Episode 357 : Harry Potter and the Search

While watching the movie Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, it dawned on me that I was yet to read all the books in the Harry Potter series. The last book I read was the Order of the Phoenix, and I vaguely remembered going through the Half-blood Prince e-book before I gave up on it completely.

After purchasing the box set, I waited for the year to end. You see, I wanted to know how long I would take to finish all the books, and, given my slow pace of reading, I expected to finish all of them by June. And it is easy to remember the date if you start reading on the first day of the following year.

I began reading The Philosopher's Stone on January 1st. I finished it the same day.

I then started on The Chamber of Secrets on January 3rd. I finished it the same day.

Suddenly, I was seized by an obsession to finish reading each book so that I could get started on the next. Was it the plot, was it J. K. Rowling's writing, or was it just an obsession to see how quickly I could finish reading all the books? It seemed that I had unwittingly set off on a challenge to finish reading all the books within two weeks.

Meanwhile, Anna was convinced that I was just flipping the pages and not really paying attention to the story. It did not matter that I could repeat the sub-plots of the story a few days later.

On January 12th, a little after 2am, I finished The Deathly Hallows. It had taken me twelve days to finish reading all of them, of which two days went by without reading a single word.

I felt aimless the next couple of days, as I struggled to come to terms with the lack of anything exciting to do. And that was when I realised that while I still had the odd motorcycling trip, I was missing a hobby- something that I looked forward to laying my hands on, the moment I entered home.

In the end, I suppose what keeps one alive is one such hobby that challenges you daily, and makes you daydream when you have got to be doing that which earns your daily bread.