HP-NH-HG-EW-HD

Well, well, well, before I break your head with acronyms, three out of the five refer to the same topic. I am referring to the Harry Potter (HP) series, which had readers hooked all over the world, thanks to JK Rowling. What really pleased me was the fact that there was so much anticipation, that kids and adults alike had lined up stores at midnight to procure the first copy of the book. That really is a good step and it was good to see people give so much importance to literature instead of other trivialities.

I read the books after a long time, actually, really long. After the final edition of the series had come out, I took up to Harry Potter reading. I just wanted to know what was there in the book that people were going crazy about. I read the six books in about two or three weeks time, in between office and household chores. I don't know why, but I could never take out time to read it over the weekends. There was a point when I was reading the fourth book that I felt really bored. That's when I realized that I shouldn't be reading it for the sake of reading, and so, took a break. The break did some good to me, as I came back to finish up the remaining three in a jiffy. I now have moved on to the seventh one of the series, and have just taken a break, since I have not liked it much till now. The break will hopefully help me read the book in a better frame of mind next week.

Being in Boston is just too good, in the sense that access to books and movies have never been easier. We have the Woburn Public Library and the Burlington Public Library which has a huge collection of books and movies. It is just wonderful to go to these libraries and spend time borrowing what you want. That's where I could get the first four parts of the movie collection pertaining to Harry Potter. To be honest, the movies have done commendable justice to the books. I just don't understand when people tell me that the movies are not as good as the books. I just have to tell these people that movies last only for two hours, while on an average, you read a Harry Potter book for close to 8 hours. So, that makes a big difference. I could really identify the book through the movie. It was a pleasant experience to watch the movies. It was as well depicted as it could be. Obviously, there were certain scenes that were edited, but then as I said earlier, it is not an easy task to compress eight hours of matter into two hours.

OK! I loved the movie and in particular, I loved Emma Watson (EW), who plays the role of Hermione Granger (HG). HG impressed me in the book as well, and in the movie, it was fittingly played out by a charming young lady. One of the moments that will remain with me for a long time - EW coming out with Victor Krum to the Yule Ball to me is the highlight of the series. She was stunning, an adjective that can be magnified to unexplainable proportions to describe her beauty on screen. The cute innocence combined with absolute grace and charm led me and Sameer to rewind that scene again and again and again (well it can go on!). Maybe that goes to show why I got up in the middle of the night and was hoping to find EW(HG) somewhere within my proximity. Don't ask me what I was dreaming about! EW, if you ever happen to hit upon this page, please let me know (that's optimism!!!)!!!!

Coming away from Emma Watson, the next two days were spent in the Muggle world. Saturday was a great day with sunshine all around. A perfect day to go out, and out we (Sameer, Siddharth, Shubhika and I) went to New Hampshire (NH) to see the fall colors. The drive was perfect (ask everyone who was driving), in particular the drive on Highway 112 was brilliant. We stopped at various points to capture many different shots on different trails.

Soon, Sunday it was and I went with Kumar to a Telugu (one of my favorite Indian languages) movie, Happy Days (HD), a movie that was a stark contrast to the one we had seen a couple of weeks back. A pleasant college love story, and it just gave me some time to introspect. Could this really be a college, and where had I been during my Engineering days? A question, which I was quick to dismiss before I even could allot some time to it. Some things are best left forgotten! But, the movie was really pleasant with good music and a sense of feel good factor. I just came out of the theater thinking about the good days in Engineering and of course, the fun moments at Rolla (obviously it has to be mentioned!).

So, am just managing to squeeze out time for various things over the week. Let's see how long I can carry this with me.

(Images in this post are used for information purpose only)