First, a necessary confession: I haven’t read any of the huge best-selling Harry Potter books. The closest I have come to them is seeing one of the Potter films. That, too, under compulsion. I had to take the 10-year-old daughter of a close friend to see it. She knew the plot by heart and kept telling me, between delighted squeals, who was who and what was going to happen. I couldn’t make head or tail of the succession of weird characters and creatures that floated in and out of the film. However, despite my reservations, what Rowling’s wonderful, nay unique, imagination had created struck a powerful chord in a certain age-group, not only among English-speaking readers and viewers, but worldwide.