(From top) Simon Wilson with one of the winners at Oxford Bookstore; fans dressed as Harry Potter with a copy of the book at Crossword and a young fan displays Hedwig, the owl. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya and Anindya Shankar Ray

July 21 was an important day for all Harry Potter fans as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the last book of the Potter series, was unveiled. Almost all the city bookstores organised shows, competitions and events related to Harry Potter in the run-up to the release.

Oxford Bookstore, Park Street, hosted Potter Mania on July 21 to celebrate the launch of the book. Simon Wilson, the British deputy high commissioner in Calcutta, was present on the occasion.

He had the attention of young Potter fans when he began narrating J.K. Rowling’s success story saying that the “white owl had informed” him about the launch of the book.

Wilson emphasised that Rowling did not give up the successful series of the magical world of Hogwarts in the face of reversals in both personal and professional life. He also encouraged kids to use their latent talent, saying that he expected to see a lot of budding writers to come up.

A magic show by David Nobo was also organised. People dressed up as characters from the book caught the attention of children at the bookstore.

The prize distribution for the Spelling Bee and Magic Crayon competitions held at Oxford Bookstore Junior on July 8 followed the magic show.

Preety Sharma, who bagged the first prize for the Spelling Bee competition, having come up with her own magic spell, ‘Quintennial Cassanovrum’, piped: “I know Harry is not going to die.”

Ishika Roy, another winner, was philosophical: “Harry couldn’t have died as ‘good’ always wins in the fight between good and evil.”

In the ‘Hungry Wizard’ game, each Potter fan had five chances to feed the hungry wizard.

On July 20, Starmark was also bustling with young fans at the “Utterly Hotterly Potterly” party organised by the store. The children present were dressed as wizards and Death Eaters. It was a two-day event.

The party began with tattoo painting, followed by a quiz and puzzles. The quiz session showed how well-versed the children were with the Harry Potter series. The participants had quick answers to almost all the questions put to them by quizmaster Kingshuk Biswas.

Dressed in a cloak and Potter glasses, Muneka Mahtab spoke about her expectations a day before the book was released: “I want Professor Dumbledore to come back to life and want Harry to find out more about his parents. But I have a feeling that Harry is going to die.”

Another fan, Teena Bhattarcharya, dressed as Cho Chang in a pretty pink kimono, said she had read all the books and had watched every movie of the series.

The event was rounded off on Day two with a book reading session by Mira and Dalip Kakkar of Kathakars.

Dibyojyoti Chaudhuri and Namrata Achoy

For better education

Serve (Students Empowerment Rights and Vision through Education), an NGO dedicated to eradicating suffering in the lives of children, organised a teachers’ meet called Serve For Teachers recently at Max Mueller Bhavan.

The event began with a 15-minute video titled, “Where the child is without fear”. It showed newspaper clippings of students’ death due to torture by teachers.

This was followed by the felicitation of recognised pedagogues whose innovations in the field of education have made life in classrooms easier.

Samar Bagchi, scientist and ex-director of Birla Industrial and Technological Museum, Samina Limdiwala, a teacher of MSB School, Hilda Peacock, principal, La Martiniere for Girls and Ashis Ray, a teacher who dedicated his life for the welfare of poor children, were felicitated.

This was followed by a panel discussion where the difficulties faced by teachers were highlighted.The topics varied from over-crowded classrooms, parental pressure and lack of appreciation for hard work.

The panelists included Ayesha Das, programme officer for The Teacher’s Centre, Sudeshna Sinha, director of NGO Shikshamitra, Brendan MacCarthaigh, educationist and CEO of Serve and S. Chakrabarthy, principal of La Martiniere for Boys. S.V. Raman, programme officer of Max Mueller Bhavan, was the moderator of the discussion.

The audience that mostly comprised teachers strongly reacted to the issues, especially the rising rate of suicides among children. Said educationist Noel Nyss: “Students have been reduced to numbers printed on the marksheet”.

Sushmita Chakraborty, teacher, La Martiniere for Boys, felt: “The attitude of our society has to change. Here, science students are considered the best, commerce students are average and arts students are believed to be unintelligent.”

Serve also launched a booklet called Tips for Teachers that dealt with the issues and problems discussed at the event. Each teacher present for the occasion was given a copy of the booklet.

Stuti Agarwal
Second yr, Political Science, St Xavier’s College