The Beginning

So- when did it all start?

I think it was back when I was six that I had visited my paternal grandparents in Kolkata. It was a hot, humid and rainy summer and I had a pile of homework to complete. (Well, if making vegetable block prints and colouring in pictures of snails counts as homework, then yes- an absolutely massive pile). My father, on a break from his lab, had time to kill and so, in typical 'Dad' fashion plonked himself down in front of the old TV with his father and remained glued to it for the remainder of the two months. I think there was a cricket World Cup on and I blew raspberries at the screen in disgust.

There were two other occurrences that summer that I remember clearly.

The first was that my first tooth fell out while I made a gooey, sticky almond fudge.

And the second- I decided that Harry Potter was created to be despised.

This instant, powerful and violent dislike for Harry Potter stemmed from an irrational six-year-old mind.

And that was that.

Harry Potter could no longer be mentioned within my hearing. The consequences were... er, severe...

I spent the next summer in Hyderabad with my aunt. I don't know how she managed it, but she shoved the first book, 'Philosopher's Stone' into my hands and I began reading.

I still cannot put my finger on the exact moment that the Rowling's magic began working on me, but today, almost eight years later I'm still as spellbound.

Over the years, what was once something I admired from afar as a distant world of fantasy, has transformed into much more. The world that Rowling created is now as real to me as the world I live in.

I spew canon like it's facts from my own life. Relationships in my own family (owing to the positively enormous number of siblings both sets of my grandparents were blessed with) confuse me, but Potter relationships? Wake me at midnight and I'll tell you exactly how Great-Auntie Muriel is related to say, Hugo Weasley's sister-in-law's granddaughter.

It's that bad.

I remember that in third grade, Harry Potter had become such a huge obsession in school that we had Harry Potter quizzes (in which I did phenomenally well, no surprises!) we wrote to JKR begging her not to kill even a third of the Golden Trio. It was also the year my Mum confiscated the books and put them away for fear that I wouldn't read anything else.

I found a simple solution to that in two words- school library.

One week I'd issue The Goblet of Fire and be back two days later to issue The Prisoner of Azkaban and the next day to issue The Order of the Phoenix.

Mum soon gave up and returned the books to their rightful place- my bookshelf. All was well with the world. Except for the tiny fact that I had no idea what Rowling would do to the three people I had come to love as my own friends. She could choose to let them live or kill them with a flash of green light.

My life was in suspense- edge-of-your-seat, bite-your-nails-and-chew-on-your-fingers suspense.

I think my family had perfected the art of ignoring over the one year before Deathly Hallows was released. I think the wild theories I came up with, and repeated time and time again drove my family first to annoyance and then to a Zen-like state in which they could put up with each and every one of my long and detailed rants about the soon-to-come culmination of the series that had taken over my life.

Then came fourth grade, by which time thanks to my 'extensive' writing on Potter, JKR and fantasy, I was an 'established' writer- venerated all through the school. January to June flew by fast that year, but come July and time seemed to slow down. Dance classes, music lessons, homework and other less significant reading material did nothing to help me pass time.

Each second of the twenty-four hours of the thirty days before the seventh book released stretched out into seven thousand lifetimes. And I was getting progressively impatient with all the speculation in the media about the outcome of this final 'paving-slab' of a book. I think I was very difficult over that last month before the release of Deathly Hallows, and I'm sure Mum and Dad had a tough time keeping me out of my Grandma's hair.

Then the morning of 31 July, 2007 arrived.

Bright, sunny, and very cheerful- albeit muggy and humid. And the air seemed heavy with anticipation...

Author's Note: So? Reviews?