Harry Potter in Quarantine

“What is the name of the monkey that performs magic?”

“Um. I don’t know. Wanded monkey?”

“It is Hairy Potter,” replied the younger one mirthfully.

The young girls were caught in the Corona pandemic at their grandparents’ house while I was stuck at my duty station. Long phone conversations with my wife and the children had become a routine affair. During one such conversation, the younger one started asking me a lot of riddles.

Whenever I spoke with the girls, we talked about their daily routine which was completely different from what it would have been had they been attending school. I frequently made suggestions about how they could be nudged towards studies while not compromising with the fun that they were having. Invariably, I would end up irritating my wife who would say that she was doing the best that she could, and any alteration in their routine would only be possible if I were present. And yet, she did take plenty of my suggestions. It is to her credit that she managed to ensure almost five hours of study every week for each of the girls.

A good amount of the free time of the girls was spent in front of the magic box – for the TV had suddenly transformed itself into a sensible object that showed glimpses of our cultural background. The twin epics, Mahabharat and Ramayan, being re-telecast on Doordarshan had become part of the daily routine of the entire family, and all time-tables were centred around these serials that were being televised twice daily.

At other times, both of them, accompanied by their cousin, watched a number of movies, ranging from Ice Age series to Home Alone and High School Musical. One of the series that they had grown fond of was the Harry Potter Series.

The other means of time pass for the children was games. Every evening, they went on the rooftop and whiled their time playing games that they had learnt long time ago, or ones that they had invented. They played running games, ball games, hockey with their slippers, golf with their slippers, barefoot football with tennis ball, Zumba session and any other thing that they could imagine. They frequently tried to include my wife in their activity and mirth, but most of these times, she was on phone talking to me. I was a regular recipient of her complaints about what troublemakers our daughters were. They also devised an elaborate plan for a complete family get-together over a cup of tea in the evening - they called it the "Quarrantine Masti".

My elder daughter also took up sketching. She has loved colours from childhood, and has even attended a few classes under the guidance of a teacher from whom she has learnt a lot. This time, she started sketching from her imagination.

"Harry Potter" by Aadya

But then, her imagination started running amok. When I last spoke to her, she recounted a dream of hers.

“I dreamt that I was in a garden with my friends where the teacher was taking a Biology class. We were told that the next class was of skating. However, when the teacher came, he said that there would be no skating. He asked us to warm up, after which we would all race.”

“We raced in batches,” she continued. “I was placed with two boys. A little before the finish line, I realised that I was behind, so I gave it all I had. At the finish line, I reached out with my hand and touched the tape ahead of the boys. I was declared the winner. One of the boys was carrying a ball, which he threw towards the finish line, and he was declared runners up. The other boy did nothing and came third. We were all given medals.”

I laughed at her dream, and pointed out that she had got lots of things mixed up in her head. We both recalled how the younger one had dreamed a few days earlier of going to the Olympics for a game of “Catch – Catch.”