Harry Potter: The Way of Living
My Hogwarts Letter ‘22, My Artwork
I placed the desk lamp a little closer to my journal. I turned on Hogwarts ambience music. I was writing down some to-do lists. After few minutes, I closed my journal. I placed one foot on the tiny ottoman and raised my hand to get the blue box from the top rack of my bookshelf. It was resting beside the Gryffindor edition of Harry Potter series. I opened the box and the golden ‘Time Turner’ came out.
Should I give it some turns?
Some Years Back:
I peeked out from our balcony; looked down by the road. It was probably the 122nd time. And I asked my father, “When will it come?” for the 275th time. Each time my father nodded and said, “Soon!” Finally, after my thousand rounds up from my room to hall to balcony again to hall, our door bell rang. My first Harry Potter book finally came with the famous book-uncle. He used to deliver my father’s Law books.
Few days back, when I asked him like my father, “Here I have written down the name. Will you bring this?”
He looked at my parents and smiled. On my 9th birthday, I got that special order. Simply, I kind of booked a muggle seat and I started off my days towards Hogwarts Express. Months before, when I actually got the ‘vibe’ to become a Potterhead, “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” was already released in theatres and the next one was around the corner. I literally wanted to see the films before putting my head in the books. But I had to go through with a sort of a deal. I sobbed a bit and finally agreed with my parents, kind of clasped my hands for an ‘unbreakable vow’, “I’ll read the books and then gonna watch the films...Promise.”
Firstly, after reading some chapters I was convinced that I am not Harry or Ron, I am Hermione. And to my surprise, my friends were convinced too (before that they never agreed to give me any sensible fictional name). They started calling me ‘Mione’. Even in my first knitting class, I chose red and yellow colours to make my first muffler. Finally, the series fizzed my days with a charming wind chime like melody. The ‘Gryffindorian me’ nurtured every possible ideology that Hermione would consider superior, even every ‘insufferable know-it-all’ kind of attributes.
Few years later after ‘Some Years Back’:
I was going through a major Wizardry identity issue in my late teenage years. I was becoming like Harry. I had glasses. I had terrible nightmares. I felt as if I was heading towards some unprecedented troubles. I was kind of surrounded by some ‘muggly’ dark people in my campus life; and unfortunately I had to find some muggle ways to deal. On one terrible rainy afternoon, when I was trying to hold my dribbling umbrella at the footpath of famous College Street, everything looked blurry and hazy. I ran the last part of my walking spree and rushed into the metro station. I sighed and groped around my ‘Marauder’s map themed’ bag pack, looking for my travel card. I swiped my card and slowly walked by the platform. It was not at all a good day. I scribbled all day; classes were like going to the ‘downturn’ road to catch some devilish Cornish Pixies! Everything looked quotidian; nothing was magical. I was kind of pulled back to 4, Privet Drive where nothing was amicable.
Where are these great Witches and Wizards? Only in the Hogwarts hall or in Hagrid’s Hut or in Weasley’s Burrow or in the headquarters of the Order of Phoenix? Not really.
Somewhere we know where they are... We, the readers, the believers, the cast and crew of the series, and J.K. Rowling, the creator; perhaps we all know. We know what those secret cells of our hearts wish; how those magical spells stay with us; and where we all belong. We individually made that possible for each one of us to allow that magic to come to our muggle world.
But what made me search for my identity in the midst of the bustling days? Who cares if I feel like Harry or Hermione or Ron? Even someone will probably say, “You have grown up; now you know ‘fiction’ (an insipid word); You know how to analyze ‘plots’; You have studied literature, film studies, political science and other numerous ‘real’ subjects, You know ‘real’ dilemmas.”
But what is the remedy for our inner-conflict? I know my internal changes that now I resemble more to Harry; but I also know that the past Hermione in me would assist the new Harry to connect the hidden and faded dots. Maybe after some years, my inner world would resemble more with Ron, or with Luna, or with Dumbledore, or perhaps I could behave like Hermione again. But eventually these transitions will help us to grow from within. Sometime the inner-battle does look greyish, where our light and dark side squeeze us to forget the exquisite inner-magic. Then Dumbledore’s words come to the rescue, “Harry, it isn’t how you are alike. It’s how you are not.”
The inner love keeps the light lit up in us to burn the ‘not-so-me’ dark side even if everything may look unresolved. I call that light Ina*.
Ina can come if the childhood promises that each one of us had vowed once, could return back to us. We can send the famous Hogwarts letter of acceptance to us. But only when the inner-love will realize the transition from the daily list of expectations to the place where simply each one of our hearts will shout, “I have allowed myself to glow under my inner-light.”
We just need the confidence to look away from ‘The Mirror of Erised’. We all have the power to build those treasures of special vaults. Not in Gringotts but in our moments.
(*In Sanskrit, Ina (इन).—a. means determined or anything that is powerful.)