Bheela’s Blog … 001

01 December 2020

Preamble

My husband, Sudhir, bought our first TV in 1984 soon after our marriage. It was a small black & white TV. It was probably late 80’s, a Japanese serial on Doordarshan (Indian national Television channel https://doordarshan.gov.in/) started airing.

I used to watch this serial called Oshin with lot of interest but somehow all of a sudden the telecast of this serial was stopped, there was some issue with the television company and the producers of the original serial. I was extremely influenced by the serial and my interest in Japan grew exponentially as I watched those episodes.

Years passed by.. on and off I use to look up internet and tried to find any material or detailed story of Oshin but was not successful, a thought was there in my mind that once I will retire from my job, I will do something about this.

Later, I could find the episodes in various sites, some of them not official also, and could watch all episodes. One of my friends in the office visited Japan and later my daughter visited too and my interest in Japan continue to grow.

Finally this year I took retirement and started collecting thoughts on writing a blog on this serial, do some research on internet and start publishing the Oshin story episode by episode on my blog. My office close friends knew about my interest and they gifted me a book on Japan. This renewed my wish to start writing about the serial.

I was apprehensive if there will be any legal or copyright issues. I connected with Mr Shigeki Furubayashi, https://japanophilia.xyz/about-the-site/ who is expert on Japan’s culture and history through internet and he gave me green signal to pursue this.

About Oshin story, it is a story of a woman who is 80+ and owner of chain of 16 supermarkets. Oshin’s story is modeled after Kastu Wada, who co-founded the supermarket chain Yohan. The structure of the story was developed through a collection of anonymous letters assembled by Sugako Hashida. However, the story needed modifications since the real life was too dark. (source: Wiki)

The period depicted in the story starts from Meiji era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_(era) and continues to bring the viewers upto the present time (1980s). It covers nearly a century and gives us glimpse of Japan’s society, culture and evolving mind set of Japanese citizen. Over these years they survived two wars, nuclear holocaust and came out strong as robust economy leading the world in so many aspects of life.

The episodes start with present time (1983) and shows several flash back scenes through eyes of Oshin

I started writing the story episode by episode with some of my observation and remarks in Italic font within bracket based on my internet research…

So here I go with episode 1..

Oshin Story

Episode 1 -

It is spring time in 1983, a new Super market is about to open, at a small town Ise in Shima Peninsula. (Shima is located in east of Japan https://www.japan-guide.com/e/e4310.html.) The supermarket is owned by Tanakura family, the store to be opened is their 17th store of the chain of supermarkets, the largest of all the stores they owned so far.

But, the grand old lady Oshin Tanakura, who is more than 80 years old and vice president of Tanakura stores, is missing since morning. Her second son Hitoshi, who is the president of the company, and his wife Michiko are searching for her. Also searching for her is Takeshi, Oshin’s son-in-law, husband of her daughter Tei. The family meets and discusses her disappearance after Tei finds that some clothes and purse is missing from Oshin’s room. Hitoshi insults Michiko when she starts talking badly. It is clear, that relation between Mother in law and daughter in law is not pleasant.

Nozomi is also present, he is a potter, he has a son Kei. Nizomi is not a real son of Oshin, but he is part of this family. It seems Oshin loves Kei too much so Tei asks him if grandma said anything about her running away. Kei is puzzled too.

Hitoshi’s son hurries them for store opening and the store eventually is opened. Hitoshi makes some excuse for his mother’s absence. The guest wanted to meet her as he heard that Oshin is a brave woman.

Kei does not attend the opening, nor his father. They are in Oshin’s room, Kei holds a Kokeshi Doll and thinks about his grand-ma and they talk about her. Later when Kei is alone, he remembers his grandma’s words and decides to go and find her.

Meanwhile Oshin is in a train which is taking her to North of Japan. She seems so happy and content.

Episode 2 will be published soon …..