I normally don’t write reviews about books or shows I watch. I feel that watching them and enjoying them is good enough and quite frankly it has been a long time since something moved me enough to write about it. But I will make an exception for the new show on Netflix “One Day”.

Romcom as a genre is so easy to get wrong. People close to me know me to be a romantic and as such Romcom is one of my favorite genres, but it has been done so many times, and there’s either too much cheesiness or too much effort or just zero chemistry. But ‘One Day’ based on David Nicholl’s bestselling novel of the same name, works, unexpectedly at first, and then builds and builds its way towards the heart. The unforgettable line ‘It is one of the great cosmic mysteries. How is it that someone from being a total stranger can become the most important person in your life’, comes somewhere in the middle but sums up the series aptly.

Being a romantic fool, I found so many parallels with my life and my relationship with the love of my life – my wife. For romance fans like me, the friends-to-lovers trope is often a deeply satisfying journey, especially for those who love a long game. It’s the stuff of Jane Austen — years and years of longing and confusion, disappointment and fear with maximum pay-off. But romance or life does not end with the coming together. Staying together is often a better story and can be equally if not more romantic.

How do you get attracted to a person when you meet them first? In my case it was obvious but, in her case, it was not so. I like to feel that it was there in the back of her mind. In One Day, the latter happened. We too had the chance to become friends first before cementing our relationship. The law of attraction is also a cosmic mystery. Just like the lead pair the spark was their but she being pragmatic pushed it to the back of her mind. But in hindsight I did not have to work too hard to charm her because she was already charmed, by our first meeting. She just didn’t know it then.

Both Emma and Dex build their relationship over a decade of meetings and although we married very early in our relationship the journey of discovery still hasn’t ended. Perhaps it never does. Ambika Mod as Emma is the more philosophical of the two, like I am although the laid-back Dex, played by Leo Woodall, categories her as an over-thinker like My wife does to me. Ironically, she does not watch romcom and finds it boring. I could not persuade her to watch ‘One day’ with me. Being more practical she just found the slow pace not to her taste. However, there is a sense of shared memories and experience which binds us together.

Building a life together and sharing a lifetime of memories does brings us together like nothing can. But it does not insure us from numerous one-way streets we have taken sometimes together but mostly by me. Those incidents of self-destructiveness and self-pity have taught us just how cruel Life can be. Seemingly minor decisions can have repercussions of massive magnitude. Just like Emma warns Dex “You are not being Nice. You can be Nice and Kind” we have shown the mirror to each other but never left each other side. ‘One Day’ is boundlessly alive to these moments of bittersweet everyday-ness, of living with love, in a world ravaged with so much hate. The world is a better place when Emma and Dexter find each other, like we did, never losing faith. In those moments, everything else ceases to matter.

You sit with Emma and Dexter when they are by themselves and grow to know them a little better. Our journey was similar. We get to know each other slowly. Each parting was a journey into the unknown and each meeting an event where our eyes talked to each other, long before our bodies could. You sit with their gaping errors in communication and scream at them to spell things out. Today when I look back at our numerous fights, they all seem just like that- communication gaps or things left unsaid. What if I had said this instead of that. If only she had said something else. Like every couple the things left unsaid can fill the sea but are only bridged by the three words ‘I Love You’.

Despite leading separate lives with different needs Dex and Emma can’t extract each other from their system. We too have had fights and break ups (my faults mostly). She has been frustrated enough to try and break up with me but being together feels inevitable. It’s Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind-levels of inevitability, it is Thanos like inevitable, our connection to each other.

Just like Dex and Emma we know each other better than anyone and pull each other back from the brink. In part encouraging and roasting each other keeps us both honest in our life and our intentions. She is the constant voice which keeps us afloat through career highs and lows, overseas adventures, and moments of deep loss and darkness.

One Day champions different chapters in people’s lives. Makes me realise that life is not just a whirlwind romance with a requisite happy ending. Em and Dex consistently fail and succeed, with and without each other, as do we in our lives. It’s a beautiful human reminder that every day is an opportunity to process the past and keep it close while starting something new. As well as some of the bigger life moments, the show really focuses on the minute but monumental acts of kindness, sadness, beauty, pain, and connection that define our lives, and make it worth living. It reminds us that if we have someone to share our life with it does not reduce the trials and tribulations, but it will definitely be easier to go through them.

‘One day’ avoids the temptation of showing one moment or even a time when things become sublime, perfect a lot like our lives are. Even great triumphant are followed by the mundane next day where you have to go on and live the day. At these times it is the simple ‘bye’ and the smile of my better half that reminds us of what we have achieved. It is the snatched look and half smile across a crowded room which reminds you why you are doing this.

Ultimately, ‘One Day’ is about the people we really, truly take a chance on, for whom we give our whole, flawed hearts, that see us through our worst days, our better days, through grief, success, joy, embarrassment, arguments, and dreams. Most of all, it’s for my better half who is not only someone I fell in love with but someone I look forward to growing old with.

The journey has been exhilarating and maybe halfway through. I don’t know how much of it is left but I do know that the best is not behind us.So I dedicate this post to my better half who completes me and will always be the love of my life.

At the risk of sounding like a cranky old man who start off with “aaj kal ke bacche”- The kids these days perhaps don’t understand the value of romance and love. Most of my niece and nephews don’t want to get married.A lot of my generation feels that they dont want responsibility. I can include my daughters too here. They don’t understand how fulfilling a shared life can be. Your better half is the only partner who will be there with you for life. The relation is that between equals and is beyond jealousy, petty one upmanship and rancor. Not only do married couples complete each other but also make each other better persons. It is a beautiful journey and I wish my daughters too experience it. They too get swept off their feet or see someone heartbeat faster by just a simple twitch of their face. They too experience the feeling of belonging to someone and being wanted by someone. They too experience the rollercoaster of a ride loving someone can be. They too get a chance to unravel the cosmic mystery of ‘How is it that someone from being a total stranger can become the most important person in your life.’