Harry Potter's Indian Avatar

Harry Potter’s Indian Avatar

To all the Harry Potter fans, did you ever imagine what would be if the magical world created by J.K.Rowling was based in India? What would characters look like? What would their names be?

Well, the answer to the second question is here. I too, like many other Harry Potter fans loved to dwell in the fantasy world of magic and wizardry whenever I wanted to take a break from reality or during the hours of inactivity. I ventured to the extent my mortal imagination could permit and I was left wondering what would happen if I baptized the Harry Potter characters and made them Indians. This prospect sparked a genuine curiosity in me and what you are going to read next is a result of that. To know more about the idea and how it came into existence I have written a separate addendum at the end (so that I won’t distract you from the main task for which you might have landed on this page).

Baptizing the Harry Potter characters into Indian counterparts has been a real fun. The characters are grouped into certain meaningful sections of commonality. So, go ahead read them and tell me how you feel.

The principal characters

Originals	Indian Version
Harry Potter	Harishchandra Pattar
Hermione Granger	Hansika Gowdar
Ron Weasley	Rakesh Vaidhya
Severus Snape	Siddharth Shastri
Albus Dumbledore	Annappa Dheergesh
Lord Voldemort	Vichitra Veera
Tom Morvolo Riddle	Mrutunjaya Raghuvanshi
James Potter	Jayanth Pattar
Lily Potter	Lata Pattar
Neville Longbottom	Navneet Lokhandwale

The founders of Hogwarts – The School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Originals	Indian Version
Salazar Slytherin	Sajid Suleimann
Godric Gryfinndor	Gaureesh Ganiger
Roowena Ravenclaw	Roopa Rampure
Helga Hufflepuff	Haripriya Hosamani

The Death Eaters

Originals	Indian Version
Alecto Carrow	Ankita Kotwal
Amycus Carrow	Amith Kotwal
Vincent Crabbe, Sr	Vajramuni Kasnis
Vincent Crabbe, Jr	Viraj Kasnis
Antonin Dolohov	Ayaaz Dawood
Goyle Sr	Ghazi
Bellatrix Lestrange	Bhavana Lakhani
Rudolphus Lestrange	Rauflala Lakhani
Rabastan Lestrange	Rudrappa Lakhani
Peter Pettigrew	Prathamesh Parvatikar
Bartemius "Barty" Coruch	Baidyanath "Bunty" Chautala

The staff at Hogwarts

Originals	Indian Version
Quirinus Quirell	Quarram Quereshi
Septima Vector	Snehaleka Vartur
Minerva McGonagall	Manavi Managuli**
Rubeus Hagrid*	Ravi Hosur
Horace Slughorn	Hariprakash Sheshadri
Severus Snape	Siddharth Shastri
Pomona Sprout	Pavithra Sampagi
Sybill Patricia Trelawney	Saraswati Thackery
Dolores Jane Umbridge	Divyashree Umapathi
Bathsheda Babbling	Boothnath Babaseer
Filius Flitwick	Farooq Faqtakik
Glideroy Lockhart	Ganesh Laddimath
Remus Lupin	Ranvijay Lohar

The students of Hogwarts

Originals	Indian Version
Dean Thomas	Deepak Thakur
Seamus Finnigan	Shashank Tripathi
Luna Lovegood	Leelakumari Lamani
Pansy Parkinson	Pramila Padmashetty
Anjelina Johnson	Anjum Begum
Oliver Wood	Ajay Kumar Bandre
Zacharias Smith	Zubeen Sohail
Cedric Diggory	Sanjeev Deshpande
Katie Bells	Kartika Bailoor
Padma Patil	Pamela Pattison
Parvati Patil	Patricia Pattison
Draco Malfoy	Dharish Malnad
Hannah Abbot	Heena Afridi
Susan Bones	Sushmita Bhure
Terry Boot	Teja Biradar
Lavendar Brown	Lavanya Bhoomreddy
Cho Chang	Chaya Chowdhri
Lee Jordan	Lingraj Jorapur
Gregory Goyle	Gulamnabi Ghazi

The Weasley Family

Originals	Indian Version
Arthur Weasley	Ashwath Vaidhya
Molly Weasley	Mamta Vaidhya
Percy Weasley	Prakash Vaidhya
Charlie Weasley	Chandrakanth Vaidhya
Bill Weasley	Bhimrao Vaidhya
Ginny Weasley	Gayatri Vaidhya
Fred Weasley	Prahlad Vaidhya
George Weasley	Ganshyam Vaidhya
Ron Weasley	Rakesh Vaidhya

The others

Originals	Indian Version
Frank Longbottom	Praful Lokhandwale
Alice Longbottom	Alisha Lokhandwale
Lucius Malfoy	Lankesh Malnad
Narcissa Malfoy	Nandita Malnad
Dudley Dursley	Dundesh Desai
Petunia Dursley	Parvati Desai
Vernon Dursley	Venkatrao Desai
Mundugus Feltecher	Mukund Pingle
Nymphondra Tonks	Nagana Talwar
Patty Crouch	Pramod Kumar
Oswald Cornelius Fudge	Omar Kasif Faisal Khan
Kingselfy Shacklebolt	Kailash Sherwani
Sturgis Podmore	Santosh Padmanabhan
Rita Skeeter	Ritu Shinde
Moaning Myrtle	Maya
Fenrir Greyback	Faiz Girgaonkar
Gellert Grindelwald	Gaurav Gurikar
Andromeda	Anantaramali
Viktor Krum	Virat Kohli
Olympe Maxime	Ohana Mahapatra
Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody	Akalkot “Mahadev” Modi
Garrick Ollivander	Gagan Ojha
Antioch Peverell	Anjan Pujari
Cadmus Peverell	Kalidas Pujari
Ignotus Peverell	Ishwar Pujari
Poppy Pomfrey	Pushapakal Purohit
Helena Ravenclaw	Hemlata Rampure
Rufus Scrimgeour	Ramesh Sardeshpande
Ludo Bagman	Latif Bhagwan
Bathilda Bagshot	Bhagayshree Biradar
Cuthbert Binns	Kamlesh Biji
Amelia Bones	Amitha Bhure
Fleur Delacour	Farha Dajini
Gabrielle Delacour	Gulab Dajini
Stan Shunpike	Samir Saraaf
Argus Filch	Asif Firangi
Nicolas Flamel	Naagarjun Fattepur
Gregorovitch	Gajendranath
Phineus Nigellus Black	Parsuram Nibalak Bilgi
Regulus Arcturus Black	Raghunandan Ahchuth Bilgi
Sirius Black	Shrinivas Bilgi
Igar Karkaroff	Ismail Khurrana
Amos Diggory	Anant Deshpande
Aberforth Dumbledore	Ashwatham Dheergesh
Ariana Dumbledore	Aanamika Dheergesh

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* -I had named Hagrid as Hanumanth which suited the personality but had to alter to suit the full name.

**- This name was suggested by my cousin Shivani. A cousin in need is a cousin indeed.

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How it all began?

It was during initial years of my engineering days when my family had finally got its first cellphone. A simple Nokia 3110, a gift from my aunt which included a SIM card too. This device enabled me to connect with a long lost friend Thiagrajan (In the real life he goes with a different name). The new found friendship sparked many intellectual debates and discussions. During one such conversations he introduced me to the fantasy world of J.K.Rowling where Harry was the chosen one. By this time he had read almost all the books that were published and he couriered me the books that he personally owned. “The prisoner of Azkaban” was the first title that he sent me along with CDs that contained the movies of first three books. This was the starting point.During the course of time we exchanged the subsequent books in the series, - “The Order of Phoenix” and the “The Half-Blood Prince”. Half-Blood Prince remains one of our favorite books of the series till date. This book seriously got me involved and it was during this time when this random wave of thought hit me. What if I wanted them all to be Indians? The story line could remain same but the details that made it would have serious impact and reconsideration because of cultural and historical differences. But the thought of at least baptizing them to Indian names made me charged. I set out on this task, I converted all the important characters in the books to Indian names and wrote a letter to Thiaga. The idea was well reciprocated by him he took this to another level by converting some 20 left out characters and wrote a letter back. It was a very small list then, it contained 30 odd conversions only. He also sent out a statutory warning and I quote the exact words – “I suggest you not to go after writing the novel in Kannada, ‘coz it involves lot of risk as the characters and the titles are copyrighted” I paid heed to his advice and left the whole thing here itself. Though I never intended to write the novel in Kannada, it would only mean translating it which I never wanted to do myself but the thought of publishing the converted names remained in a safety locker in my head where I dump all the ideas for future purposes. But I always wanted to show it to a wider audience. Till this point only Thiaga and I and a few close friends knew it.So, comes the Diwali of 2015 I visit my home and I am asked to clean my old books and decide what should be kept and what can be given out. Without any zeal I set out to this task. I open a cardboard box and scan the contents inside and to my amazement I find the letter from Thiaga titled “Mortality of Vitality” in which was his reply to the name conversion idea. I then decide this time around I am going to complete this endeavor. I go to Wikipedia and get all the characters of the series and set out to baptize them and refine and modify the earlier ones. Though I have left out certain unimportant characters but I feel the list that you have gone through above is pretty comprehensive enough.I enjoyed the process of doing this. It was creatively satisfying. Many names have a flavor of north Karnataka region because I have spent most of my life here but I have tried to keep regionalism aside and include a wide array of naming flavors.During the process of fine tuning the conversions my cousin who was aware of this activity asked me to do something same for the fantastical world created by George R R Martin in his epic series – “The song of Ice and Fire” – Popularly known by its TV counterpart as Game of Thrones. I knew it, that I would have to eventually do it when I completed the second book in this series as I feel in love with the saga. So, here is a sneak peak of what is in store for the next. The whole list would definitely take time and efforts to come out in a presentable format, but as of now the below conversions should be enough to keep you curious and amazed.

 Game of Thrones - A Sneak Peek

House Names	House Words	The Indian Way
House Targaryen	Fire and Blood	अग्निपथ अग्निपथ अग्निपथ
House Stark	Winter is coming	अंत निश्चित है
House Lannister	Hear me roar	मेरे गर्जना गूंजती है
House Martell	Unbowed Unbent Unbroken	अजीत है अभित है
House Tyrell	Growing Strong	बढ़ते कदम
House Greyjoy	We do not sow	जैसा बोओगे वैसा काटोगे
House Baratheon	Ours is Fury	होश में जोश
House Tully	Family Duty Honor	रोटी कपड़ा और मकान
House Arryn	As High as Honor	उंझे लोग उंझी पसंद
House Bolton	Our Blades are Sharp	तेज धार

Will be back soon! I promise.