It was around this time of the year, late September, maybe early October when I first came to Japan, all those years ago; terminal 2 of Narita would not be operational for another 2 years. The flight timings are still the same, departure from New Delhi around 9 PM and arrival in Tokyo around 7:30 AM. Not sure if the tradition still continues but those days the Air India aircraft had names of historical personalities from India; this particular aircraft was called Narasimha Varman named after an Indian emperor of the Pallava dynasty which ruled the region of modern day Tamilnadu state. I remember being impressed with the name on the aircraft.
Some colleagues of my father’s had kindly offered to receive us which was probably more customary rather than necessary. They offered us Coca Cola and it hurt my stomach. We did not have Coca Cola in India as the company stopped operations in 1977; so it was my first time to have Coke and it took me some time to get used to it.
My introduction to Japan happened much earlier when we lived in Nepal. We had a Radio Cassette player from Sanyo and the streets of Kathmandu were full of used Japanese cars; as a young boy, I was able to identify most of the makes and models. However the image that is still strongly etched in my memory is the cover page of The Illustrated Weekly of India with the words “Monster Yen” with the YEN 10,000 bill and a red arrow rising steeply. I was certainly not interested in economics but read enough to learn that Japan’s economy was growing rapidly. I did know at the time that destiny will bring me to Japan just a few years later.
From the airport we took a bus and headed to the nearest location to where a house was arranged for us. Everything was very different, of course. Once in the bus I remember there were lots of announcements. At the time I could not understand Japanese and what the lady was saying and why she was saying so much; I do remember though remarking to myself that every sentence in this language seems to end with a ‘mas’.
We were told that home was about 70 kilometres from the airport which did not make sense to me. The Airport at the time in New Delhi was about 20 minutes from where we lived. We reached the house in the afternoon; the person who had arranged the accommodation was there and he showed us around the house and explained to us that shoes are not allowed beyond the threshold in Japanese houses. This was not very strange for us as the area in India we come from, we have a similar tradition. We were also given some maps of the area and were told that the nearest station was Sugamo. I must have been very tired, I have no recollection of that day beyond that point.