Hogwarts, Why U no Real?!!

I still remember the first time I saw Harry Potter movie. It was childish tale and I remember thinking "really! All that buzz for this movie?". I was far from being impressed. Later on, when I was forced to watch this movie half-a-dozen times (blame too much time and new dvd player) it slowly started to make more sense to me.

The part that I liked the most was the whole journey of discovering a new world, an alternate reality that one can escape to. A place filled with magic and monsters, and Hogwarts. It was a place of dreams. I still remember how beautiful Hogwarts looked the first time they showed it.  

 

And there was the great hall with hundreds of candles floating in the air, the roof that reflected the sky. Often I've wondered how it would be to walk the corridors of Hogwarts with Ron and Hermione and take all the magic classes, or sit next to the lake or go to the Astronomy tower, or maybe even sneak off to Hagrid's hut in the night.

The more I thought about the place, the more I fell in love with it. Even though I was aware that this place is not real, I against all logic and sense hoped that it was. Many times I so desperately hoped that it existed, and someday I could go to that place. If I was in London, I would have gone to King's Cross station and ran into the wall (twice, just to make sure).

I was in love with a place that I couldn't goto, and it was starting to play with my mind. At some point  I decided to stop thinking about it, and kept away from all things Harry Potter. It was just too depressing and it was dragging my mood down.

Many years have passed since then, I still love that place just as much as I did then. But somewhere along the way I started to wonder what magic meant to me. I was so used to seeing somebody waving a wand and uttering a spell, but that is not what appealed to me. It was what would happen afterwards, something that would defy my belief, when something beyond my imagination would happen.

Think about something like email. I can send a message to someone living half way across the world in an instant. We understand the technology, so it seems straight forward to us, but the first time we saw it we would have believed if they told it was magic. Levitation was one of my favorite spell. Imagine we can levitate an entire train and make it go at 300kmph (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev). The wizard community is obsessed with inventing a self-spelling wand, and the muggle community with an invention that can make other inventions. They fly with broomsticks and we with planes. They have Apparition and we have a teleportation device (well not quite. But I have the best minds I know working on this one).

The point is that the world that I live in is just as magical and beautiful as any, may be a different kind, but its still is magic. There is always something that takes my breathe away.

As I think now, Hogwarts was in my school, college, at the place I work, and everywhere around me. Hogwarts was not meant to be a place that one would go to, it is the place we are already in. It is just like walking into platform nine and three quarter. Seeing the world from the other side, a different point of view. I was and am living a life I always yearned for, one with magic and adventure. I couldn’t realize it before because I was too busy concentrating on why the broomstick in my house wouldn't fly. Next time I hope to be more wiser in seeing things the right way.





Extended :

This is a nice little picture I found in the net. It is funny, but also a bit thought provoking. I doubt if the kids in the photo would have realized it when they were in class. (Probably its typical of any class, as there's almost always a guy with glasses).



If there is one thing from Hogwarts that I still yearn for, would be to know someone like Hermione. If I go by what this picture has thought me, may be there is already someone like that in my life and I haven't noticed yet. Just may be.. ;)