Ties between the cultures have been growing over the last few years.
It was an evening to revisit India and Japan’s centuries-old shared spirit and culture. Launching the Lotus and Chrysanthemum Trust in the city on Saturday, Justice MN Venkatachalaiah said, “Japan, like India, lives concurrently in several centuries. It is difficult to understand Japan as it is difficult to understand India. This Trust is a small beginning made towards understanding human relations, Japanese Buddhism, the Japanese way of life. This Trust will be a model for how friendship between the two countries should grow.”
Calling the Japanese “amazing people” who were once devastated and made a small beginning to achieve extraordinary progress in the next few decades, he said, “The total usable land they have in Japan is about the same as that of Karnataka. We have a lot to learn from them.”
Making no comparison, Venkatachalaiah also made a mention of China in his speech. “In the next 10 years, the world will not be the same, life on the planet will not be the same. They said that the 20th century will belong to America and the 21st will belong to India and China.
It will be nobody’s century but of biosciences, physiological sciences and of technology. Science is knowledge and technology is ability,” he said suggesting that Japan’s example is for everyone to emulate.
The ties between the two cultures have only been growing in the last few years. There are 18,000 people in the country learning Japanese. There has been a dramatic increase from 5,500 in 2003.
This will only grow as the opportunities for those with knowledge of the language multiply, said Counsellor, Embassy of Japan Aya Yoshida on the occasion, which was also the Silver Jubilee Celebration of Japanese Language School of Bangalore.
The countries that share a deep connection through Buddhism are also taking great interest in each others’ art forms as was demonstrated by the cultural programme at the end of the event.
Bangalore’s students presented Japanese dance while Odissi dancer from Japan Masaka Ono, who has also trained at Bangalore’s Nrityagram – enthralled the Indian and Japanese guests with pieces choreographed by her guru, late Kelucharan Mahapatra.
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