No Smoking - Movie review

No Smoking is a “self service” movie. You have to try and figure out the story and the message by yourself. The movie is not likely to work well at the box office since we are so used to being served (spoon-fed) in Bollywood, where everything in the movie has to be clear and easy to understand. Metaphors and symbolic references are quite rare and frowned upon in our film industry.

“I hope the movie finds its audience” says Anurag Kashyap (the director) because he knows that for an average Joe it’s going to be inconvenient (and in some cases, impossible) to come out of those explain-me-everything and I-am-here-only-to-be-entertained mind-sets.

This is a bold and quite “arrogant” movie that refuses to spoon-feed the audience. It’s like when someone throws you into the water and expects you to learn swimming without any help. You either swim, or drown. There’s no third way out.

The movie is full with many metaphors and surrealistic moments.

- The protagonist's name "K" is a reference to (Anurag) Kashyap – the director himself.
- The bathtub is a symbol of worldly comfort, and ciggaret of freedom. (You have to choose between these two. In the dream sequences K constantly leaps for his ciggaret/freedom and gets killed by the soldier. Towards the end, when he decides to go for the bathtub instead, his freedom is sacrificed and that kills his soul.)
- Initially you see K smoking in his bath-tub, which indicates that he has both: worldly pleasures and his freedom. He is having dreams (or, nightmares) in which he has to choose between these two.
- The two fingers that K uses to smoke his ciggarets, are also the same ones that Kashyap uses to write his movies.
- The dream sequence in Russia is a reference to Stalin’s dictatorial Communist government – violation of personal liberty.
- The secretary and wife both played by Ayesha Takia are two different and opposite characters. The wife is a self-determined & strong individual while the secretary is submissive (she follows orders unquestionably and takes out K’s shoes in one scene.)
- “Cigarret Shashtra” is a reference to social orthodoxy and conservatism.
- K arrogantly talking to himself in the mirror (“Hi, I am K”, “Nobody tells K what to do”) is reference to Martin Scorsese classic Taxi Driver (the immortal sequence “Are you talking to me?” by De Nero).
- There is a reference to Vishal Bhardwaj, Gulzar and also to Fidel Castro. I felt that the former was forced and shallow though. (“Bidi jalai le ke Vishal desh mein…”)
- Baba Bengali’s threat of hurting or killing K’s family members is probably symbolic reference to the fact that K’s smoking hurts his family (both emotionally and physically as in his brother’s case).
- In the last scene, K is shown quiet and composed for the first time in the movie. He has quit smoking. Baba Bengali has won. But K’s soul is gone. We see that his fingers are cut – which is probably a way of showing the fact that his soul is now cut off from himself.
- The cinematography, lighting, background score and song lyrics – the overall ambiance of the movie is “dark” which gels with the melancholy theme of the movie.

The movie actually takes off when K plunges into the water in the custody. His soul and his body take two different but coherent journeys after that moment. The soul experiences bizarre moments and try to find ways to continue smoking (i.e. stick to his individual freedom.) But finally in the battle of K’s soul and his mind, the mind wins when K chooses to opt for the bathtub (instead of ciggaret) and not get killed by the soldier.

There are obvious flaws in the movie too. I think Kashyap has tried too hard to not spoon-feed the audience. He ended up making a movie that lot (or worse, most) of the people will not “get” completely. I doubt if there’s anyone except Kashyap himself who can claim to have understood the whole movie. But may be that’s the idea. May be that’s way this movie was meant to be.

This is probably the first time in Bollywood when a director made a very “personal” self-referential movie. Through K’s character, Kashyap talks about his own frustration and anguish (with the industry). In order to understand the analogy, you would have to know some background of Kashyap. This movie is from a director who is still waiting to get green flag from the censor board to let his first to movies released (Paanch and Gulal). It’s a movie from the director who had to unwillingly make several cuts in his last movie (Black Friday) to get censor board’s approval. It’s a movie from the director who felt as if his liberty to make movies (in the way he wants to make them) is taken away from him (as if his fingers with which he writes his movie were cut!). And that’s the central theme of this movie. How a person has to sacrifice his own self(ish) desires in order to follow the societal norms. And how that comes at the cost of your own personal soul! (By this, Kashyap is not saying that smoking is good. He makes this very clear before the movie begins. “A thousand people stops smoking everyday. By dying. Smoking Kills.”)

This is a movie that bothers you, provokes you, makes you think, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle that you try to put together even after (and especially after) the movie is over.

I loved this movie for its libertarian theme, style, wonderful songs, witty dialogues, bold and unusual way of storytelling.

PS. Two great quotes from two great philosophers (Socrates and Plato) are shown before the beginning credits:

“To be is to do.”
“To do is to be.”

You are defined by your what to do. Your actions define you, not your looks.

Jab We Met movie review

Jab We Met is very enjoyable. After a long time, we have a fabulous romantic comedy.

The plot is not original, but the script is well written. A big part of this movie is on Karina's shoulders and she carries it really well. She rocks! This is probably her best performance so far.

Two songs are very melodious and with nice poetry: Aaoge Tum (Music: Sandesh Shandilya, Lyrics: Nida Fazli?, Singer: Ustad Rashid Khan) and Tum Se Hi (Music: Pritam, Lyrics: Irshad Kamil, Singer: Mohit Chauhan). They are well placed in the movie. The placement of other songs could have been better though. They don’t move the story forward but don’t do much damage to the flow either.

Some moments in the movie were really touching and well executed: When Aditya accepts that he’s in love with Geet and says “Yes, I like you a lot, but hey, that’s my problem!”, when during their second stay in a (this time literally decent!) motel she says something like "Kitni stupid hoon main, is liye meri ye haalat hui hai" and starts crying, when Geet finally realizes what her heart wants, a train passes in the background and she feels "jaise koi train chhut rahi ho…”

Imtiaz Ali has grown as a director after his first movie Socha Na Tha (which was quite likeable). The opening sequence: when Aditya leaves his cell phone and car keys and walks into the streets dropping his tie on the sidewalk, was very impressive.

I am looking forward to Imtiaz Ali’s next movie.

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Also, I highly recommend Manorama Six Feet Under and Johny Gaddar to everyone who likes off-beat movies. Both are very well-made and well-acted movies in genres that are almost absent in Bollywood nowadays. The former is a Bollywood noir set up in a remote village in Rajasthan (spectacular visuals). And the latter is a suspense thriller, in which the audience knows who the culprit is, but the actors in the movie don't, and the movie is about how they find it out! Look out for pop-culture references to the movies from 70's. There are so many.

Unfortunately, No Smoking, on which I had high hopes (especially because of the names that are associated with the movie - Vishal Bhardwaj and Gulzar), didn't get any good reviews. It looks like Anurag Kashyap has broken bridges with so many reviewers that many of them are reviewing his attitude rather than his movie. (Read Khalid Mohammed's review in Hindustan Times, you don't need an expert to figure out that he has personal grudges for Kashyap and that's all he talks about in his "movie" review - bad director, bad person, very arrogant, how stupid yada yada yada...) I still haven't given up on the movie though -- I will watch it as soon as I can.

Yahoo Driving Directions in India

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You can go to Yahoo website to get driving directions between two cities in India. It seems a tad slow, it's definetely not perfect (works well between two cities only), but it's a great start.


Here's the link: http://in.maps.yahoo.com/

Note that directions include landscapes (turn left past Bharat Petrolium, turn right past Andhra bank etc.), which are unavoidable because we don't have names for all streets, do we?

Enjoy!

Giant Douche and Turd Sandwich

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Although I am not a conservative, as a libertarian my favourite presidential candidate is the Republican representative from Texas: Ron Paul.

I definitely don't agree with all of his plans and policies (that I know of). Also he might be too old and doesn't look like the "strong leader" that US is looking forward to have as a President, but I think Paul is the candidate whom I dislike the least. As one of the South Park episode has succinctly put: you have to make a choice between a Giant Douche and a Turn Sandwich!

Here's a snapshot of some of his beliefs and actions:

- He opposes, and have always opposed, Iraq war.
- He wants USA to be out of UN and other such international groups.
- He believes in: Abolishing Federal taxes, dismantle Federal reserve and get back to god-backed currency.
- He supports Gun Ownership.
- He says no to US interventions in other country's internal affairs.

Here's a link to his web-site: http://www.ronpaul2008.com/

Giuliani, Romney and McCain are currently the forerunners at Republican presidential nominee race, but it looks like none of these candidates can win an election against Clinton. In fact, any Republican presidential candidates seems very likely loose election against Clinton.

Senator Clinton, who is considered a socialist by many people now, wants the Government to "take over" Health Care system. It looks like by increasing taxes, she would go on a spending spree if elected as a President. She must be stopped! But unfortunately if looks like no one will be able to do that.

I am not a US citizen, so I don't vote here, but being in this country for several years, I have my emotional investments in next year's presidential election.

My job at MTC

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I am currently working as a Business Analyst at a major telecom company (let’s call it MTC). This “Business Analyst” title can be expanded as Statistician/SAS Programmer/Predictive Modeler and can be expressed as “Data Miner” in general. There are about 15 members (including one director and 4 managers) in our group named Customer Analytics. At MTC, we are known as "Modelers", and belong to the Marketing branch of the organization hierarchy.

In a nutshell, we do data mining, statistical modeling and clustering & segmentation which enables us to make business predictions that can help the marketing group to take business decisions.

Let me briefly talk about the need for Business Analytics in a telecom company.When a telecom company acquires a new customer, they have to spend money. This spending includes everything they have to do for getting a new customer: advertising, giving subsidies on handsets, additional network capacity to accommodate the new customer calls, more care center representatives needed to handle calls to the company etc. It takes months before MTC can recover from the acquisition spending for each new customer and start making money from that account. If a customer leaves the company after, let’s say two months, the company actually loses money. (Even the early contract termination fees can not balance the loss in revenue.)

Moreover, it's cheaper and easier to retain an old customer than to acquire a new customer.

Thus, while trying to attract new customers, telecom companies are always more concerned with retaining the existing customer base.

Here’s where the role of our group comes into the picture. MTC needs to know which customers are 'more likely to leave', and when they are likely to do so. If we knew that, then the Marketing group can take necessary actions to retain those customers. To find out whom to contact, and when to contact them they depend on us. (On our predictions based on statistical models, to be more specific.)

Our job is to study the customer history (cell usage, call details, demographics, late payments, purchase patterns etc.) and look for behavioral patterns that can explain what triggered previous MTC customers to leave. Based on the historical data, we build Statistical (predictive) models using SAS. These models can be applied to the current customer base (whose behavior is known to us) to decide which customers are likely to leave (in, let’s say, next two or three months).

After the very interesting phase of data discovery, modeling and prediction, comes more challenging task. We have to present our model to the Marketing managers (decision makers) and explain them what’s going on with our customers. Obviously, we have to present our findings in such a way that they are easier to digest for a non-technical marketing folks. The marketers will take this result and run various campaigns (offers, incentives) to retain those customers. In doing so, they will be spending millions of dollars, so our results must be: (a) as accurate as possible, (b) meaningful, and (c) actionable.

This Churn/Risk Modeling is one among the many other things we do. Here are some scenarios in which the seek help from our group:
− The company launches new products and they need to know which customers they should target. So we will build a model that predicts which customers are more likely to respond to that specific product related offer. (MTC has millions of customers, so they can’t go and target all customers. We need to find out which customers will be most interested and target them to increase our ROI.)
− The company wants to identify which customers are more valuable (profitable). To get the holistic view of a customer; in addition to look at “what’s the customer worth as of today” it’s necessary to look into the future and see “what’s the potential value of the customer” too. Using various statistical modeling techniques, we can predict (a) future tenure, and (b) future revenue stream of a customer. (Interestingly, when you call the customer service, your “value” decides which call center will handle your call. A call from a low value customer might get transferred to international call centers, while a high value customer will get to talk with a US based call center. Also, if you decide to terminate your contract, your “value” can heavily restrict how much you can negotiate on contract termination fees.)

The use of data mining and statistical modeling is, of course, not limited to telecom industry. Think about an insurance company that wants to identify which customers are likely to be frauds, a bank or credit company that needs to know who is likely to close the account or which transactions are likely to be fraudulent, a pharmaceutical company that wants to identify which drug component is likely to affect as a remedy on a decease while developing a new drug, a giant retailer that needs recommendations about which products they should keep together in the store (which products do customer buy together?), or an online retailer (like Amazon) that gets help from data mining to come up with recommendations for next purchase.

Why Punishment?

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The Sanjay Dutt trial inspired me to write something about punishment.

Why do we punish?

(Legal) Punishment is a legitimate threat system practiced by society with an intention to keep a social order intact.

The primary reasons for punishments are:

(a) rehabilitation and reform - this is a therapeutic approach to bring the offender into a moral state of mind. In other words, reform the criminal mind with therapy/education and make him a better person so that he/she is no longer harmful to the society,
(b) deterrence - stop someone from future wrong-doing, by giving severe punishment for the activity that is considered harmful to the society. It is commonly believed that when you punish one person for an offense, others in the society also learns from this and avoid doing similar offense/mistake that the offender did,
(c) retribution - this is like taking a revenge in "an eye for an eye" fashion. The focal point in this method of punishment is satisfying the hatred/resentment towards that criminal. The suffering caused on the punishee is considered "good", even if it doesn't have any positive results or effect on the society or punishee ,
(d) incarceration or incapacitation - in order to keep society safe, the criminal is jailed to make sure he/she makes no further direct contact (for a specific time period) with the society. This is practiced by life imprisonments or death sentences in cases of extreme offences.

Laws or ideas of punishment are integral parts of mostly all religions. Biblical religions, for example, have the concept of Lex talionis (retributive justice) with some variations between Judaism, Christian and Islam; while Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists philosophies subscribe to the laws of karma (cause and effect) which states that every action has a natural consequence - to put it simply, bad things will happen to bad people.

One thing we should keep in mind, when exercising any mode of punishment, is that the hallmark of a liberal society is to reform and grow, not to punish and take revenge.

Chak De India - movie review

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"Tamil aur Telugu mein kitna fark hai!" the cook (played by Javed Khan) tells an Andhra girl (hockey player) when she shrugs for being referred as Tamil. And she aptly replies "Utna hi, jitna ek Punjabi aur Bihari mein" and simply walks away without showing any anger or dislike.

Another girl from Manipur says she can't be happy for being treated like a guest in a country that is her own.

These and many more little things in this movie just blew me away. Never before in a Bollywood movie I have seen well portrayed characters from so many (so called) "remote parts" of India.

It's a really great achievement for the director Shimit Amin (who directed Ab Tak Chhappan for Ram Gopal Varma before) who had an ordinary, clichéd script on his hands but never in the movie you'll get a how-many-times-have-we-seen-this-before feeling (well, okay - except for few scenes.).

Once again, after Swades, Shahrukh Khan gives us a memorable performance. Unlike in most of his other movies, you see the "actor" Shahrukh Khan, not the "star" Shahrukh Khan. There were moments in the movie, when I was afraid that he was about to unleash his histrionics upon us - (Sattar minutes, for instance) but I am glad that he didn't, and his acting was convincing and well constrained throughout the movie. All girls acted very well too - they undertook three months of intensive hockey training and physiotherapy for this movie! Every player was characterized so well that feel a connection with them, you laugh with them, chuckle at their mischief and feel sad when they cry.

Background music by Salim-Suleiman was very appropriate and appealing ("Bad Bad Girls" rocked! "Maula Mere Le Le Meri Jaan" was touching). The songs are not “sung” or performed in the movie, you just hear them in the background - this is a welcoming change in Bollywood movies lately (Was Rang De Basanti a trend-setter here?).

I really liked Jaidip Sahni's dialogues and lyrics. In "Bad Bad Girls" - a line goes like this "Na Chhat pe bulayegi, na nange pair aayegi..." which reminds us of an antra from the classic song "Chupke chupke raat din" by Ghulam Ali -- Dopahar ki dhoop mein, mere bulaane ke liye, wo tera kothe pe, nenge paon aana yaad hai! This is another phenomenon I have noticed in some Bollywood movies lately - pop-culture references (like, Ek Chalis Ki Last Local had many of 'em).

Comparisons with other movies - especially Lagaan - are obvious. When Shahrukh Khan throws a challenge to the committee member and asks for a match between his team and men's team -- you can't deny the similarity with Lagaan (where Amir throws similar challenge to angrez). I can be wrong - but I don't think that even Shimit Amin and Jaideep Sahni (writer) are shy about their inspirations from Lagaan - one hint is that he used a same stereotypical character from Lagaan (Javed Khan) and another one is a common dialogue in both movies that refers to "Itihaas ke panne".

But who cares? I liked this movie as much as I liked Lagaan, if not more!

Gandhi My Father - movie review

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It was, well, disappointing.

I went to see a masterpiece, and I came back with a feeling that my hopes on (a) first time director Firoz Abbas Khan, (b) first time producer Anil Kapoor, and (c) Akshaye Khanna who was given a challenging role for the first time, were awry and unnecessary.

The subject of this movie “The stormy relationship between Harilal and Gandhi”, “How the father of the nation could not become an ideal father of his own son”, or “To the nation, he was a father, but to his son, he was a father whom he never had” aroused me so much that I’ve been waiting to see this movie since the first day I watched the promos.

What a wonderful subject - almost wasted by below-average performances (especially by the pivotal characters), could-have-been-better direction, bad make-up (Gandhi’s ears kept changing its size!), stifling screenplay (too many unnecessary jumps between India and Africa), slow (at times almost somnolent) pace, and..well, execrable story-telling!

The emotional drama between Gandhi and Harilal was simply underplayed. Harilal’s character goes through many “mood swings”, but his emotional journey through all those sentiments is left somewhat unexplored. For example, when Harilal goes to Africa for the first time, leaving behind his pregnant wife, Gandhi doesn’t even show up at the port to pick him up, and we are not told how Harilal felt about it (of course, we can assume that he must have felt terrible, but it would have been interesting to see Harilal’s emotional reaction – did he feel angry? Or sad? Or being a little childish, did he feel abandoned?). Another example is Harilal’s conversion to Islam – which should have been more explanatory (By the way, here’s a link to Gandhi’s speech on Harilal’s conversion to Islam: http://www.hvk.org/hvk/articles/0103/354.html.) .

It was difficult for me to grasp how a movie revolving around Gandhi’s life and his struggle for independence didn’t even cared to show other political leaders of that time period. Not that it was necessary for the story, but there are several public appearances of Gandhi (giving a speech, attending an evening-prayer, imprisonment at the Aga Khan palace etc.) where I was trying catch a glance of Nehru or Sardar. You only see them in those black-and-white footages which were overused throughout in the movie.

Gladly, not everything about this movie was bad! The cinematography (by David MacDonald) was sleek (the only complain I have is – there were too many close-up shots). Shefali Chaaya and Bhumika Chawla gave wonderful performances. Akshaye Khanna acted well in some scenes (like, the Sadma-style scene when he comes to the railway station to meet his mother). Production design was good. I liked how Feroz Shah captured many Gujarati traditional scenes – all the colorful costumes looked authentic and pleasant to the eyes. Background score by Piyush Kanojia was mesmerizing. (When Gandhi is talking to Kasturba about Harilal’s conversion, and tells her that Harilal and Abdullah means the same, you can hear “Ishwar Allah tero naam” in the background. Wonderful!) The irony between Gandhi’s attitude towards untouchables (urging society to accept them) and the denunciation of his own son (making him like an untouchable to the society) is also played masterfully.

I was glad that this movie stayed away from Gandhi-bashing when it came to the partition of India. Gandhi’s opinion about the partition (he was against the partition) is well proclaimed in the movie. (I just wanted to mention this here, because I know many people who hold Gandhi responsible for the partition).

The movie was also honest about Gandhi’s contribution to Harilal’s miserable life. Someone could have easily made a movie that blames Gandhi entirely for his elder son’s bad fate (that movie would have been titled: the Dark side of Gandhi!). But this is handled very nicely. Yes, Gandhi should have spent more time with his son (and family for that matter), he should have listened to Harilal’s aspirations to go to London and become a barrister, but (a) Harilal had some inherent likelihood to go ashtray in life (After all, not all his sons turned to liquor, prostitution and betrayals in business.), and (b) how he was always seen as Gandhi’s son also should have played a significant role in shaping his life. These two causes were depicted well in the movie.

I felt sorry for Harilal, and even more so, I felt sorry for Gandhi for not being able to save his son from his ill-fate (according to Gandhi, not being able to convey his message to Harial and Mohammed Ali Jeenha were two of his biggest failures in his life).

The movie is based on the novel Harilal Gandhi: A Life by Chandulal Bhagubhai Dalal.

The Sanjay Dutt Verdict

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Sanjay Dutt is sentenced for 6 years for buying and possessing ammunition from an associate of Mumbai Underworld don Dawood Ibrahim - this was allegedly linked with the main consignment that was used in the tragic 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts.

I personally think that this punishment is a little too harsh.

The minimum sentence for possessing illegal weapon is 5 years. And he already spent about a year and a half in jail after he was convicted several years ago. He has been on bail for many years now, and his conduct while on bail was impeccable without any violations. The imprisonment term could have been less than 6 years.

Sometimes, while trying to avoid being discriminatory against one group or person, one might end up discriminating against the other. The judge might just have ended up giving harsher punishment in order to send the correct message to junta that everyone is treated equal by the law.

However, many people tend to believe that Sanjay Dutt should have received even harsher punishment (or that he deserved 6 years in jail) based on a wrong assumption about his involvement with 93 blasts.

He was already acquitted of terrorism charges (under TADA) last November - because there was no material that proved his connection with the blasts. I am sure our justice department would have done their best to make sure he got punished if he was involved.

This time, Sajnjay Dutt was convicted, found guilty and got punished for illegal possession of weapons (which were never used, by the way) under Arms Act. He’s not a terrorist, and he’s not associated with any terrorism act (which, I think lot of people has difficulty understanding.)

From Times of India: [After giving out the sentence, Judge P D] Kode, however, said the crimes committed by Dutt and his friends [] were not "anti-social, ghastly, inhuman, immoral or pre-planned" and did not cause any harm to the general public.

Those words from revered judge should be kept in mind before we try to evaluate this verdict.

I am not at all suggesting that they should have let him go clean, I am not saying that he is innocent, I am not sympathizing with him due to his troubled past and popularity; I am just questioning the quantum of this punishment. Let's wait and see what SC has to say.

Having said that, considering the way justice is being meted out recently, we Indians should really feel proud of our judiciary system. Whether people agree with the verdict or not, their faith in the criminal justice system is slowly and steadily being restored for sure. Kudos to our judiciary system!

PS. Thinking about his previous Phoenix-like come-backs after a bunch of nightmarish events in his life (mother died of Cancer, drugs addiction, wife died of tumor, custody battle for her daughter, alleged involvement with Mumbai bomb-blasts, underworld connections, divorce with his second wife and so on...) I am sure Sanjay Dutt will come back vigorously after this setback too.

On a lighter note, consider the following song in the context of Sanjay Dutt's continuous struggle in his real life:

Ek kahani, khatam to dooji... shuroo ho gayee maamu!

How ironic!

Once in a Blue Moon

It takes about 27 days for the Moon to circle around the Earth, but due to Earth's own circular movement around the Sun it takes few more days for the Moon to complete the full circle - so the Moon will be in the exact same location (with respect to Earth) in about 29 days.

Thus, the Moon cycle (or month) is little smaller than our normal calendar month. So normally we would see full Moon once in a month - totalling 12 full moons in a year, but due to this mis-match between Lunar and Solar cycles, after about every two/three years there would be 13 full Moons in a year. So one calendar month will end up having two full moons. The second of the two full Moons that occurs in the same calendar month is called Blue Moon.

Due to the rarity of such events - the common phrase came into existence: once in a blue moon.
(The word Moon comes from a Latin word mensis which means something like "measure".)

By the way, it always fascinates me when I think about the relative sizes of Sun and Moon and their distances from Earth - and still they look exactly of same size from Earth (which also makes full solar eclipeses possible). How big of a coincident is that, huh?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I just finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. A real page-turner, nail-biting read. J K Rowling's ability to keep you wondering about what's gonna happen next, while constantly entertain you with such magical events and drama is really amazing. There's a lot of underlying family and friendship drama here on almost every page. But overall, the theme of this last installment is - death. It's a "dark" novel - which is quite apparent once you read the first page of this book - a couple of small poems about death. First chapter starts with blood in Harry's hand.

By the way, when Harry and Hermione are in the forest, a deer comes to their tent to distract and allures Harry to follow her, away from the tent. This reminded me of an event in Ramayana when Ravana come as a disguised deer to the hut where Ram, Laxman and Sita are living. Is it possible that Rowling might have taken some inspiration from Ramayana?

Anyways, it breaks my heart when I finished reading this novel - knowing that Harry Potter is not going to come back - there won't no waiting for the next book in Harry Potter series. It's like a part of your childhood, gone forever. You loved it while it was there, and you are going to pine for it for the rest of your life. But alas, it will never come back.

Harry Potter, I am going to miss you!