27 Jun 2017 | 07:59am IST
20 years later, the boy lives on
The tales of Harry Potter, ‘the boy who lived’, turned 20 yesterday, Monday, June 26. Café speaks to some fans of the series on the occasion
Team Café
It’s been just about two decades since
Harry Potter first emerged from the cupboard under the stairs, with the release
of ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone’ (renamed ‘…Sorcerer’s Stone’ for
the American market), the first of seven wizarding books in a series that sold
450 million copies in 79 languages and sparked a seven billion dollar movie
franchise.
Monday, June 26, 2017, marked a day to
celebrate The Boy Who Lived, who was singled out by Lord Voldemort at birth to
be his greatest rival. In the process, he turned out to be the hero of his
readers, and yesterday, the Harry Potter novels by author J K Rowling completed
20 years of their first episode. It marked the beginning of the success of then
near-penniless single mother, Rowling, who finally burst onto the scene, after
a series of rebuffs from publishers, with the book becoming the first
instalment of a seven-novel series.
Café speaks to Potterheads in Goa,
asking how the series redefined reading for the generation that grew up with
tales of the boy wizard and his magical adventures:
For me personally, as a kid, Harry
Potter was a gateway to a whole new world. It truly was my Platform 9 ¾, into
the world of fantasy reading; and the best part was the entire franchise even
continued to inspire me later in life, when I chose to be a filmmaker. The way
the films have been made...although the book fans complain about it, the scale
and the visuals of them, are really what continues to inspire thousands in the
business.
Harsh Hede
The Harry Potter series has played one
of the most influential roles in shaping my life, from a pop culture point of
view; right from reading the books, to the movies, to the videogames. The great
thing about the Harry Potter series is that as we grew, so did the characters;
as we became mature, so did they, and that was one of the most important
factors to a lot of fans connecting to the series. I'm glad that J K Rowling
has decided to extend the universe with the ‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find
Them’ series, and that means that we fans who grew up watching, can still
continue to enjoy the magical world as full-grown adults.
Akio Fernandes
