The title of this post came to mind while I was on the Tokyo subway. But then I remembered the Bollywood movie with the same title released in the 1960s. Since it was a romantic drama movie set in Japan, it pretty much aligns with the story I want to share through this post. As I sat on the Cathay Pacific flight to Japan, I stretched my legs, looked out the window, and thought that it had been a long time since I had taken a break from my hectic work schedule and the stress I was under. since a couple of years. Although the cherry blossom season was over and it was the gray month of the year always cloudy and rainy, I was so refreshed walking the streets of Kashiwanoha, a small place on the outskirts of Tokyo, that it was like sakura blooming on my heart. Sometimes the sun would peek out from the nimbus-laden sky and I would sit on a chair on the balcony to see the beautiful wilderness in the golden light of the sun.
My husband and I often went to Tokyo on the subway, which was accurate to the minute. That’s really a difference you can feel in Japan from whatever country you come from. The biggest drawback was his excessive love for his own language and a total neglect of English. This used to make me very uncomfortable at first when I went shopping for things. Everything was written in Japanese and it was extremely difficult to communicate with the people in the store since they didn’t know a shred of English. Later, however, I got used to everything and was able to understand the language to a certain extent.
During the entire trip on the subway, which was very crowded at times, I used to observe the people around me, their expressions and behavior, as I could never understand what they were talking about. It was a bit strange to be a foreigner because unlike other countries like the USA you don’t find many people from other countries. Most of the time he was surrounded by a Japanese crowd. One peculiar thing that caught my attention was that at any time of the day, you will never find a Japanese in ragged attire. Somehow, they always managed to look good, correctly and, in most cases, elegantly dressed and, to emphasize, it’s not just women I’m talking about.
Sometimes I would see women dressed in kimono, which is their traditional clothing, and I would fall into a reverie of the old days, when the geisha culture was at its peak. I had read a romantic drama about that time written by Arthur Golden in his book ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’. I don’t know if everything he portrayed about Japanese culture and tradition was true, but I always felt a mysterious melancholy and indescribable wonder every time I read that book. Those women in their kimonos gave off the same strange feeling.
I was thinking about the love story of Sayuri, the innocent village girl who became the most famous geisha, and the president, when my husband woke me from my dreams to show me Mount Fuji, which is visible from the subway to the go from Kashiwanoha to Tokyo. It was cloudy so the view was a bit blurry, but he could still make out the shape of the mountain. Suddenly, my eyes fell on an old couple sitting in the nearby seats by the window. They were, I think, in their 80s. The Japanese have long lives, so the couple didn’t really seem like victims of the frailty that old age brings us. They were both lost in their own worlds. I felt that after long years of fellowship, maybe people have very little to talk about. The man was looking at a boy sitting next to him playing video games. He maybe he was remembering his own children and his childhood, who must have been grown people now busy with their own lives. The wife was looking out the window and she had a slight smile on her face as if she was enjoying the view outside.
Something irritated his feet and he made a small, barely audible sound and he bent down to fix it. The old man had such a disinterested look on his face that I felt he could hardly be alive for any emotion. But as soon as her wife made the sound of her, he quickly looked at her and when she crouched down, she put her hand on her shoulder and asked him something in Japanese. The woman nodded and said something that probably meant “okay.” I thought to myself that the man must have shown her concern and asked her what happened. Then I saw that the man was looking at his feet with concern and before the safety of his wife, he looked up at his face and after a minute he had returned to his lost and tired look. Although he couldn’t understand the spoken language, the love the couple felt was as evident as daylight. It seemed as if his wrinkles had faded a bit during those few moments. Being in a different country that was so unfamiliar to me, it was strange that I felt like I was looking at my own grandparents, who I always felt were eternally in love with each other. I looked at my husband happily enjoying the scenery outside and wished that we could share the same affection in our old age. Our station arrived and we got off. Time and time again he looked back to catch a glimpse of the couple. Somehow they had made me very happy that day.
