On July 23, a cultural meeting was held in Yokohama with a lecture, poetry reading and music to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore's birth.

That was held in Yokohama, the place where Indo-Japan economic exchange started at the beginning of the 20th century. The salon of the Indian Merchants Association of Yokohama (IMAY), one of the icons of Indo-Japan relationship, was filled with a variety of cultural programs including a lecture, music, poetry reading, and yoga.

Except Sourindranath Tagore's relevance to Japan in the field of music in the 19th century, Indo-Japan relationship started in the field of economy and developed as cultural exchanges with Tenshin Okakura (1863-1913) who contributed much in recognition of Japanese Arts. It is somehow interesting to know that a key element of  silk trading existed before the cultural exchanges among Mr. Okakura, having a father as a member of Fukui Domain in charge of silk and born in Yokohama, Sankei Hara (1868-1939), a silk trading merchant who built the Sankeien (currently Yokohama Sankeien Garden) and exhibited a variety of art works, and Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), the first Asian Nobel laureate in literature, born in the State of Bengal. These three gentle men shared wealthy family backgrounds and consciousness in awakening Asian region.

The first part of the cultural program started with a lighting ceremony participated by Mr. Tsutomu Kawai, the Chairman of Tagore 150 Japan Committee and Mr. Ricky Sarani, former Director of IMAY, followed by a lecture ""Toyo no Riso (An ideal in the Orient)" sought by Tenshin (Kakuzo) Okakura and R. Tagore" by Prof. Takashi Okakura (Daito Bunka University).

In the second part, the participants enjoyed Tagore's poems read by Ms. Tamiko Oba, Chief of Secretariat of the committee, Ms. Baswati Ghosh and others, also sitar music of Mr. Motoyasu Tatsuno.

Prof. Okakura outlined the relationship between R. Tagore as a thinker and Tenshin to pointed out three key concepts of "Symbiosis with nature," "Harmony between the East and the West," and "Peace (shanti)" advocated in a variety of art activities of R. Tagore. Ms. Oba read several poems from Tagore's poetry collection "Stray Birds," created during his stay in the Sankeien, and short poems from a collection "Mother," inspired by Japanese Haiku.

The Committee will organize a variety of events relevant to Tagore until the end of March 2012. You may want to check the details on the Committee's web. You can also enjoy readings of Tagore's poetry in a series program "Tagore Poetry reading "Morning ring of a bell"" broadcasted on the Internet by the Radio New Mumbai.