By Om Gupta, IANS
New Delhi : It was a morning drive instead of a walk. Not for a whiff of fresh air but for the smell of a fresh book that was creating a phenomenon called Pottermania that has gripped the world.
The drive was short, but the end result was frustrating. Many early risers were already in the queue. Perhaps they never went home last night. There was a sense of déjà vu. It was the same the world over – Harry Potter mania at everyone's doorstep.
All the major bookstores in Delhi had lined up 240,000 copies of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" to be sold Saturday, the day of the book's official release, better known as P-day. Most of the buyers had done advance booking. Those who wanted a discount got it for Rs.730. The others paid Rs.975 and got comics worth Rs.400 free.
Publishing in India had not known such a phenomenon before.
Here, 300 copies of a book are usually sold in 30 years. A book is considered a bestseller after 1,000 copies have been sold.
As against this, 300 million copies of the seventh book of the Harry Potter series are out for sale in 200 countries. The previous six books of the series were translated in 48 languages across 200 countries. Harry Potter films have done a gross business of $34 billion. J.K. Rowling has changed the way we look at books.
Neha Gupta, a third year student of Mathematics Honours at St. Stephen's college, says she can relate to Harry and other characters of Rowling's books. Dealing with magic and wizards is like mathematic sums for her. She would be sad if Harry died in the concluding book but would reconcile with it because "it is a book after all".
Her friend Milind is an engineering student at Manipal, Karnataka. He says he doesn't find Pottermania contradictory to science or technology as many such books have turned out to be a precursor to scientific discoveries and inventions.
Mahima, a Class 10 student of DPS R.K. Puram was dying to go back home and start reading. She was in competition with her friends to finish it first. Last time, she lost by half an hour but this time she has brushed up her reading skills and is determined to win.
Meenakshi had come to report back to her daughter in the US about the hype in India. She had already got a copy and finished it but was keen to know about the excitement in India where she had grown up.
Chaudhry Davinder Singh, who runs a milk shop doesn't know the H of Harry Potter but had accompanied his son to buy a copy. He was happy to see his son standing in the queue and excited about his turn.
Another buyer, Neelima, compared the enthusiasm with the craze around Beatles when she was young. It's all the same although the times and characters have changed.
We drove back in pin drop silence as my son had already finished 10 pages and didn't want to be disturbed. We reached home to find television channels hitching a piggy ride on Potter.
Suddenly, my son shouted: "They can't do that. They are reading the book backwards and revealing who actually died." He was already furious over the New York Times review counting the dead in the book. Poor children don't know that the media plays its own games with readers.