How Hari Pathre Became Harry Potter

When People Go Potty Over Potter! - By Cyrus Broacha

The latest in the line of exciting Harry Potter stories is out. It’s called Harry Potter and the Something or the Other. Stories abound on the passion and love for Harry Potter amongst both readers and non readers. The non readers consist of people (mainly men) who want to marry Harry Potter, but can’t express their feelings in most countries for fear of being jailed.

The readers, on the other hand, have resorted to all kinds of desperate measures to lay their hands on the latest Harry Potter book. They’ve waited for nights in long queues. They’ve dressed themselves up as librarians, they’ve pretended to be at various times J.K. Rowling, her mom, Harry Potter, his mom, Mr Potter, Harry’s neighbour, Harry’s old English sheepdog, Harry’s briefcase, Harry’s hairy body part … the list is endless and all this just to cut the line and land the book, the latest one, Harry Potter and the Something or the Other.

While social scientists the world over agree that the Harry Potter stories are an unprecedented phenomenon, and today are collectively selling as well as the Aap Ka Saroor DVD and may eventually overtake the greatest video in living memory, Paris Hilton’s Evening in Paris, not many know the secret behind the origin of the Harry Potter species.

It goes back a long way and a trifle to the left.

Let’s go back to when J.K. Rowling was a young boy. He became a gorgeous unkempt woman much later as has been the practice in Western Europe. He loved to play o’er the vales and under the glades of a town close to Glamorgan which was called Stenton, or to give it its Welsh name, Kapariadughlahahah.

At age two, J.K. Rowling was playing marbles with his father when tragedy struck. His father ran out of marbles. However, turning to the forbearance and fortitude that won the British two World Wars, a football World Cup, and the right to banish the Spice Girls to America, father and son soldiered on looking under every inch of rock and hard places until they found a young boy who they mistook initially for a rock.

The boy had a funny accent, which must really count for something if it sounds funny to the Welsh. He had round rimmed spectacles and a haircut which would have made the Beatles proud, but would have cost him his briefcase and both his legs in Harlem. J.K. first befriended the boy and then promptly grabbed his marbles. This act, and ultimately the strongest bond amongst teenagers, mutual love for each other’s marbles, brought them closer.

The boy was the son of immigrants. His mother was Welsh and said to be rather large, a variable British Isle all by herself. His father was an immigrant from India, who named his firstborn son Hari Prasad Pathare. To fit into Welsh society, young Hari’s name evolved into Hallagh Wallahguhg Paththghyg. Which later turned to Hari Potter when he went on to become a male nurse in London.

Hari Pathare was an amazing kid with a keen imagination. He had a great feeling for fantasy. Proof of all this is in his three short stories left to us. The first is called "Ducks are Carnivorous" the second "The Field Mouse, the Frenchman and the Fornicator," and the third "Racism made Easy." Sadly, Hari Potter died early in tragic circumstances. One day while waiting at a bus stop, he literally missed the bus and got hit by a cab.

It is said that all J.K. Rowling works are just recreations of Hari’s militant mind. So today, as you go to the movie or purchase the book Harry Potter and the Something or the Other, don’t forget to raise a toast to the original. Here’s to Hallagh Wallahguhg Paththghyg … er, Hari Potter.

(Courtesy: The Asian Age)