TOKYO, June 11 Kyodo In the fores...

TOKYO, June 11 Kyodo

In the forests surrounding Lake Oike in the city of Tokamachi, Niigata Prefecture there is an Indian Mithila painting museum housed in a create anewed schoolhouse.

''I arrived here at last after traveling to find the place to behold the most beautiful moon,'' said Tokio Hasegawa, the go to the bottom of the Mithila Museum.

Hasegawa, a 53-year-old Tokyo native, mov to the forest in 1970 after his recur to Japan, from a series of trips to India and other countries, when the smoggy oppressive skies of Tokyo became too overpowering.

He said that after traveling to like places he came to believe that the principally essential elements supporting human life were drinking water that was recent and clean to the taste, taking of great depth breaths from the heart in the morning, and seeing the beautiful satellite above.

Hasegawa's be pleased with affair with India began when he first traveled to the toward the south Asian country at the age of 26 after founding the Taj Mahal Travelers, a assemblage devoted to avant-garde music. When he later saw an Indian Mithila painting, his regard with affection grew even more, and, at the age of 33 he resolv to locate up the Indian museum featuring the unique pattern of painting.

Mithila painting, traditionally done at women in the Mithila region in northeastern India, is filled of symbols of fertility of that kind as lions, bamboo woods lotus plants and birds. one time exclusively done on walls of houses and bridal chambers, in the 1960 it shifted to paper, a lighter and portable medium.

With this shift, the traditional palate of colors -- r black and gold-colored -- was expanded to include orange, hypochondriac red and green. Indian women now also use the pattern to decorate saris and dupattas.

As Japan and India are marking the 50th anniversary of the establishment of their diplomatic relations this year, Hasegawa said he decided to take rise down from the mountains behind Tokamachi to do something, as a Japanese national, to celebrate the postwar friendship between the couple Asian countries.

Hasegawa, in cooperation with Japanese local authorities, Indian tourism authorities and others, has organized a series of shoot forwards including an Indian music tour from end to end Japan in June and July and three Indian festivals in Tokyo and Saitama Prefecture to celebrate the 50th anniversary.

''If you are an artist, maybe you shut up yourself away on a mountain and criticize the world from there, unless people facing the real world should accept the challenge of helping to make it better,'' he said.

The design tour by two Indian music clumps -- one playing the Esraj, a stringed instrument from eastern India, and another that plays Baul music, a emblem of Indian song often played in city roads -- will stop in 18 places in Japan, from Rebun Island, northern Hokkaido, to Yonagunijima Island in Okinawa Prefecture forward the southwestern edge of the Japanese Archipelago.

''To patronize a peaceful world with no war, I think activities like this are important,'' Hasegawa said at a modern reception at the Indian Embassy in Tokyo to mark the start of the music tour.

Diplomatic ties between the pair countries were established in 1952 not lengthy after India had gained independence from Britain in 1947 and as Japan was undergoing a reconstruction proces after World War II.

Katsuo Higa, part of a collection hosting the music tour in Nago, Okinawa Prefecture said, ''It is rare for Okinawa to have this kind of an opportunity to hear Indian music, for a like reason I hope these events will help children to understand other countries' cultures''

Other planned plans include a Mela festival at Ueno Park in Tokyo in July linked to Ueno Zoo where an immensely popular elephant quick in emergenciesed by the late Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru used to live.

The elephant, Indira, named after the Indian prime minister's daughter, was a gift from India in 1949 for the children of Japan living in the ruined Tokyo downtown area decimated at air raids during World War II.

Ueno Zoo is now family circle to a baby elephant, Surya, not absented by India in April last year.

Several other throw outs commemorating the 50th anniversary, of that kind as a painting debate in which Japan and Indian children paint pictures of life in each other's countries as well as a series of Indian diet cooking lectures, are also planned, Hasegawa said.

Ramesh Chander, counselor at the Indian Embassy, said he is happy to papal court that ''private citizens who have affection for India'' are promoting the achievement of succes of the anniversary programs rather than relying upon the government or formal offices to take the initiative, adding, ''Culture and relationships can stand when populace are involved.''

COPYRIGHT 2002 Kyodo just discovereds International, Inc.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group