How do you know what you want to be, unless you do nothing different than what you are doing? If only there was a 10-ways to do that tip or Hagrid coming up and telling, you are a wizard kind of reality.
I am at a stage in life where I have been-in for three to four years now. The age of wonderment at all that exists; all of it so vast and expansive, such that no one person could experience it all even if they lived a hundred lives. There have been a lot of things which have captured my imagination and the latest bug I have been smitten by is the world of cinema and cinema making. The Dream Weavers.
The core of cinema is to capture what your eyes are seeing on a reel through a camera. But why do you need to capture it? Imagine there are actors performing on a stage, how many people are seeing it? Five hundred, thousand maybe. But capture it on a reel and broadcast it to the whole world and you are reaching millions. So the ability to broadcast is the key and could have led to the invention of cinema. Just a frivolous thought and I think saying it is belittling the technology behind cinema today, as cinema makers have gone a step ahead with technology. They not only capture what's in front of their eyes but create scenes on the reel which exist nowhere else in the world but in the movies which they create. That was the wonder I witnessed at Harry Potter Warner Bros. Studio Tour, the wonder of the world of Hogwarts.
To start with let me tell you a little bit about my relationship with Harry Potter.
I was in class seven, mind you I was not seven-could barely read then, when I chanced upon reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone. Now by this time which is in 2001, this book was already published five years ago, but now that I reflect and this corroborates with what I found on the internet with the critical acclaim and the buzz which this book was generating that year, it was not only acclaimed as a best seller there was also a movie which was being released of it. Wow, what a lucky person I am to have been right in the middle of it.
The book itself was magical. Harry, who despite being tortured and diminished by his guardians was the least insecure of kids. His only resignation in life was that he got everything second handed to him from Dudley. The plot is brilliant as Mr. Potter is not only a wizard but the most sought after wizard even before he knows it. It was like a compulsion-of forgetting all that he was (too much vampire diaries) was lifting off over him as Hagrid assured him that he was special. Oh and then the next part- I love J.K Rowling and Warner Bros. for it. First to J. K Rowling for having put in this freshness in her words on Harry's arrival to Hogwarts that when I imagine it, I feel excited and feel as if I have achieved the best thing in my life. Second to Warner Bros for having given my feeling and imagination, the exact picture of Harry reaching Hogwarts.
It was a beautiful age. By the time I reached the summer of 2002 I had finished reading four parts and had watched the two movies which were released, endless times. The summer holidays at Moradabad are memorable, with me re-reading the book in the car on the way there and then reaching Nani's(maternal grandmother) house only to find my cousins watching Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets on TV on cartoon network, barely appreciating the intricacies of the plot till then which I had to explain as I had read four books, imagine me shaking my head like Hermione does at Ron quite often when he doesn't understand things!
I used to get three month long winter break and there were times in my winter holidays where I had nothing to do and I didn't know what better to do on lazy winter afternoons than read my Harry Potter books. Papa had purchased me a set of all the books that year, which meant when I had read the four parts earlier they were read from books borrowed from my friends, my family was still catching up to my Harry Potter craze, so I had to make my books felt read. I would then head straight to the toilet, my safe haven, and sit there for hours devouring the pages like I was reading it for the first time and I would be so lost that it would take a shout and a cry from my grandmother and mother, who were looking all over the house for me, to jolt me out of my fantasy world. But I would not stop there, I would just find another corner and finish off the whole book by dinner. Yes, I have read a book in one afternoon and an evening and a half. That’s how crazy I was. Now here is one interesting memory that I didn't remember till recently, but apparently, my grand mother was so taken by this interest of mine that she asked me about the character and when she thought she liked it she even watched the movies with me in Hindi. I so so love her for it.
In all this I cannot forget to thank Papa for having made the experience so good for me. Over the years of the Harry Potter mania, he made sure that all the books from book number five to seven reached me as soon as it was released and all the movies that came he took me to watch them with my whole family. I loved every bit of it. There are two movie experiences which I remember.
This was in 2005, I had recently joined school in Delhi and the fourth movie was released. One day Mom, Dad and bros came to school to meet me, out of the blue. If that wasn't a surprise already, Papa had pre-booked the tickets for the movie at I-Max. At that time, it was the latest craze and from what I had heard the tickets were super expensive. Any who, the next thing I remember is my sheer joy of witnessing the glory of the Quidditch World Cup and the Triwizard Championship (My favourite movie of the lot). I don't think I cared that my whole family must have been pretty clueless about it but I do remember checking in on mom to see if she was finding the movie good and she said she was enjoying it because man, that was the movie to see in order to experience I-Max and the 3D stuff for real.
Then the second memory is of me in Gandhinagar two years later, starting college. Papa had come to drop me off. I was so nervous and had such a sinking feeling in my stomach that I didn't want him to go. So he stayed the night and took me to watch the recently released part five of the movie. Both of us total strangers in this new place and he found were it was showing and took me for it. I remember he was so tired, that while I ravenously watched each scene echo the memories from the book, he quietly dozed off. Love you papa for all this.
And to top it, it so happened within two weeks of me joining college, the seventh and the last part of Harry Potter book series was released. Now I found the Harry Potter enthusiasts in a jiffy and one of them had the book, mine was still in transit. Man, what a queue there was for her. We would ask her if she could give it to us when she was sleeping at night and then two or maybe even three of us would read out of the same book, each at a different place in the book and holding up pages to let everyone read.
Phew! What joy! Well that’s as far as my memories go on this and I am sure there are loads more that are locked away somewhere, but this book holds a very special corner in my heart. Especially because I grew up as the characters in the books grew up and the movies helped me make the journeys real.
So there I was sitting in a Mc Donald’s in London, charging up my phone, in the middle of the month, in the middle of the week and in the middle of the day (too much surdness), not knowing what to do in this awesome, vibrant, glowing city; when a thought struck me to check on the availability of the Harry Potter tour. I had checked on it earlier and it was all booked. To my surprise it was all there, available!! A tour was starting in no less than three hours and I was nowhere near where I needed to be in three hours. So I mobilized myself as quickly as possible and reached my childhood (and a bit of adulthood) fantasy land, which mind you, blew away my matured, grown, aware-of-no-magical-world-existing self. Really Really wonderstruck!!
P.S- Below are a few pics from the tour.
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