On any other day I would have agreed with my friend’s recommendation of getting some extra sleep. But today I felt somewhat odd. I was reading the story of Akio Morita the who made Sony. There was too much news on the media.
Some time back I watched Steve Jobs speech, an excellent speech that someone had shared on internet. Then suddenly the announcement of his death flashed in TV. A lot of people compared him to Einstein and Edison. But what had he done to society. Make some mad people who wait in queue to get some fancy gadget? Here, in my country, I see people standing in queue for water, for ration from ration shops, for voting, for getting tickets and for things that make life happen sustainably. But people out there mourn the death of a person who made a lot of money by making them addicts. Would it be the same if the liquor tycoons died and drinkers, Indians all over the sub-continent mourn their death by drinking more. What a tragedy it would have been! I should not talk bad about dead people let alone leaving ones. But questions and thoughts are one incessant flow without checkdams, until you open it out. My only relation with any apple being related to my digestive system, I ignored the news at first. Of course, my touchscreen phone cover has a bitten apple as logo, but it is considered an insult to give a bitten apple to someone. As far as ‘A for a full apple’ remains the learner’s rule, things are less harmful.
Continuing with the journey of Mr. Morita I could realize how much Japanese had suffered how it was that they , who believed “Made in Japan” to be of low quality item , made the same as one which people admire especially gadget freaks in the third floor of my apartments. They were involved in everything Japan, they didn’t believe in the USA, European or any other electronic merchandise. The thing was that there father had been to Japan and was a 5S guru in his office. The office got some recognition through implementation of 5S strategy. Theirs is an odd case, the two freaks, who may be called friends have their father a Gujarathi businessman and mother a Bengali. Sometimes I feel it is through her that the Japanese link came. She looks like a Japanese than anything else. Of course, I can’t tell the difference between a Japanese and Korean.
These freaks searched a lot for Japanese foods and settled for a Korean cuisine and Chinese if nothing else. They would go to a Korean Spicy chicken restaurant every Saturday after college hours and would learn Japanese from some place which has escaped my local expeditions. The duo would spend half their awake lives in Sony PS2 and both owned Japanese mobile phones. Their General Knowledge is not that sharp in that they didn’t know about the wireless charging mechanism that the Japanese telecom giant had commercialised. The philosophy of the Japanese caught my attention when the brighter of the two explained to me. The Japanese since the devastation during the nuclear attacks never went for war, they never made destructive weapons for themselves or for others. They are through commerce and technology the world leader, even the Western world looks upon them with reverence. So many calamities have struck them, manmade and otherwise. Frequent earthquakes and Tsunami’s are like seeing coconut trees in Kerala, always anytime anywhere. But they survived. They are the best examples of human race on that regard. They may not mingle with other races in mainlands as expected, but with their own language and culture intact they have helped themselves become mighty. “Had it been the Japanese who started conquests before the UK then I would be typing talking and reading in Japanese” sais the second freak. And saying this he lend a book for me to read , and that was about Mr. Morita. As I was engrossed in the reading I saw some rice balls steamed hot, and ready for stomach, (Kozhakatta) on the table. As the hand reached for one, the words I were reading struck me with awe. I read that Japanese eat rice and Mr. Morita was packing up some rice balls to be eaten enroute. I underlined those lines with red ink and bolted upstairs. They had been going to Korean and Chinese restaurant and here was the Japanese corporate leader going to have rice balls under my nose, I was reading with head down. I couldn’t wait to tell them this. I bolted off to meet those guys and announced my discovery. Their facial expressions did not flinch, and I was still wondering. It was lunch time and a sweet smell of something very familiar reached my olfactory senses. I checked my hands and made sure that there was no rice ball in my hand. The Bengali auntie called off loudly to both the boys “lunch is ready come and have it before it cools down, give that game boxes some rest”. With a small gap between the shoulders of the half Japanese boys I could see steam rising from a large transparent glass bowl. It was filled with rice balls.
Ajeya: The Invincible's Crucible 