Bengaluru resident Shyamala Ganesh was decorated with Japan’s fifth-level order of the six in the city on Wednesday. Called the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Rays, the award is given to foreigners for their contribution in promoting the Japanese language and culture. And 79-year-old Shyamala has spent half her life doing that.
Shyamala founded the Bengaluru chapter of Ohara School of Ikebana in 1989 to teach the Japanese art of flower arrangement. After her husband’s passing, she became the director of the Japanese Language School that he had founded in the city in 1984 alongside Lotus & Chrysanthemum Trust to train students and corporates. She serves as a trustee at the latter.
She was presented with a patent of decoration, a badge, and bouquets amid a gathering of Japanese delegates, family members and collaborators at the Japan Consul-General’s residence. The guests also raised a toast to her and took turns appreciating her commitment to Indo-Japan relations.
Post the function, Metrolife asked Shyamala why she is drawn to Japan. “It’s an unwritten connection. My husband used to paint and he would draw Mount Fuji. ‘I must have lived there in my past life,’ he used to tell me. And look at my younger son, he is married to a Japanese,” she said while enjoying the vegetarian appetisers coming her way. “I don’t eat non-veg Japanese food,” she clarifies.
Ikebana was her entry point into the Japanese culture. She loved nature, she went on to study botany, and so, it became the ideal pursuit.
And neither the pandemic nor her age has slowed down the passion as she says, “Since going out is not possible, I pick whatever I find in my apartment. It can be branches or grasses. Ikebana is not about the volume but the design. It’s about bringing a piece of nature home.”
Is there any aspect of Japan she is yet to embrace? Maybe minimalism? “Yes. Yesterday I gave away one of my sarees. I am planning to give one more. Less is more.”
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