RELIVING CHILDHOOD FRIENDS....HARRY, RON, HERMOINE!!!!

very few things in my life are as synonmous to my adolescence as the harry potter books. had i been one of those friendless people, harry, ron and hermoine would have been my best friends in the world. well, they still are my 2nd closest friends who have seen me through my growing up days. no evenings were boring with them and no holidays lonely and 800 pages were too less to be a part of their adventures and sinister plots, their triumphs and the quest to save the world from the evilest of all, lord voldemort.

the magic world of hogwarts appealed to me as no other place did and the years between standard 8 and 12 were spent reading the books again and again and again until i could actually rattle of the facts in my sleep. the hogwarts express, the quidditch practices, harry's squabble with the dursleys, ron's cheek and hermoine's love for rules had us standing in line outside universal book depot at 11 in the night to take home the order of the phoenix and at 8 in the morning in case of the half blood prince.

what i loved most about the books apart from the story was j.k rowling's formation of every character. the stability and growth of each and every character throughout the 7 part series is truly incredible. harry's valour and selflessness, ron's sarcasm and carelessness, hermoine's love for her friends do not change throughout the series and you can actually feel the characters maturing with each passing year. you could actually feel being a part of their lives. you love and hate the characters with the same intesity as harry did. every reader loved to hate severus snape as much as they loved to love hagrid's kindness or fred and george's pranks or being as repelled by the dementors as harry was.

why i love these books so much? its simple. its because they were a part of my growing up process. my friends and i looked forward to school so that we could discuss the adventures of ron, harry and hermoine with each other. debates, discussions and competitions to see who could read it the most number of times (in which i won hands down....i have read all the parts more than 30 times each, which makes it 210 times altogether :D) were a part of the package. the style of prose played a huge formative role in our spoken language. the use of catchy phrases and slangs in order to sound cooler was borrowed from j.k rowling. and i am truly glad and filled with joy that harry potter is as much a part of my teenage years as enid blyton defines my childhood.

thank you j.k rowling for giving us harry potter, ron weasely and hermoine granger.