Black and White

(my painting using poster colors)

In one of Amitabh Bachchan’s come back films, “Aks”, there was a song which was shown in the opening credits (beginning of the movie). The song was written by Gulzar. The wordings mean that “Nothing is good or bad, every good thing has flaws and every bad thing has atleast one bright side.”

Here I would take examples of two important characters of the famous fictional character Harry Potter; the two characters are Albus Dumbledore and Severus Snape.

Albus Dumbledore is the principal of the wizard school of Harry Potter and Severus Snape is one of the teachers there. Dumbledore is the best wizard among the good people. He is the leader of all the positive characters of the fiction. He is old, wise, knowledged and extremely skilled person. There are lot many things to learn from this character, not only for the characters of the books but also for the readers. Dumbledore here is a protagonist of all positive thoughts and all the right things in the world.

Severus Snape is one of the teachers of the school. His appearance is terrifying and crooked. He is cold hearted man. He was once associated with the dark forces (main antagonist in Harry Potter series), but now he is a part of Dumbledore’s forces. Our main hero Harry Potter dislikes Snape completely. Snape is also never kind to Harry. Infact Snape is having problems with many other important people from Dumbledore’s side. Nobody actually trusts him.

But the leader of the goodies, Dumbledore, always trusts Snape. He is having an undying faith on him. All others wonder of what could be the reason for this faith, even Harry. But he just keep trusting him.

In the last book of Harry Potter an important secret is revealed that Snape used to love Harry Potter’s mother and the basis of trust, that Dumbledore had on Snape, was that love. This revealation suddenly changes the attitude towards this dark chahacter. Also, there is another revealation in the book that Dumbledore in his youth was much rash and uncontrollable guy who befriended an evil wizard and tried to explore the magical world. His un controlled expeditions resulted in the death of his own sister. This revealation showed a dark side a good man.

The meaning of  the word “Albus” in Albus Dumbledore is white. White signifies purity and good things. Snape on the other hand used to wear all black, even the color of his hair and eyes were black. Black signifies evil or all bad things. But not only the person bearing the white name was pure, niether was the person wearing black was evil.

This is not just the imagination of the author of Harry Potter. Its universal truth. No body is perfect. Not even perfectly bad. That is what the song of Aks tells.

 Black and White is a part of life and also the base, colors came much later…