PURE MAGIC
THE WEEK India|October 13, 2024
A Potterhead and a Downton Abbey fan remembers Dame Maggie Smith
SUSAMMA JOY KURIAN
PURE MAGIC

How do you mourn someone you barely knew but loved enough to ache at their loss?

At 5’5”, Maggie Smith was no tall woman, but tower she did. All thanks to her talent, which was immense and wide-ranging, and personality— imperious yet endearing. She needed no dame in her name to command attention. All she had to do was walk on to a stage or show up on a screen near you.

She sauntered into my life, very cat-like (true to her animagus form), as Professor Minerva McGonagall from the Harry Potter series. The intimidating but kind-hearted Transfiguration teacher didn’t take long to transfix me. Those are the very adjectives her costars and directors used to describe her in their tributes to the British actor who passed away on September 27.

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