Potty about Potter? Not me…

The last one is out – finally the Potter series, and hopefully the hype and mania surrounding it, comes to an end. My son, like many of his generation, is on tenterhooks, but let me be honest – I, the avid reader, couldn’t get past about a quarter of the third book. No, Azbakan (sorry, Azkaban – I always get it wrong, much to my son’s chagrin) wasn’t boring – it was just too depressing. Life has this tendency to suck the happiness out of us – I don’t need the Dementors adding to the effect…

Maybe I’m too sensitive. I was watching the movie “Anjali” many years ago in a theater. The denouement was a suspenseful one – was the child protagonist really dead or would she revive? Everyone waited with baited breath. As it began to look hopeless, silent tears slid down my face. My kid sister, who was around eight at the time, noticed me surreptitiously trying to dab at my eyes. She shook my elbow and demanded in a loud, carrying voice, “Why are you crying?”. There were loud titters all around, turning what was essentially a tragedy into a comedy of sorts.

So you see, I’m a real sucker for sob stories in books and on film. (Not in real life, though. Somehow it’s very difficult to pull wool over my eyes, probably because most people are such lousy actors – their body language is a dead give-away).

But I digress. Harry Potter is not a children’s book series. They are too dark and somber even for an adult like me. I’d much rather have a good laugh.

© Sosha Srinivasan