of all kiddies like
you all over the world.
Okay baba okay, I admit its not just kiddies, even adults like
me and older than me also had got quite addicted to it. To the extent
that I had also plowed my way through the first two Harry Potter movies
in a bid to satisfy myself and am not ashamed to admit that I spent 2
hours online downloading the trailer for the latest HP movie i.e. The
Prisoner of Azkaban. Guilty absolutely. So I like many others had been
waiting for the chronicles of Harry's 5th year at his magical school
Hogwarts. Helps me get away form the daily grind all that imaginary
world full of hokus pokus and abracadabra stuff. Feels good. That
flying car bit was alo kinda cute in a weird sorta way.
So this 5th book is really heavy. Its got these nearly 900
pages or so, plus the hardbound cover . Whoa its heavy. Better would
have been to get some kinda reading stand or one of those ebooks maybe.
Anyways coming back to the book, the book started off really
interesting. Quite a bit darker than teh last 4 books with all
characters even Harry shedding off his cloak of innocence and emerging
as a not so sweet boy who has temper tantrums, a slightly wicked side
who actually enjoys picking fights with his cousin brother. I mean
harry was really scared of his cuz dudley when harry was weak and
dudley was strong. and Dudley used to take the advantage and bully him.
But now Harry has magic and dudley is scared of that and Harry actually
enjoys kinda pricking and prodding dudley now n then just for kicks.
But I think its good. Rowling auntyji has given some more
human shades to her saccarine sweet innocent lil boy of whose tolerance
level I had been really astonished of. Now harry is more believable.
He even vents his anger on his friends. But the world of Harry aint
dark enough. I mean uptill now lord voldemort had been potrayed so evil
that people had been afraid of even mentioning his name ... what kinda
fear is that. On toppa that it was said that he-who-must-not-be-named
had returned to nearly full power but still Harry is spending an
awesome carefree life with no problems in the horizon. Okay in the
begining two dementors did attack harry. Now these dementors deserve a
paragraph to themselves.
So here goes. In book 3 we had said hi to a very interesting breed
of creatures called dementors who were supposed to be the foulest
creatures that walk this planet. They seem to suck all happiness around
them and their kiss is deadly as they suck out the soul of the person
who gets to pucker up to them. Nice huh ??? Well anyways they werent
scary enough again. I mean Harry our little hero is scared and helpless
against them for only a few chapters before he learns this new magical
trick to repel them. How amazing is that. I mean if there is a horror ,
then play it up more. But no in that book itself dementors problem was
solved and our hero was hapy happy again. Now in the 5th book when dark
powers are supposed to be at their max level, all that that come to
attack harry are again our favourite dementors and our boy wonder
simply waves his wand and life is goody goody again. How amazing is
that ?
Anyways after that harry is shifted to the headquarters of the
''order of the phoenix''. Sounds cool huh. But no explanation as to where
the name came from . And the headquarters right in sirius black's
family home. now sirius black is on the run form the law and he chooses
to hide in his own home. man come on, even our hindi filmwallas know
that if a thief is on the run then he will never hide in his own house
coz thats where the cops keep look first and then surround the place as
a trap. but no such things dont apply to rowling aunty. so black is in
his own house and the headquarters is there too.
Now this order of the phoenix is supposed to very very
impressive. but all they do is conduct hidden meetings and dont let
harry listen to the conversations. So whats the point of putting him in
the same house as the headquarters. Why not somewhere else. Chalo
chhaddo . But all through the book harry's headmaster dumbledore stays
away from him and gives the excuse in the end that he was doing that
coz voldemort can see most of what harry can see bcoz of some
connection formed between them years ago, but still dumbledore installs
harry in the same house as the headquarters. how intelligent is that.
finally all this done and apart harry moves to his school where there
is a new teacher from the ministry with whom harry keeps taking pangas
and gets detention. whats the detention ? writing lines with a pen
which draws blood from his own hand. Ok, lets give some points to
auntyji for some innovativeness.
But aint that a lil too gross for kids like you to read . I mean
girl dont even think of using ur blood to write letters coz then u'll
have a whalloping in store from my side.
Lets come to something else. Cho chang, harry's crush who seems to
be still in deep remorse of her ex-boyfriend getting killed. I mean
come on the kid is just like what 14 or something and already she is
acting like some tragic heroine of our times, or more like yesteryears
queens like meena kumari n stuff. and hermoine granger, the bookworm
suddenly blooms into our very own resident bina ramani meaning agony
aunt, giving harry love advice all the time. Come on guys whatever
happened to good old magic and bad guys and their evil plotting n
stuff.
ps : contd in comments...
