Harry Potter and the Ageing Millennial
What’s it like to revisit The Boy Who Lived 25 years after we first met?
Anniversaries are strange things. They almost always make you reflective and wistful rather than celebratory. Take this new affront to millennials; it’s been twenty-five years since the first Harry Potter book was released, introducing a generation to the delights of fantasy, and, on a larger imaginative plane, changing childhood forever. Expelliarmus, you insidious weapons of time!
There’s a Voldemort on my mouse pad
NOW OLD ENOUGH TO SEND OUR OWN KIDS TO HOGWARTS, WE STILL SECRETLY DREAM OF ATTENDING THE CHARMED SCHOOL
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone came out when I was 16, the age when all sorts of exciting things are supposed to happen to you like first love, vodka shots and rock concerts.
My teenage self was kicked by the personal connection I shared with what is now known as the Potterverse: Harry (and JK Rowling) and I share a birthday. I enjoyed the awe and admiration I received from Potterheads for this random gift of chance. It was my own, notional lightening scar on the forehead. Further, Potter suffers headaches whenever Voldemort is near. As a veteran migraine sufferer, perhaps my own pain is connected to the proximity of dark forces, gaining in strength as we speak.
The boomers had their Beatles and Brandos; we had Harry Potter and Friends. Pop culture both reflects and influences public taste. As the liberalisation-bearing ’90s came to a close, a generation of Indians felt part of the global cultural scene more intimately than any of their predecessors. What this actually translated to was reams of merchandise, largely unlicensed, teleporting Harry, Ron and Hermione into our lives. There they were, badly colour-collected cutouts, wielding their wands as we wiped ourselves dry with a towel or drank too-sweet cold coffee out of a cup. The grunge kids, with their black tees and Iron Maiden posters, weren’t happy.
Fantastically flogged franchise
Harry Potter is now so much a part of our collective memory, it’s stopped mattering what we individually think about the characters or the series. Like death and taxes, the franchise is unavoidable. I stopped reading the books after the fourth installment; if I were to commit to a doorstopper of a novel, it would be Tolstoy, not Rowling, I sanctimoniously decided. More importantly, the films were starting to get good. The quidditch sequences were a good indicator of how far the films had come. Everything looked more believable, which is all you need of a make-believe world. And how to resist Hagrid’s rough charms and Dumbledore’s comforting sageness brought splendidly to life by Robbie Coltrane and Michael Gambon, respectively?
The trio of Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint is an unassailable force that’s carried the films through. Harry’s vulnerability, Hermione’s focus and Ron’s bumbling have all been
explored and exploited, till there was nowhere left to go. And so, the Fantastic Beasts franchise apparated, to use a Hogwarts term. The first film was seductive, with Eddie Redmayne’s disarming Newt Scamander weaving a fresh spell. Then came the Johnny Deppdominated sequel: intense and interesting. The latest in the series, where Jude Law brings young Dumbledore, and his homosexuality, to life, seemed forced and confused. Perhaps it’s time to leave the fantastically flogged beasts alone.
Co-star and coaster
Watching the Harry Potter 20th Anniversary: Return to Hogwarts was not exactly the time travel one hoped for, with meagre nostalgic delights, much like the Friends: The Reunion, which released last year. But watch it one must, if only to giggle at Radcliffe confessing to having had a crush on the monumentally weird Helena Bonham Carter (Bellatrix Lestrange in the movies). “Dear HBC,” he said reading out an old note on the reunion special in her presence. “It was a pleasure being your co-star and coaster in the fact I always ended up holding your coffee.” Trying hard to be a word wizard there, and not entirely failing.
The trippy Alice in Wonderland books (published in 1865 and 1871) broke Victorian taboos and expectations with their still-unmatched quirkiness. The Lord of the Rings (written between 1937 and 1949) was an escape from World War II darkness into a realm of epic adventure. Along with neon colours and cable TV, ’90s kids were gifted Harry Potter, a hero who doesn’t look or feel heroic. Now old enough to send our own kids to Hogwarts, we still secretly dream of attending the charmed school. If only the muggles would stop dragging us down.