Angst In My Pangst

A short review of OotP:

Great Font. Bad binding. Loads of back-story. Neat story. Read it. if you don’t, I will tell you who dies.

Yesterday was good, really. We were the fourth to get to Odyssey and buy it. Had a nice breakfast at Chutney’s, where I had my first taste of the Chiranjeevi Special Dosa….actually I liked the chutney better than the dosa. Both me and Sasi were slightly on tenterhooks. As soon as we got in, there was this gang of girls who had finished their food and were leaving and I thought -‘Oh great! They are going to get the book before us.” Yeah, it was that way. A hasty breakfast later, we were finally there, and whoa! Big Surprise. No crowd, nothing. The salesmen seemed almost relieved to see us there. They had ordered a stack of 350 books, plus around 100 books that were preordered, and they were pretty confident the stock would get over by evening. The Potter magic!

A crazy thing happened as soon as I opened the book. Sasi had left me at the Sowmajiguda circle, and I had boarded an auto. Just thought I would open it and gaze at the preface, or the acknowledgements, maybe even start reading it…..And WHAM! I got bowled over and nearly hit my head on the meter. The front wheel of the auto had lodged itself inside a manhole. So the auto looked like a paper plane with its nose sticking out of the mud. Something like that. When I got out of it, clutching the brick-sized edition with both hands, (It looks like a brick, really) I realized that for the first time in a year, I was not worrying about whether my discman was working fine or not.

Came home. Locked door (not before gloating a little – did quite a war-dance around Rishi ), and yes, eight straight hours, and it was done. An hour’s break in between. No lunch. Lots of salted peanuts and papads ( No, Sasi, there are no smudges on the book)

Halfway through, Mons calls up, and informed me that she had bought the book already. I informed her that if she didn’t want too many rude surprises in life, like what happens on Page 403, she could come over with some chewable stuff. So, with lots of cakes, chocolate chip cookies, and loud giggles, we read it. Of course, I finished pretty early. ( She crowed over that – “I can finish it as slowly as I want to, it’s my book, after all…”) And the rest of the time, I was doing irritating things like – “Oh, you really can’t guess what Dumbledore says.” or “You know who dies? It’s a guy, no, actually, it’s a girl, no, it’s a guy, oops, sorry, it’s a girl.”

Finishing a book before others does have its advantages. Eh heh heh heh.

In the evening, Vasu turned up with packets of Real Mango juice. (Real, as in the brand, not the taste.) “What the hell!”, He said, when I told him of Sasi’s graciousness. “He’s gone partial these days, eh? Why you and not me?” One botched book-nap attempt later, the three of us agreed to go watch Supari together.

After all that good stuff happening during the day, this was bound to happen. I wish I had gone to see Supari like it was a comedy movie, I guess I would have enjoyed it a little. Padam Kumar has the nerve to say he made the movie, because he wanted to. Somebody put a Supari on him!! We walked out midway. Vasu didn’t like it at all – he was enjoying his sleep, right below the cooler.

There is a quiz today at St Francis, so I get to gloat and irritate loads of other people – “If you don’t give me ten points right NOW, I will tell everyone who dies in the book.”

Eh heh heh heh. Too many amusing thoughts. Die, puny non-Harry-Potter-Order-of-The-Phoenix readers!!!!!