The end of the world...

SOCIETY

This column was supposed to be about other things but with Mumbai now weighing on all our minds and hearts, it is quite impossible to talk - or think - of anything else. So, let me begin with... well, Harry Potter.

Amongst Barrack Obama’s favourite reads is, apparently, Potter, J K Rowling’s series about the “boy who lived” and set the world of magic in order — something that we can now only hope will (magically) happen in our lives too. We can only guess as to why Obama prefers this genre of story-telling. But, for me, Potter is a favourite not just because this is escapist fiction at its best.

Whatever you say about Rowling’s literary merit, the kind of comfort that I have been deriving from this series — re-reading each of the books — is akin to what other people would perhaps get from reading their respective holy books; the Ramayan, the New Testament, or whatever else. And here’s why:

At the end of the day, Potter’s is a heroic tale with a definite set of morals: That love is more powerful than magic, that goodness and friendship will triumph in the end no matter what, and that the weakest and the oddest can triumph over the more skilled and powerful if only they have the courage to go on. Above all, the most comforting thought inherent in this tale of heroic quest — as in all others of the genre — is the fact that a definite (and single) source of evil has been identified early on and the hero must journey to conquer that and set the world right for a happily-ever-after. If only our own lives were that simple.

Real life, of course, offers no such reprieves. People get killed senselessly, without purpose and for no larger cause than because they stepped out for dinner or coffee or for bhel puri at the wrong restaurant or café or beach at the wrong time. There are no supermen or towering figures of authority and integrity fighting battles, just cowering politicians, inept “public servants”, the venal and the power-hungry. And if this reads like a rant, it’s only because we don’t even have a patronus charm to drive away despair!

Going by the chain smses in the aftermath of the terror strikes in Mumbai, this sense of despair has gripped almost everyone. “We are living in a state of seige and fear, we can’t step out of our homes,” exclaims Pheroza Godrej when I call her up to talk about an art exhibition that she is associated with. And, in any case, it is unreal to talk of such things just now when everything seems to have fallen apart and going to the mall or to the cinema may just mean risking one’s life and limb.

In a conversation that summed up the mood a little before Diwali — just as sombre in the aftermath of the blasts in Delhi — Dr Aruna Broota, a Delhi-based psychologist, had told me about a client who had refused to go to his shop in a crowded market fearing more attacks. I had smirked at the psychosis. Now, anything seems possible. Christmas has come early and, clearly, Santa has brought us the wrong gift. Or, it could be the end of the world.