Happy Birthday J K Rowling and Harry Potter...

Thank you Jo for giving us Harry, the wonderful journey and the lovely memories. Check out more Potter history here: http://www.floo-network.org/#history

I can't resist a little recap of my own journey with the book/movies. I was first introduced to Harry's world thru the movie - 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone' when I was in college. I distinctly remember the Thanksgiving weekend movie and the tons of chidren who lined up to buy tickets! At that time the bug hadn't bitten me; the movie seemed just to be a sweet children's movie with a happy ending. I had no idea that some of the later books in the series were already out! My next meeting with Potter was in 2006 on a flight to San Francisco when I watched the second, third and fourth movie. It was then that the bug had bit me! Between April and June of 2006, I had read all six books, found mugglenet, leaky-cauldron, jkrowling.com and the many other Potter-dedicated sites, and joined the millions of fans waiting for the seventh installment. Enough about me, more happy stuff today.

And Happy win for Indian cricket team at the Trent Bridge test match!

Some quick musings on the test match: it was nice to see Zaheer Khan's quality bowling, Michael Vaughon's fighting innings, and Sreeshant's spirit. Nice to see an attacking sub-continent bowler, very different from the tame Javagal Srinath and composed Kumble! Also entertainng was the little incident between Pieterson and Sreeshant which turned into an accepted apology (as far as KP was concerned). Loved Pieterson's attitude there. He's a class act!

Back to the Potter Mania: much has happened since July 21st. Jo has answered several questions about the futures of the the trio n the different interviews and what not. Check out mugglenet.com. You can't miss any Potter news if you check mugglenet (with due respects to other Potter-dedicated sites). Also at mugglenet is a transcript of all the questions fans got to ask on live-chat; there were 120000 questions! Can you believe that? Unfortunately (and as one would expect) not all were answered, but I think we can get a good sense of closure. One of the questions I was dying to ask:
- What happened to the charecter who does magic late in life
Fortunately for me, someone else asked that; Jo's answer: she changed her mind about that. Though, I think that character would have been Dudley!

Meanwhile, amazon search reveals that another Writing book that's been raved about is Francine Prose's 'Reading Like a Writer'.

Can't wait to get my hands on this!

Ciao for now!

Last Minute Harry Potter Predictions - ** No Spoilers**

Yes, the fever is at its peak now, a little under a day left for the release of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". So I thought I'd make my last minute predictions for the ending. If you are worried about spoilers, no I won't write about them in this post, primarily because I have no first-hand info, nor do I believe some of the stuff that I accidentally came across on the web.

So, off to business:

1. Will Harry bite the dust?

No, I don't think so. I think he will live, at least physically, but there will be something that saps the essence of what we know to be Harry Potter. I think this can happen in one of two (if not more) ways:

a) Harry will live, but with the loss of his magical ability. Maybe he will be forced to choose between loss of his magical ability and life at the cost of letting Voldemort live. Maybe he is a horcrux, but the part of him that will survive when he or someone else tries to kill him will be a Harry sans his wizarding abilities; alternately, maybe Harry himself is not a horcrux but looses his magic as he destroys the last one. In this case, Harry loses the happiness of being part of the enviroment that he has loved (the magical world), and will be confined to being a Squib in magical world or a miserably unhappy Muggle.

b) Harry will live with the guilt of murder. (See #2 for more). Taking of the life of someone, even if it is that of one as evil as Voldemort, can leave an indelible scar on "pure souls"; this seems reminiscent of Frodo, who lives on with the guilt of having performed the big "no-no" deed wrt the Ring (in The Lord of the Rings). Will Rowling have gone this way? I think not- its too 'paralellistic' to Tolkien's ending.

2. How will Voldemort die? (Yeah, I do believe he will die in some way or the other)

a)Harry '"Avada Kedavra"'s him, leading him to a guilty "life after" (as in #1 b)
b) Harry doesn't use the forbidden spell, but something done by a Death Eater might backfire from Harry's wand; or he might be inadvertently used in the process of Voldemort's final fall. Again, many classics have the theme of '..evil will shall evil mar'.

3. Is Snape evil?
No, I think he is good, or will turn out to be one in book 7, but it may not be the simple case of him being Dumbledore's man through and through. He might still have had contact with/conspired with Death Eaters until some point in the series (book 4, 6?)

4. Who won't make it?
Remember Rowling said something about a blood bath. Here are my guesses:
- Hagrid
- Ginny
- Buckbeak
- Grawp
- One more of the Weasleys (other than Ron)
- Dobby
- Lupin or Tonks

That'll be all for now. Anyway, we will all know tomorrow.