nine and three quarters
One especially sweltering Saturday morning I woke up and figured I had nothing interesting lined up. The pool was undergoing repairs so a swim also was out of the question. That’s when my mom, who was sitting curled up in her favourite chair with her kindle, pointed to the book shelf. I ambled over and noticed a section full of Agatha Cristie books, another with P.G. Wodehouse, still another with Jhumpa Lahiri and some many other familiar sounding names. Finally a section with J.K. Rowlings. Hmm the covers looked like these could be books that younger readers might enjoy. Instinctively I picked up a book titled “Harry Potter and the Philosophers stone” which I found out was the first of the Harry Potter series. And that is how the journey began, Harry with his luggage trolley ran into into the pillar in the center of platforms 10 and 9 and landed on platform number nine and three quarters where the Hogwarts Express was waiting. The journey into the intriguing land of wizards and magic of friendships forged in the most most trying of circumstances and enemies vanquished in the most spectacular of duels had begun.
Once I had bitten the bait there was no stopping, I read all seven volumes almost on a trot, back to back to back with a breather in between for the first term assessments though I remember reading HP on the sly even when giving the FTEAs. Finally as I finished the last page of the last book that came out of J. K. Rowling’s pen I felt sad and wondered “this journey took me almost half an year to complete, I love the storytelling, wish there was more”. Later I read about the hardships that J.K.R. went through in her life before literally winning the lottery with Harry Potter and how it was just a matter of sticking to the plan, being gritty about making something work. I understood that to be able to craft such amazing fairytale like lives one had to stay the course and be patient. The journey was not just about the learnings from the HP books it was from JKRs life as well, I am so glad my mom pointed out the book shelf that summer morning.