‘Let’s go to Japan,’ I casually asked the missus a few months ago, with some guilt that husbands typically carry — some residual shame for performing poorly in one of the roles assigned to you. Hence, you make up for it by popping such proposals.

Mine was received well. The next step was to produce 37 kgs of documentation to prove my intentions of visiting Japan are purely touristic, and there are no plans to establish a new caliphate on the outskirts of Kyoto. After a few anxious business days, we were granted a multiple entry visa, valid for five years — a baton to beat fellow Japan-visa applicants in my peer group.

For Indians, Japan is a unique country to visit. Almost unknowingly, we have prepared all our lives for that Japan trip. It started with watching The Jungle Book on Doordarshan — an anime recreation of the Rudyard Kipling original by Fumio Kurokawa that was dubbed so well that it felt like it was made in Noida. For the kids of the next generation, Doraemon or Shinchan were the familiar manga characters based in the........

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