Peddling to Pottermaniacs

Whimsic Alley sells brooms, spells, wands - and skiving snack boxes

With Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince hitting the big screen, I brush up on my Potter basics, reading the Half Blood Prince — twice — and persistently scouting the Internet for updates. That’s where I find Whimsic Alley, proclaiming itself as the “only store in the entire world” capable of fully outfitting a human seeking to join Hogwarts — Harry’s school of magic. I could have bought it all on the Whimsic Alley Web site, but Harry never missed a visit to Diagon Alley, the magical shopping bazaar in the Potter series. So I head to the Westside shop, at 2717 ½ Wilshire Blvd.

As I step into the Alley’s interior, I bump into some squealing teenagers. Owner Stan Goldin smiles at them, content. During Goldin’s visit to the 2003 Harry Potter convention in Florida, he realized Potter fans transcended age barriers. “There was hardly anything then that catered to grown-up fans who were fanatical about the series,” he reminisces. His products were a sellout at the convention and soon his Potter Web site business outgrew his Santa Monica home.

I make my way around, peeping into cubbyholes set up like a series of individual shops. First on my list is a wand, the most vital accessory in Harry’s world. It is said that “a wand chooses its master.” I step into Phoenix Wands, one of the “shops” inside the Alley, which is stacked with boxes that cradle beautifully carved wands. My fingers linger over them, and I finally select the one I first rest my fingers on. “It’s strange, but I have always noticed the same thing when the wands are laid out. People see, feel and go through different wands, but they somehow pick the one that their fingers rest on the first time,” says store manager, Erin Bise.
Next, I spot the “sorting hat” that assigns new students to their respective houses at Hogwarts. It sits next to Dumbledore’s headgear and Professor McGonagall’s pointed black hat.
In the robe shop, Goldin brings out garments in the four house colors. “You would be surprised at how many fans are interested in Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, besides the often-quoted Gryffindor and Slytherin,” he says. He lays out robes that fit into every buyer’s budget, starting from the cheap ones at $35, “to the more real-looking wizard robes at 120 bucks.” Real-looking? Well of course this is real. We who’ve been drawn deeply into Pottermania are not exactly kidding around.

An assortment of parchment papers and exotic writing instruments is also on offer. In one corner I come across licensed Harry Potter merchandise and limited-edition collections of water balls, plaques, action figures and sculptures. They date to the early Potter period and are no longer produced. Original art signed by artist Fred Bode makes up part of Goldin’s prized personal collection, and he has authored a “spells” book — using contributions from store vistors. Some of the spells seem clearly created with Angelenos in mind, from how to conjure up a parking space to how to banish calories from food.

In fact, it’s clear from his spells book and Internet buzz that Harry Potter fans visit Los Angeles just for the cherished trek to Whimsic Alley. So for someone who wants to create an experience rather than a store, Goldin’s mission is accomplished. “I never knew I would be building a tourist destination when I set up this store,” he says. Raising a toast to that, I pop in my mouth a candy from a “skiving snack box” made by Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezes. My wallet feels lighter — magic, clearly. “This is the place we are supposed to be,” reads the candy box ingredients. I couldn’t agree more.

Human connection

It was a beautiful spring afternoon and I was visiting the University of California, Los Angeles campus. After having signed up for one of the writing courses, I headed back home. While waiting at the bus stop for a ride back to my four walls, I was watched the world pass by.

A young girl standing next to me was gleefully devouring her chocolate ice cream. I couldn’t help looking at how, she struggled to keep it from melting and dripping over her fingers. She caught my glance and we both smiled. I looked away, afraid that she might think I was greedy.

To distract myself, I started reading up the route chart displayed on the bus stop. Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and almost bumped into a tall man glaring at me. Before I knew, he started abusing me with almost all the alphabets that existed in his vocabulary. I was terrified and shocked. I looked around for help. The ‘ice cream’ girl had shrunk to half her size. Her ice cream had slipped from her fingers and lay melting on the pavement. She looked petrified. Sensing the danger, we instinctively inched closer to each other.

The man was getting aggressive by the moment. I prayed that the bus would come to our rescue. Meanwhile, a young man, his wife and two children also came up to the bus stop. Our perpetrator turned his attention to them. While the family got their share of fancy words, the kids, a boy and girl hid behind the parents.

All of us stood there trying to make sense of what was happening. Suddenly, the little boy, who had been hiding behind his father, came upfront. With all the courage and strength he had, he shouted ‘shut up’. For a second, everything was still. Even the traffic next to the bus stop halted. The signal had gone red, so had the angry man abusing us.

He suddenly saw the collective strength at the bus stop. All of us had woken up, standing next to each other, ready to give it back. The lights turned green. The traffic zoomed past us. The angry man retreated.

I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all, or cry at the abuse. Instead, I went up to the little boy, who had been the most grow-up of us all and hugged him.

The common purpose of us all, at the bus stop, loomed large in the background. The orange Metro bus, with 20 flashing across its forehead had arrived to take us to our destinations. I snuggled into an empty seat, along with my co-travellers from the bus stop. I dwelled on how adversity had connected me to fellow human beings, irrespective of race, colour and religion. I wondered if the world would ever make this a norm.

Curtain Call

It was August of 1985 and Adja has just turned 40. “I am home,” she sighed. Her bed gave her the same comfort, like it did 20 years back. The early morning sun streamed in through the large window of her room, highlighting the damp spots and chipped paint of the worn out walls. She let the warm sunrays bathe her, while she sat up on her white sheets, her mind drifting to the time she had spent away from her room in Izmit.

Thump thump thump. That dull beating on the door again. “Adja, Adja, hurry up. The curtains are going up,” screamed her manager. He shouted the same warning to the next door, only the name had changed. With a last swish of her head and the red plume that adorned it, she stepped out. Rrrrrring. The stage bell went off. Her heart pumped a little hard. After all these years she still felt the excitement of being a showgirl.

“One two three, one two three…” her mind kept telling her as she moved her body to the music on stage. The audience roared its approval. Then came the difficult part, her moment of glory as a trapeze artist. “Insha’ Allah,” she said to herself like always as she swished across the stage at a height of 15 feet. ‘Swish, swish’ she kept going, her red costume in tow with the red plume on her head following the course, bending and twisting to the force of the air.

“One, two, three…” she said to her herself and somersaulted in the air. Applause followed. She reached out her hand towards the partner. She would be picked up from mid air to safety, while the song and dance continued on the stage below. Adja’s fingers touched her partner’s hand briefly, too short a time to form into a grasp. She had missed a beat in mid-air. As she madly groped for a support in mid air, Adja felt herself giving in to gravity. Thud, she fell on to the stage set, amidst a gasp from the auditorium. Her mind went blank, more from the shame than the pain.

She came to her senses in the dressing room. Her images from the mirrors around seemed to taunt her. “Adja are you okay?” asked the manager. Yes she was okay. No visible scars or twisted bones. But her confidence to perform lay in tatters on the floor. “I can’t forgive myself for this mistake on stage,” she whispered to herself.
“I think you should retire now,” suggested her manager.

She drifted back to the sun-filled room. It felt familiar but empty. Time stretched languorously before her. “Will my heart pump with adrenaline ever? What will I do now?” she asked herself. The thought of a life without a purpose, without the spotlights and without her art scared her. She looked out of the window into the sky for answers. But nothing came to her, except a quiet acceptance of her fate.

“Adja, Adja,” her mother called out to her. “Yes coming,” she answered her. She had the luxury of time now. She didn’t have to hurry. The show was over. The curtain call was done.

This piece is based on the painting Morning Sun by American artist Edward Hopper.

Defining the undefined-The sight of flirtation

The chairs were kept upside down on the tables, locked in a tight embrace. It signalled the end of a lunch-hour at the office cafeteria. I ran to grab the last bite. “Leftovers, ” I rued as I picked up my food and headed to the corner table with a view. “He must have eaten and headed back to his desk,” I mulled.

My newfound lunchtime visual relief was nowhere to be seen. I had spotted him during one of my lunch breaks at the cafeteria, the hunting ground for cute guys. Long hair tied into a neat ponytail. Extremely well turned out in a business suit, scorching the women around him. “Is he a rock star turned corporate whiz?” I had wondered, while checking him out from the corner of my eye.

As I sat, debating on what food should go in first, my eyes caught a distraction at the food counter. They may have lit up too, for there he was, debating over leftover lunch like me, some minutes ago. “Hmmm, nice backside I thought,” as I chewed the food and checked him out. His bottom must have felt the heat of my gaze. He looked over his shoulder, on the pretext of locating a suitable spot to gulp his afternoon grub. His eyes lingered on my table for a split microsecond. “Ah he sees me!” I gloated. He turned his head back to the food counter, long tresses in tow. His hair was longer than mine, I noticed. The image of grabbing his hair, while kissing him passionately flashed in my mind.

The almost empty food counter had hardly anything to offer to Mr. Hot Ponytail. In-between scraping food, he squirmed under my roving eyes. He looked again towards my table. Our eyes met. I worshipped him with a cocky smile. He smiled back shyly, blushing like a girl. His hands slid over to his backside. They rested on top of the bulge of his wallet, tucked away in the back pocket of his trouser. He yanked it out clumsily. The nervous quiver of his hand dropped it on the floor. While he bent to pick it up, my gaze X-rayed him. Twitching and fighting his self-consciousness, he looked at me, eyes twinkling. They seemed to ask if I liked what I saw. My goofy smile and tilted head answered him in an affirmative.

I fiddled with my hair and checked myself slyly on the gleaming tabletop. Food tray in hand, Mr. Hot Ponytail strode towards my table. My eyes greeted him with anticipation. Our faces now dripped with the ‘I-want-to-know-you-better’ look. The curtain raiser to our coffee date had kicked off.