Category Archive for "Travel" |

On Travel

What is travel? And why do we do it? The most obvious answer perhaps, is one that entails movement. Travelling is about going somewhere, seeing something and returning with pictures to prove it. We do it for excitement, a break, relaxation. But travel is also a state of mind, even an emotion. It is the…

In Japan Cleaning is Meditation

The morning sky is still pale when people begin to gather in central Tokyo’s Komyoji temple. It’s a motley crew of about a dozen, including salarymen, in full suit-and-tie regalia, a fashionista sporting a silver tote and an elderly gentleman in scuffed leather shoes. As the clock strikes 7.30, they shake off jackets, put down…

Mr Wu

A middle-aged woman in teddy bear-spangled pajamas came hurtling down on a flatbed tricycle. The smell – a mix of sewage and fried rice – coated the tiles of the homes that lined the alleyway. Two men stood at the back entrance to a restaurant slick with fish scales, sizing me up as they smoked.…

The Indian Who Docked in Osaka

The Indian diaspora in Japan has historically been small, but has encompassed a colourful cast, from revolutionaries to textile traders. The oldest documented Indian resident in Japan, and arguably the most influential, was Bodhisena, a monk from Madurai whose outsized impact on Japanese culture persists even some 1,300 years after he docked on the archipelago’s…

Japan’s Vending Marvels

Japan may be synonymous with sushi and cherry blossoms, but vending machines could as well contend for the title of national symbol. There is hardly a square metre of the archipelago that is unadorned by these boxy machines. Even the remotest roads on desolate mountain slopes inevitably feature one, often half-buried under snow, but always…

Elevating the manhole to art

The traditional way to discover Japan is to take in its shrines, gardens and museums. A less conventional method, but one with a growing number of followers, is to keep the eyes trained on the ground, and go manhole-cover spotting. In Japan, the lowly manhole is its own art form, with covers displaying intricate, occasionally…

Postcard From Tokyo

Japanese has a bounty of words that recasts the mundane into the luminous. Shinrinyoku, for example, refers to taking a walk in the forest, but translates as “forest bathing”, conjuring up the feel of cleansing light pouring through tall trees on parched skin. Another instance: mon koh refers to lighting incense, but translates as…

A song for the sakura

Kyoto in full sakura-bloom is a sight to make the most confirmed teetotaller drunk, and I’m partial to a cup of sake at the best of times. There, under the cover of the floral parasol of a cherry blossom, rested a heron, its grey-and-white silhouette easily mistaken for an ink wash painting.

Notes from Tokyo

There are four different Japanese onomatopoeia to describe rainfall. When the rain falls ‘shito shito’ it is constant and enveloping. When it rains ‘zaa zaa’ it’s a sudden downpour, typhoon-strong. At the very outset of a shower, it rains ‘potsu-potsu’ which describes a few early drops and a darkening sky. At this stage it can also be ‘para para’, a bit random as though someone were spraying occasional moisture on plants out of a watering can.

A plane ride away from a broader mind

Travel for pleasure or out of curiosity has historically been the preserve of elites in privileged nations. For much of the colonial and post-colonial periods, most Asians who traveled did not belong to this group of tourists. They were "immigrants," fleeing political persecution or economic hardship. Does this matter? Isn't leisure travel a mere luxury,…

Pallavi Aiyar