Big Harry Fan?

Though I was not one of those fans of Harry Potter, I watched all of the films after having watched the fifth film on Friday. Being eager to know the ending, I bought the latest book which was released on Saturday and went through half of the book.

One thing I am sure is that I can enjoy the plot the moment I read or watch but I still think I cannot call it great literature or anything. I admit that it is really well made in terms of marketing. Harry had a crush on the Chinese girl which is targeted at the huge Chinese market. There are girls who look obviously Indian or South Asian origin, it also has huge market.

I still believe books like Michael Ende (who wrote Momo and The Never Ending Story: ) contains a lot of important message of the life based on deep insights of the society, which Harry Potter does not provide. Yes, the friendship is important but we all know that.

Anyway, it is not my intention to criticize the book, in the end the series have made lots of people happy.

One article which interested me was “Harry Potter and the wizard of Bhopal” from Times of India (23rd July, 2007). Mr. Sudhir Dixit who is teaching English literature at some college in Bhopal has translated the series which are huge sell in India. He has translated the bestseller Who moved my cheese (yeah,,,I got one, too, hoping to get some clever tips of life). I admire his works which makes lots of people who do not know English can enjoy the book. In other words, he has been providing valuable opportunities to those people who have been deprived of chances of enjoying reading world famous or popular books just because they do not know English. Without someone who have translated those great works in Japanese, I would never be able to read them. However, Hindi speaking people should keep in their mind that it is not enough. For example, Momo is written in German. I think, those Hindi extremist should also focus on introducing world literature to Hindi speaking people not only focusing on writing something in Hindi….which seems to me always about some kind of sangarsh……