"Take care in Japan"

Standing there in the school watching the Japanese children bid farewell to those that were returning to Japan, I felt sad. I also felt admiration for the great courage these people showed in the face of the tragedy.

An edited version of the story was published in The Sunday Express on March 20, 2011.
Here is the link http://epaper.indianexpress.com/IE/IEH/2011/03/20/ArticleHtmls/20_03_2011_012_003.shtml?Mode=1


Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, March 18, 2011


A little girl embraced another girl.
“Take care in Japan,” she said, and put the garland around her neck.
The other girl bowed, smiled and walked to her seat.
In a row, they sat, garlanded and clutching booklets their classmates had presented them with drawings, notes and pictures.
These children at the Japanese School were returning to Japan, their country that is now in the middle of a catastrophe brought by a 9.0 magnitude earthquake that has swept away thousands of people off the shore, and even shifted the planet by 25 centimeters on its axis.
The stoic clam in the face of the disaster is what has defined the Japanese reaction to the havoc created by the giant tsunami waves that ripped the shores of the archipelago.
Even the children sat calmly and any anxiety they had was concealed despite the images that showed on the Japanese television channel – bodies, uprooted houses and trees, shelter houses full of evacuees, queues of people waiting for food.
They knew about the crisis in the homeland. Before the farewell ceremony commenced, the 200 children sat in a solemn prayer meeting for the hundreds of nameless victims in their country. Iwao Sawada, the principal, told them about the tragedy and the children listened on. Then they observed silence for five minutes, their hands folded in prayer.
A teacher in a saree looked on. She too was returning to Japan.
Another student told her classmate “Don't forget me when you are in Japan. Eat well, study and don't fear. All will be well.” Then, she bowed. Both smiled and returned to their seats. A couple of mothers wiped away their tears. They quickly turned their faces away.
The school would close Friday. The classes had gone on. Even what they described as “scene from hell” with trucks bobbing on the giant waves, and fires from the nuclear plants touching the skies, had failed to disturb the routine that they so meticulously followed.
“We are Japanese. Two years. We will rebuild everything in two years,” Sawada said as he walked away to preside over the graduation ceremony at the Japanese School in Delhi a day before.
It was pride in the face of disaster, a stoic calm he maintained to haul himself from what he feared was striking at the core of his being – the tsunami.
He wasn't going to let the world judge them as weak humans. The tragedy had struck. The way forward was to work towards reclaiming what was lost.
The Japanese, he said, were a disciplined lot. They would come out of this as they had before. Disaster was no stranger to them. For them, it has been a tale of suffering and renewal. In 1923, the Great Kanto quake had killed more than 140,000. In 1995, the Kobe quake killed 7,000. Even Sendai, the face of the wreckage now, had witnessed a tsunami in 1896 that claimed around 30,000 residents.
Outside the school, cars lined up and Japanese mothers got out with their wards, smiling and bowing. Collectively they were going to deal with the disaster that pronounced Japan, their homeland, as doomed in the headlines, with the stoicism that is ingrained in them, the calm endurance that defines them.
Inside the office of the Gako Bunka Education Society, donations poured in. It was all done quietly, methodically. A notice was put up outside the school and checks with generous amounts started to stack up.
The money would be wired to help the victims of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that hit the Japanese archipelago on March 11.
For the small Japanese community in India that are mostly concentrated in Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Mumbai, the news of the wreckage came via frantic phone calls, through the internet and emails and images on television.
They united in their grief and across their offices and schools, notices were put up asking for donations for their country.
It was quick, understated.
Katsu, the 72-year-old priestess at the Shanti Stupa in Indraprastha Park in the national capital, walked to the prayer room, chanting for those that perished.
“Na Mu Myo Ho Ren Ge Kyo.”
She beat the drums. The sound reverberated.
It is her belief that through the sound waves, the message of peace asking the victims to be strong would travel.
On Friday evening, she chanted again. For an hour, her hands relentlessly beat the drums.
In front of the frail priestess, the statues of Buddha and photos of Master Nichidatsu Fujii, who came to India in 1885, were lit up by a solitary bulb.
On the walls, images from Japan were hung.
Among them, the Fuji volcano in her native Shizouka captured for a calendar in the month of March.
Katsu has lived in India since 1986. In 1969, she had gone to Rajgir in Bihar and as she stood in front of the Buddha, she wanted to make an offering.
“I didn't have anything. No money. So, I gave myself to God. I became a monk,” she said.
The calamity that struck her country was God's will, she said.
“No bad fate falls like that. No storm comes just like that,” she said. “In the nuclear bombings in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thousands died. We will find a way out. This is a warning for the world. We must reflect on what went wrong. We will have to own the right path. We need faith.”
A monk from Orissa was flying to Japan the next day to help out. She is too old to travel but she said she would continue to pray for her country.
“What we can, we must do,” she said.
Outside, the white stupa loomed against the backdrop of a setting sun.
Katsu is among the 1,500 Japanese nationals that live in Delhi. There are around 4,500 Japanese residing in India.
When strangers stopped his wife and asked her if her family and friends were safe in Japan, Shinichi Yamanaka, the chief representative of Japan International Cooperation Agency, was overcome with emotion.
“It was such a warm gesture,” he said. “People we didn't know came up to us and showed their sympathies.”
This is Yamanaka's second assignment in India. When the earthquake hit, he was at a metro station with the new Japanese ambassador. He rushed to his office, collected the staff and inquired if everyone's family was fine. Then, they informed the Japanese volunteers spread across the country in rural areas working in the health care area.
“We are worried about the situation now with the leakage in the nuclear power plant. We are always checking news for updates. We have to see the situation and just have to put faith in the government,” he said. “They are doing their bit. See, the Japanese are disciplined and they coperative. Those are powerful qualities. We will come out of this.”
The tight-knit community has preserved its culture in the fast-changing landscape of the Indian society with its burgeoning malls, its aspirations.
There are three Japanese schools across the country. The one in Delhi is in a residential block, tucked away in one of its lanes.
There are no signs. Even the buses that ferry its students bear no names.
Its 200 students are from the expatriate families that are either working in the numerous Japanese companies in Gurgaon, Delhi and the Noida region.
Inside the campus, the homeland is recreated. There's a Japanese garden with its rocks and plantings and benches in the middle of the building. It can be viewed from anywhere. It is the courtyard where the school holds its assembly, and its functions.
The teachers are Japanese nationals. A few Indian staff work in its administrative wing but it is mandatory for them to know the language.
The children can attend the school that shifted to Vasant Kunj in 1991 from New Friends' Colony where it was first established in 1964, till Class 9 after which they can return to Japan to finish their studies.
The syllabus is what they follow in Japan.
Across the Deer Park, in the neighborhood market of Safdarjung Enclave, is Yamato-Ya, the Japanese convenience store.
There's a little table where customers can drink tea and munch on snacks.
There's everything that a Japanese cuisine requires in this small store.
A few meters down the block, there is the Japanese Association. There is a library, a recreation room and an office where one can find information on Delhi and where one can learn English, or go for a haircut like Hera, a Korean salon, or find a Japanese caterer.
In the corner, two bags full of books, including novels and magazines, were kept. These had been donated by expats who were leaving the country so the ones that were coming in could use them.
Takushi Arataki, 36, left Japan five years ago to be part of the growth that India promised.
He wanted to run a catering business for the Japanese community here. Five years ago, he came to India to learn Hindi. Now, he speaks fluent Hindi and has a successful business.
“I like it. But it is difficult too. We get cheated often,” he said. “But it is fun. We have a strong sense of community and we know most of the Japanese here.”
He is from Tokyo. When the earthquake hit, he saw the wreckage unfold on television. In Tokyo, his family was fine. The radiation hadn't reached there yet.
He believed in the Japanese resilience like others. They were going to bounce back. Such disaster were a way of life. Only this one was bigger. But no worries, he said.
In Tokyo, as tremors were felt, an Indian origin national Alok Parekh who wrote that as he was scrambling to call his family, he saw cafes open their doors to serve drinks and free bread to lighten up the mood.
“Having been born in Tokyo, I was somewhat accustomed to earthquakes. But I knew that the effects of this event would be catastrophic for the country. What I do know is that elevator conversations about 'last night's earthquake' will soon come to an end, Japan's taxpayers and corporations are rich enough to bear the cost of this tragedy, and the country will emerge stronger than ever once it starts rebuilding itself,” he said.
The same were echoed by the community here that got together to help out, and never let the world discount their courage. The calm Japanese in their country and elsewhere became the force to counter nature's fury. This was unlike anywhere – Haiti earthquake, Katrina floods.
The images of tragedy were a resilient people that worked silently against the tide, to turn it around.
And all of that was contained in the old Katsu, bent in prayer.