Editor's Note:
Between work and more work, I realised to my delight, there is even more work –– in the guise of a Fellowship. It visited me recently and all of a sudden I was transported to Tokyo, attending a two-month Asia Leadership Fellow Program (ALFP) organized by the International House of Japan and the Japan Foundation, that was to be one of the most defining phases in my life. Not only did it plunge me into the electric pool of scholars and academics, it sharpened my wits for survival in a most engaging way. Shaped around the context of Unity in Diversity: Community Building in South Asia and Beyond, the subject of the fellowship programme was intrinsic to Gallerie’s elemental validation. The shock of movement, from a volatile land of jostling humans to one of formal regimentation, was softened by the fact that I had lived five years in Japan in the distant past and was familiar with its vertical sense of order and hierarchy.
Situated between the shadow of an emperor god, a feudal society, ancient tradition and a postmodern sensibility, the Japanese are able to straddle dichotomies with stoic attributes of a samurai. Order is central to their lives, as is an innate sense of aesthetics, whether it be the elegant arrangement of sushi in an obento lunch box, the ritualistic appreciation of sakura no hana (cherry blossoms) in spring or the ethics of meiyo or honour and loyalty within an official establishment.

Bina Sarkar Ellias
Editor