The ‘Harry Potter’ book series has been and probably will
remain my all time favourite book. I read somewhere that it was the publishing world’s
answer to the Beatles. I couldn’t agree more.
The first book – “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone”
was published on June 26th 1997. So all the HP fans were going
ballistic few days back on social media with the #20yearsof HarryPotter hashtag
where everyone was sharing their favourite Harry Potter ‘moment’ from their
childhood.
Mind you, I think Harry Potter is a very deep and profound
book. But if I talk about my favourite memory associated with the book, there
is a standout memory and oddly enough it has to do with one of the most innocuous
passages of the first book in the 7 part series.
The context of this particular paragraph that I am referring
to is that Harry Potter is attending his first ever day at the Hogwarts School of
Witchcraft and Wizardry where he listens to the Headmaster (the eternal and
evergreen Albus Dumbledore) addressing his students before the commencement of
a new academic year.
“Albus
Dumbledore had gotten to his feet. He was beaming at the students, his arms
opened wide, as if nothing could have pleased him more than to see them all
there."Welcome," he said. "Welcome to a new year at Hogwarts!
Before we begin our banquet, I would like to say a few words.
And here they are: Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!
"Thank
you!"
He sat back
down. Everybody clapped and cheered. Harry didn't know whether to laugh or not.
"Is he
-- a bit mad?" he asked Percy uncertainly.
"Mad?"
said Percy airily. "He's a genius! Best wizard in the world! But he is a
bit mad, yes. Potatoes, Harry?"
For some reason, as a kid, the above passage just had me in
splits and Every. Single. Time. I would think about it, I would burst out
laughing.
I read this book first in the year 2000 as a 10 year old. If
I remember right, my dad had bought the first 3 books for me during my summer
vacation. During that time, my granddad had been hospitalized for a brief
period. We used to visit him in the hospital regularly and I would spend some
time with him. My granddad was the most erudite, intellectual and
smartest person I have ever known in my life till date. Even in his old age, he
remembered word to word poetry and plot lines of books which he had read during
his child hood!
One of the days, after I had read a considerable portion of
the first book of Harry Potter, and when I visited him in the hospital, I could
barely contain myself and told him very excitedly, “You know Appacha, there is
this famous children’s book called Harry Potter these days and I am reading it
and it is sooooo funny. “
Talking about the paragraph that I have quoted in the beginning,
which at that point was hilariously and painfully amusing to me – I went on
animatedly, “In this book, you won’t believe, when a 11 year old boy Harry Potter
attends his school for the first time and his headmaster addresses the
students, the headmaster HAS ONLY 4 WORDS TO SAY - NITWIT, BLUBBER, ODDMENT,
TWEAK!!”
“What does that mean?”, he questioned probably genuinely
shocked and concerned what a modern day children’s book was teaching kids 2
generations below than his.
“It doesn’t mean anything. It’s nonsense….. In fact even
Harry Potter thinks that the headmaster is mad”, I said and burst out laughing.
Then suddenly, I saw my granddad (who had all kinds of drips/needles
poked into his body) roar with laughter after ages. I think the both of us
laughed together for a good few minutes till we were light headed. And then he
proceeded to passionately tell me about his Enid Blyton, Agatha Christie books
he had read as a child.
Even as a kid, I could make out how something as small
as me uttering some gibberish words of a Harry Potter book miraculously brought
a bit of cheer to him (even if it was just for a short while) at a time when he
was in such pain. I look back at this
beautiful grandfather – granddaughter moment almost 2 decades old with
great fondness and affection and this by far will always be my favourite #20yearsofHarryPotter
moment.
