Today is about dementors; yes, the creatures that try to take out your soul by attacking your worst memories and fears. Even though dementors are a fictional character in the Harry Potter books and movies, we can find them every day in our daily lives. In today’s day and age, the whole industries are made around dementors; as in, the industry targets your fears and your worries, and push to you a limit where you feel your soul is leaving your body. When I think of dementors, in today’s context, I think of social media, the over-the-top noise levels of the newsrooms, and the tools that the authoritarian governments of today use to silence the voices of the people.

But, while dementors rule our psyche, it is also important to remember how Harry defeated them. In his discussion with Professor Lupin, the Hogwarts professor who deals in defeating dark magic, he tells Harry to think about his deep core happy memory. Remembering the memory, Harry casts the magic spell, while at the same time being shit scared of the dementor and its effect on his soul.

He defeats the dementor, of course. But it was not without realizing in the last scene of the Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie, while laying next to his Godfather Sirius Black, that it was actually him (and not his father) who came and saved him. In a way, Harry was his own savior. But he was helped by his core happy memories and his newfound love for his Godfather. Both made him overcome his fear of dementors and made him choose love over fear; courage over anxiety.

Even though Harry was the chosen one, the best sorcerer/best student that Hogwarts could ever ask for, he was scared of dementors; much in the same way that we are scared of our worst fears and our worst worries. I am scared these days too. Of what’s happening around. Of what’s happening in the world with the rise of industries that target cashing in our worst fears; of maniacs becoming leaders of countries; of my future. But today I choose to remember my core happy memories and to cast a spell to defeat these monster dementors.

I choose to remember the time when my mom came back after months in Pune and I saw her at the Delhi airport. I hugged her. With the driver driving, as soon as I went inside the car, I lay may head on my mother’s lap and felt truly happy. That I belong somewhere.

I choose to remember coming back from a long trip to find my then-girlfriend—now my wife—waiting for me at the door. I hugged and kissed her, her face glowing in the soft light of the only lamp in the quiet, desolate village. I remember her warmth, that deep sense of coziness.

I remember playfully fighting with my wife on our bed and just laughing like maniacs in the middle of the night. I remember playing cricket with my nephew in Pune; taking him out for lunch in Rishikesh.

I remember leaving Bihar after a year of teaching stories and computers to children, and how the young kids didn’t want to let me go. They asked me to stay, to keep teaching them, to keep being with them. I stood among those girls and boys, both of us holding back tears, and made a silent promise to myself that I would continue working for the underprivileged.

I began this post thinking today was about dementors. I was wrong. It’s about the memories that drive them away. Love over fear. Courage over anxiety. Light over darkness.

What are your core happy memories? Maybe it’s time to revisit them today.