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* SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA, CHENNAIAPRIL 5, 20152 TIMES CITY
Rinko Nagami’s love af-fair with India began way before she met her Malayali husband. A visit to the country in
1985 had her hooked. Since then, the manga artist has been an am-bassador of south Indian culture and cuisine in Japan, bringing out books on the country that fascinates her.
Nagami’s latest manga, ‘Rinko Nagami’s South India is so deli-cious!’ hit the stands in Tokyo on March 9, 2015. “I wanted to draw the attention of Japanese people to south Indian food,” says Naga-mi, whose husband Koodathodi Chami has been running a south Indian restaurant, Kerala Bha-van, in Tokyo since 2004.
Over the years, the number of Japanese coming down to south India — Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Kerala and Puducherry — has gone up. “In 2014, the numbers touched 1,019 for south India and 836 for Tamil Nadu,” says Deputy Consul-Gen-eral Koji Sugiyama.
According to him, a majority of Japanese come down on busi-ness and stay for two to three years. “As on 2014, there are 1, 209 Japanese companies in India, with 225 in TN,” he says. “The Japanese Chamber of Commerce & Industry (JCCI) in Chennai celebrated its 10th anniversary in February 2015. Ten years ago, there were only 24 Japanese companies which were members of JCCI but in 2014, there were 180.”
With an in-creasing number of Japanese com-ing down, and a com-mon love for rice and Rajinikanth, there is a growing interest in south In-dian culture and cuisine in Ja-pan. “South Indian and Japanese culture may be very different in many ways but there are also in-teresting similarities. For in-stance, we have a festival called Dondo-yaki which is akin to Bhogi, the day preceding Thai Pongal in Tamil Nadu. In the mid-
dle of January, we also burn old things
and cook rice porridge with Japanese dal, like
Pongal. During another festival, Hinamatsuri, usually celebrated by girls, people display dolls at home just like you have kolu dur-ing Navarathri in south India,” says Shinji Kashima, who along with artist Hiroyoshi Takeda, call themselves Masalawala, and spe-cialise in dishing out south Indi-
an meals to the Japanese.Recently, the duo, along with
photographer-writer Akira Io and his wife Haruna brought out ‘Visual Guide of South Indian Culture’, a Japanese book that covers cooking, cinema, perform-ing arts and rituals, wherein they introduce Carnatic music, Bhar-atanatyam, Kathakali, Pongal, and Jallikattu to Japanese read-ers through their point of view.
“The basic concept was in my
brain for a long time. I had writ-ten a small book on Carnatic mu-sic with chief editor of Sruti magazine V Ramnarayan. After my return to Japan, I wanted to do a similar visual guide of south Indian culture,” says Akira. The work was distributed, with Akira and Haruna writing about music, dance and handicraft, while Ma-salawala wrote about cuisine and cinema. The book was released in October last year.
“Previously, only naan and curry were known to the Japa-nese. But recently south Indian cuisine is getting featured in Japanese media and exclusive restaurants have emerged in met-ropolitan areas such as Tokyo,”
says Hiroyoshi. “Also, many Japanese are now leaning Car-natic music, classical dances such as Bharatanatyam, Ku-chipudi, and Mohiniyattam as well as Ayurveda.”
Rajinikanth’s ‘Muthu’ and later ‘Enthiran’ spurred a renewed inter-est in Tamil cinema. In fact, Masalawala will soon appear in the 3D
film ‘Jumbulingam’ as crazy Rajini fans.
For Kaoru Katori, it was the strong urge to introduce the range of south Indian cuisine that drove her to collaborate with Chennai-based Akemi Yoshii to work on ‘South Indian Homestyle Curries & Spice Dishes’. “It’s a pity that many people in Japan have not yet known those fasci-nating South Indian cuisine. I feel frustrated that most Indian res-taurants in Japan are tandoori restaurants. And I know many people — though still a minority in Japan — are aspiring to cook south Indian dishes that they have come to love,” says Kaoru, who has been running Kitchen Studio Paisley Culinary School in Tokyo since 1992 and has pub-lished many cookbooks.
She started her research for the book in 1995. “I have tried to illustrate the distinctive charac-teristics of each south Indian state through the recipes I chose,” says Kaoru, whose book will be released in July.
All of them do extensive re-search. Kaoru learned recipes not only from Hindus but also from Muslim and Christian families. Akemi, who is married to Pu-rushotham, a Tamilian, did the coordination for Kaoru’s research on South Indian cuisine. “We did field work in Chennai, Hydera-bad, and the Chettinad region. And I have overseen the section on Tamil cuisine,” she says.
Rinko spent three months on research. “I interviewed my hus-band, Kaoru Katori and Masala-wala, among others. I also wrote down my memories of the food my husband’s family in Kerala cooked for me,” she says.
Since these books have a niche market, some of them do find it difficult to get publishers. But that is also slowly changing. “Af-ter I got married to an Indian, I published several works that in-troduce India to my Japanese readers,” says Rinko. “The pub-lishing company that I worked with first contacted me about the book on south Indian cuisine as the editor, Kawamura, is a great fan of my previous works.”
Manga meetsMANGAI
Food, Music, Dance — South India’s Essence Is Finding
Takers Among The Japanese
CHENNAI EXPRESSMASALAWALA | The duo
has been conducting events to popularise south Indian culture in Japan since 2008. This March, they held the Hachioji Masala Festival in Tokyo.It was an Indian cultural event showcasing classical music, dance, and food.
AKIRA LO | He introduces Carnatic music and Indian performing arts to the Japanese audience through his talk shows.
KAORU KATORI | Runs the Kitchen Studio Paisley Culinary School in Tokyo. Apart from introducing south Indian cuisine to the
Japanese, she and her students started an
Indian film dancing team
called the Sundrisin 2013 just for fun.
RINKO NAGAMI | She is married to a Malayali, Koodathodi Chami, who has been running a south Indian restaurant, Kerala Bhavan, in Tokyo since 2004. Among other works, she has brought out a series, ‘Tea cups for an Indian & Japanese Couple’, which is based on the daily life of Rinko’s Indian-Japanese family. Vol.20 of the ongoing series was published in December 2014.
Kaoru and I did field work in Chennai, Hyderabad,
and Chettinad region. And I have overseen the section on Tamil cuisine | AKEMI
YOSHII, FOODTALE COLLECTOR
BUILDING BRIDGES: (Above) Kaoru Katori has been working to popularise south Indian cuisine in Japan; (left) Masalawala with Rajini
Pic
co
urt
esy
: E
iko
Sa
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ki
There’s really no need to break into a sweat because summer’s here. It’s a pretty cool time of year, if you think about it.
Take the case of bug and bird specialist ‘Poochi’ Venkataraman, or Poochi Venkat as he insists on being called because of his pen-chant for all things poochi. You’ll never find him indoors during summer, as it is the perfect time for bird, critter, reptile and bug watching.
On a personal note, the wildlife enthusiast waits for summer because his favourite insects, the dragonfly and robber fly, make an appear-ance. “The robber flies eat other insects and are better fliers than the dragonfly. Scientists at one point were experimenting with them for vector control because they eat mosquitoes. This failed, though, because there were far more mosquitoes than these robbers could eat,” he says. “Dragonflies signal rain because they
come out when the air is humid. That’s why farmers love them.”
Venkant say when flowers are blooming, it draws the insects out, which in turn bring the little birds and animals out. He suggests head-ing out to Pulicat lake to see the Siberian ducks that fly in this time of year, or Sriharikota is-land to see the painted storks. “The water level is at its lowest this time of year and this draws out the water-borne creatures. That’s why you will find a number
of birds this time of year,” he adds.For those who are really not in the mood to
drive so far out, heading as close as the woody south Chennai is good enough. This time of year, says Venkat -- who has conducted work-shops for the forest department in Chennai – you will find bee-eater birds, the bulbul, and the drongo flying about. “These birds love the heat. The bulbul signals that summer has ar-rived,” says Venkat. “In summer, the drongo will fly right into your home. Urbanisation does not seem to faze them.” So, like Venkat, watch out for summer.
‘D’ FACTOR | In a recent medical camp he held, sports medicine consultant Dr P Nagaraj noticed that women in the ages of 25 to 40 were showing signs of osteoporosis and had low bone mineral densities. He suggests exercising outdoors between 6am and 9am or between 5pm and 7 pm. “This is good sunlight and is one of the major sources of vitamin D,” he says.
SOW SUNNY, SOW GOOD | MB Nirmal, chairman of Exnora Interna-tional, which focuses on environme-ntal issues, says summer is the perfect time to get planting ginger, bitter gourd, ribbed gourd, tomato, brinjal and chillies. “These plants withstand Chennai’s summer heat and thrive in the sunlight,” he says.
EAT WELL, BE WELL | Dietician Dharini Krishnan suggests loading up on the water-filled fruits and vegetables that are in abundance in summer. “This is the only season you will get mangoes, musk melons and a special variety of cucumber called kakdi,” she says. “They not only keep you hydrated, but also help you stock up on beta-carotenes and anti-oxidants.”
Five Ways To Get Your Summer Squeeze Of Goodness
Dragonflies signal rain
because they come out when the air is humid. That’s why farmers love them | PoochiVENKATARAMAN, BUG & BIRD SPECIALIST
SOME LIKE IT HOTAll For Summer
HERE ARE A FEW MORE REASONS TO WAIT FOR THE SEASON
Pix courtesy: Venkat
SEASON’S SPECIAL:For wildlife enthusiasts, the scorching days are a delight as it is the perfect time for bird, reptile and bug watching
Chennai: The physics por-tion of the first paper of theIIT JEE (Main) exam wastough, said students who ap-peared for the examinationacross the state on Saturday.
The three-hour paper one(BE/BTech) contained 30 ob-jective-type questions each inphysics, chemistry andmathematics. Each correctanswer carried four marks,while there was a negativemark for every wrong an-swer. While students foundthe chemistry part easy, theyfound some physics andmaths questions tricky.
P Madhav, a student ofMaharishi Vidya Mandir atChetpet in Chennai, said thephysics portion was lengthyand took time to solve. “Thephysics questions took up alot of time due to which I didnot have enough time to solvethe maths portion. I had toleave out two or three ques-tions at the end,” he said.
Another student, R Dee-pak, said he found the phys-ics problems much more dif-ficult when compared to thepapers of last five years. “Thequestions were conceptualand so they required a lot ofthinking, and involved multi-ple steps. A few questions inthe maths portion were am-biguous but others wereeasy,” he said.
Analysing the paper, Tri-umphant Institute of Man-agement Education directorAjay Anthony said the paperwas more difficult when com-pared to the previous years.From an academic point ofview, he said, the physicsquestions were lengthy andneeded innovative thinking.
However, based on thefeedback received from stu-dents from different cities, hesaid many found the mathspart very challenging. Mean-while, written exam for pa-per 2 for Bachelor of Archi-tecture/Planning was heldfrom 2-5pm on Saturday.
Students findphysics partof IIT JEE firstpaper tough
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
STIFF CHALLENGE
T he limits of my lan-guage, said Ludwig Wittgenstein, are the
limits of my world. In worlds progressively made smaller by loss of language — and associ-ated attrition of culture — the philosopher’s words reverber-ate between the ellipses. Even as Hindi and English are tak-ing over Indian tongues — even Arunachal Pradesh with its 90 languages, not counting dialects, is fast ceding to Hindi as the state’s lingua franca — Tulika, the Chennai-based children’s publishing house, has swum against the tide and published a picture book in Mishmi, one of the tribal lan-guages of Arunachal Pradesh.
“It’s the first book pub-lished in Mishmi using Roman script,” says Tulika senior editor Deeya Nayar, about ‘Hambreelmai Sai’, a folk tale that mythifies the weaving tra-dition of the people. Mishmi, an oral language, lacks a script of its own but uses Tibetan and Roman scripts when needed. Sokhep Kri, state editor of Arunachal Gazateers and translator of the story for Tu-lika, says there are three sub-tribes of Mishmi: Kman (Miju), Taraon (Digaru) and Idu. “Hambreelmai Sai is based on a Kman folktale and has been translated in Kman using Roman script — a script the community uses to com-municate on SMS and social networking,” says Kri.
Tulika, which published the same folktale in English as ‘ H a m b re e l m a i ’s Loom’, has also published in the Roman script “Race of the Rivers,” a Khasi oral folktale from Meghalaya. “We’d iden-tified these two very charming folktales a long time ago, from a Verrier Elwin collection,” says Deeya. Elwin was a 20th cen-tury anthropolo-gist and tribal
activist. “When we decided to do them we were sure they had to be written by people from the region who can capture the flavour. We are multilingual publishers, and in our sensibil-ity it followed quite naturally to explore the idea of publish-ing in the local languages so children there could read a folktale from their own regions
in their own languages.”While tribal folk-
tales have always been orally narrated
to children, Esther Syiem, poet, professor at
North-Eastern Hill Uni-versity, Shillong, and
author of ‘Race of the Rivers’, says now-
adays English language sto-ries seem to be
overtaking the i n d i g e n o u s ones in Megha-
laya, at least. “There is a pau-city of reading material avail-able for children; children are told stories,” says Syiem.
Even as Tulika referred to the Elwin collection in Eng-lish, in commissioning local writers to rewrite the stories, it spotted discrepancies in El-win’s telling of the Mishmi tale. “In ‘Hambreelmai’s Loom,’ Elwin had called the girl ‘Hambrumai’ which means ‘floor mat’, whereas Sokhep said she should actu-ally be ‘Hambreelmai’, ham-breel being a kind of small fish (which connects with the idea of her flowing down the river later). ‘Mai’ is a usual suffix for female Mishmi names. The porcupine too changed from Hairum to Sheipung. Sheipung is the actual word for porcu-pine, hairum means chamele-on,” explains Deeya. “Perhaps it goes to show the importance of engaging with the local lan-guage of the region. When they travel to other cultures, stories sometimes change or are misrepresented and that becomes the accepted version. It’s tricky.”
Chennai-Based Children’s Publishing House Tulika Has Brought Out A Picture Book In Mishmi, A Tribal Language Of Arunachal
Keeping Indian tongues alive against all odds
AGAINST THE TIDE: (Above) “Race of the Rivers’ being launched on the occasion of Children’s Day in 2014; (below) The book covers
There is a paucity of reading material
available for children; children are told stories |ESTHER SYIEM, POET
