Alright, so I improvised a line from “Fantastic Beasts and Where to find them: Crimes of Grindelwald” but I like to apply the “If it fits, then I sits” mantra of the smaller members of the feline family to myself as well when I write down a heading (perks of being a Mano) and the moment couldn’t have been any more opportune because I just finished “A poem a day”.
Granted, I watched it at a very stressful time of my life as my anatomy mock exam happens to be the day after tomorrow and although I pretend to have a “happy-go-lucky” personality, the shameful truth is that I try to binge study (just as I pretty much binge doramas) usually on the last day and I do it- yes, you guessed it, under a hella lotta stress. (Cue acne and making sad faces in the mirror, looking at the reflection with eyes filled with regret of wasting perfectly good time).
But I’ll work on that, I’m going to change my unhealthy ways (My resolutions are based on unstable foundations, I’ll probably remain a sorry excuse of a human till some more years (◕ᴗ◕✿) Gomen!)
Anyways, back to “A poem a day”. The reason I picked up this drama was because I, too love tiny bite-sized daily poetry and I just had a feeling that it would be a good watch. I started it and I was glad to see my favourite cutie, Lee Yu-Bi, the ‘Choco’ from ‘Innocent Man’, the endearing new reporter in ‘Pinocchio’ who always did “Yes, Cap!” with a salute and the shattered but still standing tall example of a woman who had been to hell and back in “Gu family book”. I’d always wanted her to have her own show! And the main lead guy! *drum roll* [SPOILER] The prosecutor who dies in the second last episode of ‘ City Hunter’, actor Lee Joon-Hyuk! (The characters whose character arcs never attain Nirvana in kdrama land always stay with you because you always want them to be happy as well as everyone else who ‘got away’ with their happy ending.) So I was really excited to see him in a drama which was centred around the emotions in a hospital and how literature and words can resonate and calm the storms in us, giving us the feeling that we aren’t alone. And the poems really were cute and adorable, I loved them. Until, well. Until the poems became bait for a show which didn’t have a lot to offer except zero chemistry between the lovers (and I had really high hopes for these actors too) and entrapment of characters in their own idiosyncrasies.
Poetry is something that goes deep into the construct of a human soul and threads out a cloth with the needle of raw emotions. The show did offer moments like that and the soft narrations of the poems were calming and warm but the acting was b a d and relatable moments were seen in the patients in the hospital and rarely in the main cast themselves. And the only person whose story made me “fan away tears” was MinHo who was forced into the field of physiotherapy by his parents who didn’t forget to remind him either that “If you’d gotten better marks, you could have been a doctor instead.” Aigoo, please go away, patronising parents.
In a nutshell, the relationship between Dr. Ye Je Wook and Dr. Woo Bo Young is acted out so superficially that it’s sad because they both met each other through poetry and their characters deserve more depth and motivation than what they were given. Even as the drama ends, we depart yet look on at them staying in their “happy bubble” which at this point, I’m dying to poke just to explore their personalities more.
But we can’t complain, the poems were superb and I think that was the whole point as well so I really can’t hate this drama after all and here is a poem which really, really, brought tears to my eyes. Literally the reason why I wrote up this whole post.
• I thought it was okay for mothers to do that • (Shim Soon Deok)
I thought it was okay for mothers to do that, even if she works herself to death on the farm fields. I thought it was okay for mothers to do that, even if she sits on the furnace and eats a cold bowl of rice for lunch. I thought it was okay for mothers to do that, even if she does laundry with her bare hands and cold water on a winter’s day.
I thought it was okay for mothers to do that.
“I’m full, I’m not hungry.” Even if she starves while feeding her family. I thought it was okay for mothers to do that. Even if her heels are so worn out that they make noises in the blanket, I thought it was okay for mothers to do that. Even if her fingernails are so worn-out that they can’t even be clipped, I thought it was okay for mothers to do that. Even if father’s anger and our rebellion doesn’t phase her-
I thought it was okay for mothers to do that.
“I miss your grandmother, I miss your grandmother.” I thought those were just complaints. She woke up in the middle of the night and cried in silence. When I saw that, I thought,
Ah! It was not okay for mothers to do that.
*****
•das my mum, y’all•
A little bit of everything 