The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”—St. Augustine
My first introduction to Japan as a student was through Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. His dramatic escape from India to Germany and then to Japan was indeed a stuff that would leave any student wonderstruck and in those days of early independence, inspire to be bold and patriotic like him. General K.S. Thimayya’s brother Samudragupta, as we in Madikeri knew him, had served in the Indian National Army (INA) of Subhas Chandra Bose and it was a matter of pride for we students then. Afterwards, I was exposed to the extraordinary qualities of discipline, creativity and hard-work of Japanese when I saw a Kannada film. There was a scene where a Japanese family was travelling in the train. They buy two sugarcane stalks and enjoy eating them. The rind of the sugarcane, leftover after chewing it, was collected and made into small baskets using their entrepreneurial skill in handicrafts. When they alight from the train, they sell it and make some money. This was an eloquent demonstration of the skill and imagination of Japanese people to earn even from things we consider a waste. Of course, earlier too I had heard of Japan for a tragic reason — the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with the atomic bombs dropped by Americans in the World War II. When I think of Japan, I also think of our first Air Chief Marshal Subroto Mukherjee, who about 58 years ago died in Tokyo getting choked with a fish bone in his throat. Be that as it may, it was a short flight across the Sea of Japan from Seoul to Narita International Airport, Tokyo. From the Land of Smiling People, as South Korea is also known, to the Land of the Rising Sun, Japan. In 1989, with very limited foreign exchange in my pocket, I had literally starved in Japan. But this time I was lucky for two reasons. Our Rotary group had enough money in foreign exchange to splurge and our travel agent, Thomas Cook, had thoughtfully arranged our lunch and dinner in Indian hotels on all the seven days we stayed in Japan.
