Hospital Playlist

“I was getting tired from the world

but then you came for me, 

and gave a sweet rain in my drought-filled heart, 

A song of hope that I forgot…”

 

This is one of the many good songs that you will end up listening to if you watch the show Hospital Playlist on Netflix. While it has been an extremely popular K-drama over the last year in Korea and south -east -Asia, but if you haven’t watched it yet, then you should take time out for this one. 

 

While medical dramas with ensemble cast isn’t new for anyone but what sets this show apart is the acting prowess of this cast and the way the show has been stitched. The show starts off with four male doctors (Cho Jung- Seok, Yoo Yeon-Seok, Jung Kyung-Ho, Kim Dae-Miyung) and one female doctor (Jeon Mi-Do) who are approaching their 40s and their life stories and some medical drama. What sets them apart is the fact that they had a band in their college days which they revive as part of the story and at the end of every episode they jam together, and the actors actually perform together. You can listen to the jam performances on Spotify under the name Mido and Falasol or you can find all the videos and extended version on youtube.  The one good thing about Korean shows is that most actors are well trained musicians who are/were part of music bands which keeps the show engaging.  

 

It is a hearfelt drama about friendship, about friends who love to eat together, sing together and ofcourse have different choices in life but stand with each other through thick and thin. Like the female protagonist loves camping and while noone really accompanies her, she sets off on her own and keeps buying camping accessories all the time. In a normal world they sound like someone you would know. Or that time when Yoo Yeon-Seok who plays this devout Christian wants to become a priest and finally ends up loving his junior. A father trying to raise his son alone as his wife leaves him and his dedication towards raising his son. 

There are many hit Korean medical dramas one can tap into like Dr.Romantic but this story is refreshingly new, has characters which are complex yet people you and I can relate to and ofcourse the fact that you can listen to some good music. I will definitely recommend this one as an easy breezy watch and I hope you like it as much as I did. (have watched it thrice already)

Hope you liked last week's recommendation and I shall come with a new one next week! 

 

Something In The Rain

As the lockdown took over our lives, people started drifting from each other. But in all that chaos of survival, I ended up being hooked to my phone watching Korean dramas with English subtitles on Netflix. While it all started with Crash Landing On You (more on it later sometime), I started watching more and more K-dramas or let's say floating in the Korean wave.  It came to a point that I was even quoted in a story for Zenger News. So I decided to write down about shows which I recommend and why. I hope you have fun and please do send me your recommendations too. 

"Sometimes it's hard to be a woman, 

Giving all your love to just one man,

You'll have the bad times,

and he'll have the good times, 

Doin' things that you don't understand"

This song is one of the main tracks of the drama series Something In The Rain. It is a slow soothing track and everytime this plays in the background, you will feel a little warmer, a little better. The song by Carla Bruni is an ode to a woman. 

This series has been written  by Kim Eun and directed by An Pan-Seek. Now I have tried very hard to find more information about Kim Eun, infact if any reader can find me more information about her I would love to interview her someday.  The drama is based on a 35- year old lady (played by Son Ye-Jin)  who works as a barista and ends up dating a much younger (played by Jung Hae-In) who works as a game designer. The story revolves around the actress and her work colleagues where the women face work place harassment by senior men in the organisation and how she slowly stands up to it, her pursuit to find love for herself so much so that she first holds his hand in a bar when she realises another woman is trying to hit on her love interest, and the progression from being someone timid (her previous relationship) to be able to hold her ground, find her own voice and a journey where her mother continuously opposes her relationship and how she moves out of her home to find her own new life. While none of the Korean shows ever really end up in a heart break and I would also be heart broken if the hero didn't come back, right? 

So in all of this the hero ends up in the last scene with an umbrella , the umbrella has a lot of connotations in the show. 

This show actually breaks many taboos that is prevalent in the Korean society, but closer home all these instances sound way too common for us too. There have been so many times when I have heard people dissenting relationships where the woman is older than the man, they are even called cougar.  The common you and me, have lived around these taboos and it was refreshing to see someone who is over 30 years, independent , sticks to her job, takes one battle at a time and stands her ground. Her transformation is equally beautiful and the music notes string to your hearts. I am totally spell bound by the writer's thought process, the way she conceived the show and prioritises some of the most prevalent taboos which needs wider discussion around us. It is a treat to watch this show. And ofcourse, I am absolutely crushing on Hae-In these days.      

Sometimes the series feels a little too slow, especially the point where her mother disapproves the relationship and it stretches for far too long, you can always skip a little. It is a show that takes up a little time, but there is a direction where it is headed, all is not lost in the process. 

I hope you like this show too and I hope to be back with another show recommendation next week! 

Of books and stories that stay in our minds

Firstly, if anyone ever reads this page, welcome to the blog. This blog is a personal one to write about books I have read and what I loved or didn't like about them. Not liking a book is a rarity, right now I mainly underline and take notes in the book pages and I decided I wanted to keep a journal. Thus it is mainly a book journal. It doesn't follow any format. 

I am currently reading Extreme Economies by Richard Davies which I came across while reading the top ten book reads for the year by Financial Times, a publication that I personally adore. I will be writing notes from the book in the next post because I had promised myself if I ever write a book journal it has to begin with either a Ruskin Bond or Haruki Murakami book. These two authors have had a huge impact on me personally over the last three years and there is something about their writing that draws me into their world like nothing else does. 

A few months back I was running to meeta friend and at Andheri metro station when I saw a guy selling books for hundred rupees each and he had a collection of Murakami books. In a whim I picked up this book called Men Without Women. I found the name of the book intriguing and I am so glad that I did. 

The book was originally written in Japanese and translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen and published by Harvill Secker. 

Obviously I am a nobody to comment on Murakami's work, but this book is unlike any of his books that I have read before. The book has seven stories, just seven but rarely has a book had such a lasting impression. Even two months after finished reading the book it still takes space in my head, I keep thinking what happened to Shehrazade or how did a man genuinely had the capacity to write such a deeply moving book with women at the heart of every story. 

For example, the first story of the book is called Drive My Car, about an old ageing actor looking for a driver and with much apprehension agrees to hire a woman driver who must have been the age of his daughter, but he lost his daughter shortly after birth. How he talks about befriending a man with whom he knew his wife had a relationship and at her funeral he agrees to meet the man for a round of drinks and eventually ends up not disliking him and yet he does. The story narrates separate journey of his love towards his wife and the answers that he is seeking, the journey of the car driver Misaki Watari, her modest upbringing and her life, the man in question, and how their lives come together or fall apart. 

There is a line in the story, "Kafuku could not tell what it was he was trying to get rid of. May be weakness in his character, or trauma from his past. Or perhaps something in the present..." 

While the book navigates through infidelity, of breaking out to see the world, of falling in love and its loss. Infact the last story called Men Without Women is as complicated in its thoughts as simple it can be in its texture of daily existence. Of a man calling the author at 1 in the night to inform that his wife has passed away. The author, married with his wife by his bed, while that woman was once his lover and they had never kept in touch after they parted. The story is his thoughts between that call to him going back to his bed and his memories that takes him back. 

The book's multiple stories is a culmination of every form of complex relationships that I can imagine yet it makes you think, makes you wonder if there could have been a different end to it. OR may be you are way too wowed by the story that you still want to stay with it and not let it go.  There is a line in the book, "But there's nothing here that really moves you" but this book really moved me. 

Happy reading!