BENGALURU: It is twenty-two years since Harry Potter was first released. A whole generation has grown reading them and watching the movies. While the initial Potter-mania may have softened, the books are continuing to be read and in addition to the movies being permanently available on streaming networks, there is always some movie channel on cable TV that is screening one of the eight movies. It would not be a surprise if one of these days Netflix took up rights to make a new, improved all-graphics version of the book like they did for the Dark Crystal movie.
Some stories make an impression that never seems to go away, and keep coming back to our lives in some form or shape. Harry Potter is one of them, and there are dozens of such stories. Joker with Joaquin Phoenix is in the screens now and it may not be a reprisal of Heath Ledger but you be everyone who were invested in Heath would check this out. Maleficent is coming up soon. There are Star Wars and Star Trek movies in the horizon, and though Thanos and Iron Man are gone, there are spin-offs coming around as well.
There are remakes, stories that jump from one language to another, converted to colour from black and white for a re-release, shifted from analog and digital. We live our old stories again and again, be it a Mughal-E-Azam or a Sholay, or The Sound of Music, or Harry Potter. The stories that we connect with never go away from our lives.
In relationships too, we keep remembering the stories that connected us, and often, visit the same stories over and over, looking for prequels and sequels as it were.
Look back at your own life, especially old connections – perhaps your school buddies or the people you were in a hostel with when you were in college. Every time you all meet, you would be looking at the same old stories, and maybe even reenact them. A college reunion would mean going back to the old tea shops or watering holes and having a moment with the history that you share, and make new stories out of the old remembrances.
In romantic relationships, that is even more pronounced. We keep coming back to the moments of connect. We look back at pictures, or when Facebook pulls out memories from ten years ago of a walk in the park, you bring it out again and share it on your wall, with a new story. Perhaps another ten years later, you will relive this memory of a memory.
This layering of stories is foundational somehow to the security we feel in the safety of the relationships we have, whether romantic or platonic. Maybe we are just the stories we tell ourselves.
The author is a counsellor with InnerSight.