TRUST ME I KNOW WHAT I'm DOING

Whether it’s your first time listening to an episode or it’s first up on your weekly playlist, thank you for listening, and I’m quite grateful. I really appreciate you sharing it with your friends and family, for rating and kindly reviewing it, and for following along on social media. So we’ve talked a lot about life in the diaspora and perspectives on endeavors within India or South Asia and the more typical tethers into the US , Canada, and the UK. We’ve certainly also had some glimpses from other common areas like Africa, Australia, the Middle East, and Fiji, but what about the less obvious places where we are having impact, especially in cultures where integration can be challenging or even relatively new. So recently, I caught up with Yogendra Puranik, a bureaucrat, politician, and educator in Japan. He is belovedly known as ‘Yogi-San” and after growing up and going to university in Maharasthra and completing International Business Management training at IIM in Calcutta, he has been living for almost 25 years in Japan, where his journey has been filled with some notable milestones . After significant success in the IT and banking sectors, Yogi is the first person of Indian-origin to win a Japanese election, serving on one of Tokyo’s city councils. He has been a longtime cultural ambassador in Nishi Kasai, a Japanese town known for its large Indian population, and has opened 2 restaurants in Edogawa which also serve to host concerts and classes and a range of Indian cultural offerings. Now, he has turned his attention to education, serving as the first-ever foreign-origin principal of a public (government) school, and the first-ever Indian-origin Civil/Gazetted officer in Japan. I had a chance to share some time with Yogi-San and by the way, also with his chirping birds in the background. We chatted about his remarkable experiences, the many sparkles and realities of the journey, and in the end, how he cultivates trust in his unique environment. But even after nearly 25 years , I was actually first curious to know whether Yogi-San was still feeling like he was still adjusting to life in Japan…