Harry Potter for REAL!

As I surfed through the internet this afternoon, checking out sites I usually follow, I noticed mention of a new Harry Potter fan site on J.K.Rowling’s Official Website called The HP Alliance.It isn’t very surprising, judging by the Harry Potter Series’ popularity, that an alarming number of extremely popular fan sites are still flourishing even though the last installment of the 7 book series came out on 21st July, 2007.

JKR, on her website used to announce Fan Site awards every month to the the most popular or informative Harry Potter related websites.

The author writes herself about The HP Alliance on her website, “HP Alliance(as mentioned in Time Magazine!) I am honoured and humbled that Harry’s name has been given to such an extraordinary campaign which really does exemplify the values for which Dumbledore’s Army fought in the books. To Andrew and all the others who work on this inspirational website: the world needs more people like you!”

After checking out the site for myself, I was compelled to share her views myself. It’s quite a unique website. The website compares modern day social issues with those seen in the Wizarding world, and aims at establishing a worldwide internet campaign to resolve most societal crises involving racial or any other forms of discrimination, poverty, basic environmental, health and sex related issues as well as what they call the Muggle Mindset, or our unrelenting tendency of shunning anything out of the ordinary or even slightly devious from the normal.

The website in its About Us states the following as its major issues:

* Genocide, Poverty, AIDS, and Global Warming are ignored by our media and governments the way Voldemort’s return is ignored by the Ministry and Daily Prophet.
* People are still discriminated against based on sexuality, race, class, religion, gender, ethnicity, and religion just as the Wizarding World continues to discriminate against Centaurs, Giants, House Elves, Half-Bloods, Muggle borns, Squibs, and Muggles
* Our governments continue to respond to terror by torturing prisoners (often without trial) just as Sirius Black was tortured by dementors with no trial
* A Muggle Mindset pervades over our culture-a mindset that values being “perfectly normal, thank you very much” over being interesting, original, loving, and creative

Among other interesting features the site has its own line of sweatshop-free, American made HPA T-shirts for women.

The initiatives taken include:
* Rock out with ten awesome Wizard Rock bands to take action against media consolidation in the world!
* Recently the Harry Potter community raised over $6000 to protect well over 1600 women from being raped in Darfur.
*HPA Social Networks

They have a forum to discuss issues that connect their lives with that of Harry Potter, on the books, their myths and fan-dom, and most importantly HP Alliance Chapters, which are basically important issues and social stigmas which according to the Alliance members require the immediate attention of responsible citizens of our planet.

As a Harry Potter worshipper and a major fan of the books, JKR, and my planet Earth, this website came as quite a pleasant surprise. According to me, it is innovations such as these that will be responsible in bringing about a wave of change. Society today is horribly mangled. Mauled by its own discrepancies and dogmas, it will take a diligent and persistent effort on the parts of all those embodying it to establish a better world.

Joanne Kathleen Rowling made an imaginary world out of words and papers. That world of spells, potions, charms, curses, jinxes and hexes is now teaching us how our own world with its missiles, WMDs, atom bombs and crazy radioactive technologies is just about the same as far as problems are concerned. We come across our Grindelwalds and Voldemorts every few decades, so what if they can’t fly without a little help from technology? They can prove to be just as dangerous(and they have). The earth also needs its own Dumbledore’s Army and its own Order of the Phoenix, it needs their sacrifices, and their efforts. We need millions of Harry Potters who can deal with their responsibilty of putting an end to war, to evil, to the Darkest of Arts. We need each other.

Colours & Songs: Holi 2008

With the festival of colours rounding the corner, it only seems natural to dedicate this post to my wonderful relationship with Holi.So, what new can I add to everything everybody already knows about this messy, wet and splashy festival? Good guess. Almost nothing.

Holi is about dry colour, liquid colour, pasty colour, sticky colour, dark colour, light colour, impossible-to-wash-off colour, harmful-to-the-skin colour, and in short, all kinds of colour! 😀

As is the case with most Hindu festivals, Holi also has its origins intricately woven with the threads of mythology. According to most popular beliefs, Holika was the shrewd, and in modern day terms, “vampish” sister of the self proclaimed God, King Hiranyakashipu. The king had a son, Prahalad, who alone out of all his subjects refused to acknowledge him as the Supreme Power and devoted himslef instead to the worship of Lord Vishnu. Infuriated with his son’s disregard of his wishes, he made many futile attempts to get the young Prahalad murdered. Ultimately a plot was hatched to have Holika-who had been gifted with a special shawl that prevented her from suffering any harm from fire- sit in a bonfire, with Prahalad on her lap. Inspite of their plan of having Prahalad perish in the fire while his aunt remained untouched by it, the boy’s incessant chanting of Lord Vishnu’s name reversed their destinies, and the wind blew the shawl onto Prahalad instead, protecting him from the flames while Holika was reduced to ashes.

As it brings along with it such a livewire of cheer, togetherness and activity, Holi has played a very important part in Hindi Cinema. Many Bollywood films have showcased Holi sequences, mostly in the form of immensely enjoyable songs and dances. Also, rarely has it been, that these sequences have not become, if not the highlight, then at least a very popular part of the film.

Some of my most favourite Holi songs date back to the fifties…

Saawariya: Why not?

Yes, so I finally come around to watching a film that released more than a quarter of a year ago. Now mind, this is not very surprising as far as I’m concerned. My hometown spans an area of about five miles, and positively brims with cinema houses one rushes to as soon as a work-free weekend presents itself. Alright, this here was a true lie, Roorkee, is definitely not more than five miles across in area but there’s not even a single watchable cinema house to boast of. I have of course had the pleasure of accompanying a dog once, to an afternoon show of Baghban. As much as I didn’t like the conspicuous absence of Salman Khan from most of the film, watching a film with a stray dog, having at last painstakingly found four consecutive seats in the third row put me quite off, and I can’t quite remember venturing out to watch a film in a theatre in Roorkee again.So, having strayed enough from the point, I come back to my real reason of creating this post.

Saawariya, the film, released on November 9th, 2007. Produced, written and directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali(of Khamoshi, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, Devdas and Black fame) it was widely touted as the launch vehicle of Ranbir Rishi Kapoor. The Kapoor scion-the only actual male member of his family, after his father Rishi Kapoor, to actually foray into the family business. Apart from Ranbir, the film also marked the entry of another star kid, Sonam Kapoor, daughter of the still raring to go, and shockingly versatile actor, Anil Kapoor.

Amidst all the hype and the controversies regarding the Censor Board and the ‘Dropped Taulia’, the film released, and much to the shock of the huge film industry, on the same day as Shah Rukh Khan released his home production, produced by wife Gauri Khan, directed by co-best friend(it is widely known that Karan Johar is also a co-best friend) Farah Khan, and resting soundly on the newly six-packed abs of the King Khan himself, Om Shanti Om. So, what did we expect? Fireworks? Both films smashing box office records? An unheard of success of both the simultaneously releasing multi million projects? Yeah well, for all of us who did expect all to be okay in the end, we were in for quite a boulder(or for all the Harry Potter addicts- a bludger) to our heads.

Come Roaming With Me

“Out of the city and over the hill,
into the space where time stands still,
When the dew on the grass is fresh
every morn, and the peach and the pear,
still the sweetest of fruit, cast away all care
and come roaming with me, where the grass
is still green and the air is still free!”

-RUSKIN BOND

Nature is captivating, and its bounties, bedazzling. Life in India, makes me cognizant of the truth, that nature spells calmness, serenity and tranquility, nature is God. Its essence lies in every Indian’s heart, for we can find it in every field and forest, every mountain and river, every city and town we transverse. Collecting seashells on the strands of Goa, the rivers depicting the timelessness of India, the vibrant colorfulness of Rajasthan, the riches of the Sunderbans, the proliferation of the Terai and of course the pristine beauty and grandeur of the Himalayas, all picturise the beauty of God’s solemn creativity. Nature as i see it, is the descent of the Ganges, the road to Badrinath, Mathura’s hallowed haunts

CONTACT

“Standing over humans, gods and demons, subsuming Caretakers and Tunnel builders, there is an intelligence that antedates the universe.”

– Carl Sagan, CONTACT

One book that has left a deep, possibly perpetual impact on my mind, is one of the greatest cosmic adventures of all time, Carl Sagan’s bestseller, Contact.

The book made me sit back and reflect on some of the most ambiguous, tantalizingly profound, yet, still to be unravelled mysteries that ever caught the attention of us, terrestrials.