Music That Changed Our Lives, Music That Made Us #1Jaane Jaan Dhoondta Phil Raha, Jawani Diwani, 1972

For many of us Gen X’ers, growing up in the 80s, much before the computer or the Internet, the playback of the music from the 60s and 70s was not just a throwback to older times that our parents listened to when they were young, but very much part of the present music scene then, all of us consuming this generation of music, as much as our parents did. The term ‘OK, Boomer’ was still thirty years too far in the future, and we grew up listening and absorbing the 60s and 70s, as much as we did the 80s, the 90s, the 2000s, and the 2010s, and continue to do so now in the 2020s. I call our generation the ‘blessed generation’, possibly the only ones that can simultaneously enjoy pop culture and music across 6 decades!

That’s why this blog on “Music That Changed Our Lives, Music That Made Us”. To travel back and forth across time over 60 years to re-visit the brilliant pieces of magical and inspiring symphony that have changed us for the better, and made us who we are today. As the famous quote goes, ‘We are what we consume’. Well, “if music be the food of love, play on”.  

The first one I start with in this series has to be one of those songs that introduced the idea of an urgent and longing romance to our young and hormonal teenage minds. As some of us might recall, in the mid-90s, when India opened up to the world, cable TV had just transformed our lives, and we suddenly had access to content like never before, both Indian and international. Just as MTV and Star TV were teaching us about the birds and the bees, Indian channels were flooding us with films and songs from our glorious film history. Suddenly R D Burman's music was in vogue again (even giving us his last album around the same time, 1942, A Love Story,1994). And that’s when we re-discovered this genius of a love song ‘Jaane Jaan Dhoondta Phir Raha’, from a 1972 film Jawaani Diwani, starring Randheer Kapoor and Jaya Bhaduri (Bachchan was still a year away). (Yes the same film that also has the eponymous song, which also had a recent popular remixed version… Haa Meri Raani, Ruk Jao Jao Rani… ).

The central emotion of the song is that of longing for a beloved, that is just within reach and yet so far away. That wretched bitter-sweet feeling when you know your love is just about to be fulfilled, but it’s still taking a while to get there. Mujhko awaaz do, chhup gaye ho sanam, tum kahan… and the response makes you believe it’s almost there.. Main Yahaan.. As teenagers, listening to this song on a loop, again and again, it spoke to our simple fluttering hearts that beat for the opposite sex around us. This was not a time of Tinder and casual hookups. This was the time when romance was the desire, awkward glances exchanged were enough to make your day, and a smile and walk together holding hands was the ultimate reward for a privileged few. For the rest of us, reveling in our one-sided unrequited love, this beautiful duet became the perfect representation of how we felt most of the time… Dhoondta Phir Raha, Hoon Tumhein Raat Din Main Yahaan Se Wahaan. Stringing our hearts with the harmony of the chase, the tease, the search, the innocence, the yearning, the unfulfilled destiny, the uncertainty of whether it’s going to happen or not. 

The brilliance of the song goes further, as the game of hide and seek continues, as it flows from the first mukhda, sung by the boy, showing his vulnerable insecurity (not much has changed there has it) of whether his beloved will be with him, will his love be fulfilled Raaste Mein Kahin Reh Gaye Humnashin, Tum Kahaan.. despite his beloved re-assuring him with a Main Yahaan in response. And into the second mukhda with her response re-affirming that she feels the same sense of being lost and uncertain despite the inevitability of their love Haath Aise Mein Bas Chhodkar Chal Diye Tum Kahaan.. which then flows into the last mukhda, when we realize it wasn’t hide and seek, as much as it was ‘lost and found’.. where the feeling of being lost and uncertain was unnecessary, because in truth they had found each other long time back and that their destiny was already written to be together always Paas Ho Tum Khade Mere Dil Mein Chhupe, Our Mujhe Kuchch Pata Na Chala. And that they were so caught up with the noise from the outside world that they couldn’t see what was always inside of them Dil Mein Dekha Nahin, Dekha Saara Jahaan, Tum Kahaan, Main Yahaan.

All in all, this magical stringing of music and words, sung by the genius Kishore Kumar and the inimitable Asha Bhosle (uff, her background voice and an almost baritone Mujhko Awaaz Do) hit the sweet spot every time, gratifying the ears and the hearts of us all, the adolescents of the 90s. And we listened and hummed and sang together in get-togethers and parties on the top of our voices, feeling good with a sense of affirmation of what we all felt as a generation in the 90s.. alone and together.

3 Body Problem (Season 1), Netflix, TV show review

Based on a successful Chinese fiction novel trilogy, Remembrance of Earth’s Past (The Three-Body Problem 2006, The Dark Forest 2008, Death’s End 2010), Netflix’s #3BodyProblem (Season 1) is the next production of the wildly successful GOT creators, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Needless to say, all of us GOT fans (for most seasons anyway) jumped in head and heels, readying ourselves up for what promised to be one helluva ride.

The story begins with the astrophysicist, Ye Wenje, who, after her father’s brutal death during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, is sent to a military science base to contact extraterrestrial life, as part of the science-tech-space race that was prevalent during the Cold War era. Driven by a mixed sense of revenge yet saving humanity, she ends up inviting a super advanced life form (the San-Ti) to come and inhabit and potentially save Earth from humans. The impact of this event triggered in the 1960s is felt in the present-day UK, as a bunch of (mainly Oxford) scientists feel their lives being threatened, controlled, and even murdered by San-Ti and their technologically advanced communication through AI-enabled "sophons", highly immersive and real VR gaming, and human ambassadors that have formed a cult of San-Ti worshippers (referring to them as their “lord”), waiting for them to come and save them. Even as the San-Ti create havoc in present times around the world, the reality is revealed that they will arrive to inhabit the earth (and potentially eradicate humans), but only 400 years later, coming from their un-stable and now collapsing galaxy (being part of the 3 suns solar system, hence the 3-body problem). The British Secret Service steps into action. Led by Thomas Wade and aided by his faithful officer Clarence, they recruit the very same afflicted Oxford scientists along with an army of the best officers, scientists, ammunition, and resources, to fight the cult-followership (led by Ye Wenje and Mike Evans), and starting a long term mission to stop the San-Ti before they reach Earth. 

The series has all the makings of a potential blockbuster production. The creators come from the pedigree of perhaps the most successful TV show of the last decade. Netflix production budgets mean no lack of money to create anything at all. The visual and sound effects are magnificent and impactful. And most of all, at the heart of it is the perfect nerdy concept of the "3-body-problem", one of those unsolvable physics problems in the world, mixed with a generous dose of science-fiction with un-seen and un-imaginable alien species that are coming to invade us. Even the central philosophical tenet of the series is brilliant, wherein at a time of uncertainty in the world, in some form or manner, we are all contemplating and debating our very own existence as a human race… waiting for either salvation or retribution.. even as we are not really able to make out the difference between the two. Thanos or Avengers? Shiva or Vishnu or Brahma? Life or After-Life? Fight the San-Ti or let the San-Ti save us? Do we really know what’s the right choice anymore?

And in fact, the first half of the Season speaks to this perfectly. We are totally intrigued, immersed, and involved in the plot, jogging our minds, dazzled with the multiple possibilities in which the story is heading, blown by the paranormal phenomenon that we are not able to explain. And for all of us nerds, it’s a complete geek-fest digging into concepts and ideas we’ve not explored before. But in the second half of the Season, it quickly slows down and unravels towards an unsatisfying and disappointing ending, leaving us all under-whelmed, cheated, and a little meh’ed. And for that, this new potentially exciting Netflix series comes a cropper.

This is because The 3-Body Problem has, well, 3 Body-problems!

The first body-problem is the body of the work and the writing that doesn’t make the mark. Having not read the original Chinese novel that the series is based on, it’s hard to say whether the lack of depth in the story-telling is because of the sourcebook or because of the writers of the TV show, but where Benioff and Weiss had a winner in their hands with GOT, to begin with, was George R R Martin’s prolific books with so much history, geography (and biology!) that every episode was an in-depth experience that left you wanting more. Without this depth, the story just becomes about an alien race wanting to invade our planet, and in that becomes a seen-there-done-that story only a million times before. We also realize with this show that Netflix is no HBO and that perhaps is the other reason for the lack of impact. HBO is a master class in impactful and deep story-telling - Succession, Outsider, White Lotus, Sex and the City, Mare of Easttown, etc etc. Whereas Netflix's strength lies in making highly engaging pop entertainment - Stranger Things, Money Heist, Bridgerton, Elite, Wednesday, etc. Not exactly the same thing. Perhaps HBO’s take on the 3-body problem would have given us what we were looking for.

The second-body problem is the missing body of completeness of the Season. For most of us, even though we are unfamiliar with the original Chinese novel, it is well understood that most of the new TV shows will have a follow-up season and we don’t expect the story to finish completely in one season. But, what the good shows do really well, is they give enough of a sense of completion to give satisfaction to the audience of time well spent across 8 long one-hour episodes, while still leaving it open enough for them to come back again for the next season. In fact, Netflix is a master at that, given all the above (and many other) popular shows, Stranger Things being best-in-class on this. And so it’s a pity that for this show, they didn’t do that. At the end of Season 1 of 3-body, not only are we left with a complete sense of incompletion, but also a sense of hopelessness that it will really go anywhere in Season 2.

The third-body problem is the lack of connection with the many some-bodies in the show. For a story that has so many characters, with each playing a significant role in the plot, with their own individual stories and emotions, it is a miss that we don’t build a relationship with any of the characters, no matter how strong and important they are. Again a huge contrast to GOT, where we had deep emotions (be it love, hate, disgust, attraction, pity) with each and every character in the plot. In 3-body, we watch the characters playing their role in a story with a distance, not feeling Will’s unrequited love for Jin, or Jin’s reluctant complicity in the mission, or Auggie’s rebellious yet hopeless desire to change the world, or Thomas Wade’s patriotic fervor to save mankind, or even Ye Wenje’s dubious moral compass that starts the whole thing. The only characters that make some impact are Clarence (played by Benedict Wong), the cheeky-yet-focused officer who unwittingly becomes the key agent of action, and Mike Evans (played by talented Jonathan Pryce) as the menacing-yet-calm leader of the San-Ti cult.

All in all, Did we like Season 1?

Unfortunately no. It was a completely missed opportunity.

But will we watch season 2?

Yes of course, with the hope that it realises the potential of what it could be.

Dear Netflix, Benioff and Weiss, hope you’re able to pull off Season 2 better. 

Otherwise, we may have a 6-body problem to deal with!