Honest Economy

“Ohhh...shit", was my reaction when I checked my pockets.

I had again lost my pass card (train/bus) and all my point cards. All costing Japanese Yen 15000.00. Cursing my absentmindedness, I came out of the station.

JPY 15000 is big money for me. I was just thinking of how to get this back. Kept on thinking..

During my last one year stay in Japan, I constantly heard of "Lost and Found (LF)" office in every raliway station, big time. My collegues were gung-ho about it.

Never visited there.

Next day evening, I searched for LF office in Tokyo station. With zero hope, I enquired about my pass card with the manager. He said, “just wait” - went inside and came out.

Asked me, are you Prashant John?

I said ," John!!! …no no...Joshi"

He showed me my pass card/point cards. All was intact - neatly packed. He made me to sign a form and promptly handed over all the things back to me.The manager made me feel it was his gift to me and was not my mistake to forget in train.

My first experience of honesty in Japan.

In less than a week, I was on my way to Japanese class. It was raining and was carrying an umbrella.

True to my style, I remembered that I have lost the umbrella after the class. i.e after complete 3 hours. I was again cursing myself and thought "When will I improve"?

All gurus (Sri Sri and few others) came in front of me.... live in present and not be absentminded.

Thought I will try my luck and went to LF office. No luck this time. Since this was my second time, probably ‘Beginners Luck' was eluding me.

Cursing myself, I returned home by bus. It was still raining. I was still thinking of umbrella…..

It stuck me. Thought should just check once in the bus stop, just in case. This was where I boarded bus for my class. It was quite dark at 20:45 and was raining pretty heavily. To my surprise, the umbrella was intact neatly folded and kept there.

My second interaction with honest Japan.

We learnt many types of economies in school - Monopoly, Oligopoly etc. Any new name (…...poly) for being honest economy?

One of many experiences in Japan. Feel lot of things from Japan that can be implemented, back in India.