Fans celebrate Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’s release

Suili Mazumdar’s parents were pleasantly surprised to see their daughter up at 7 am on a Sunday morning. Suili loves sleeping till late on Sundays and won’t “sacrifice her sleep” for anything. This Sunday, however, was special. The 23-year-old, who is doing her masters from Calcutta University, is a Harry Potter fan and wanted to make sure that she was at the bookstore sharp at 11.30 am when they started selling Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. She didn’t have to wait for long as she had pre-ordered the book. She beamed the moment she laid hands on the book. “I am so happy. I am staying home tomorrow and finishing this book at one go,” she says as she hops into a taxi with her father already leafing through the book.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which released on Sunday, is the eighth book in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The eighth part of the story picks up where Deathly Hallows left off 19 years ago.

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Ipsita Burman, who lives in Jadavpur and works for IT Company, gave competition to husband, Mohit, as they rushed and brought two copies as soon as another bookstore, Starmark, opened its doors. “I had told my husband that I won’t share the book so we bought two copies. My friends joke about my Potter addiction. But I fell in love with this series when I was in school. The love affair is still on. I have the entire Harry Potter collection (both books and movie CDs). I also keep buying Harry Potter trivia,” says an excited Ipsita.

Oxford Bookstore, which had got 1,000 copies of the book, had already sold 240 books copies by the evening. At Story (which had got 400 books) the figure was around 75 and Starmark (South City mall) had sold 400 copies. The bookstores have also been holding several contests and giving discounts on pre-orders.

Atreyee Chatterjee, who was there with her four friends to buy the book, couldn’t wait for her turn. “So many people are in queue. I think I will have to wait for 40 long minutes before I can get my hands on the book,” says Atreyee as she posed for a selfie with her friends in Harry Potter tshirts. “We got these tshirts especially for today. I’m excited to see what Harry’s going to be like 19 years after,” said her friend.