My foray into TV dramas continue thanks to Netflix. After finishing Pakistani offerings, I watched little bit of the Turkish drama - Resurrection: Ertugrul. More about it later. I turned next to the Korean dramas or Kdramas as they are known.
I picked Crash Landing on You because The Hindu recommended it. It is a hilarious, improbable tale of what happens when a South Korean businesswoman ends up in North Korea due to tornado while paragliding. Fortunately for Yoon Se-Ri, Captain Ri and his 4 men (each with a distinct personality) have goofed up on patrolling (one was having a hangover and the other was busy watching South Korean drama). So, they decide to help Yoon Se-Ri get back to South Korea. However, Yoon Se-Ri messes up and ends up in a North Korean Military outpost in front Captain Ri's house. Meanwhile Yoon Se-Ri's brother would rather have her dead because their father has declared her heiress to his business. And so the roller-coaster ride begins with a nudge-nudge, wink-wink to all the South Korean drama tropes. The story is also rather poignant and bittersweet because Se-Ri and Captain Ri, who as expected fall in love, cannot have a traditional happy ending.
The show shifts between North Korea, South Korea, and Switzerland. And the show manages to humanize North Korea. Of course, there are the notorious State departments snooping on people, there are unannounced house raids (the scene where the village head leading the raid pauses outside the handsome Captain Ri's house to apply lipstick was just hilarious) , blackouts, electricity failure (the train from the Military outpost to Pyongyang stops suddenly mid-way due to power outage and it takes only 10 hours for the service to be restored) and all the things we have heard about. In the midst of it, people live their lives worrying about the usual stuff-education of their children, tuition classes, making kimchi...the normal things that people around the world worry about. The credit for this accurate depiction of village life in North Korea goes to the writers who consulted extensively with North Korean defectors for the show.
It was while watching the show that I realized that some words are common between Korean and Tamil. The first time I heard the second lead heroine address her mother as Amma, I was startled. I thought I had misheard her. But when it happened second and third time, I searched the internet. Turns out that Amma and Appa is how Koreans address their mother and father informally. And Amma and Appa is mother and father in Tamil too. There are other words- pul for grass, Na/naan for I, nee for you, nal for day...that are common between the two languages.
Why this connection? There is no satisfactory answer. Korean and Tamil do not belong to the same language group. But there are stories of how Indian Princess married into Korean Royal family. Was she a Chola Princess and therefore, spoke Tamil? Does it indicate that there was maritime connection between the Tamil land and Korea? I do not know.
But as I continue to watch Korean Dramas, I find myself listening to the words. Every time I hear something familiar, I pause, re-listen to the conversation, and then check the internet whether the word really means what I think it means.
