*The photo taken from his Facebook page with his permission.
We had a chance to meet Mr. Dharmendra Kumar, who hails from Dehli, India but lives and works in Fukuoka, Japan for the past eight years, during his visit to Pune last week on the way of his regular business trip to the multiple cities in India.
His name and nickname "Jay" seems to be well known among Fukuoka's business and student communities, not necessarily connected to India. He is the man of his words who has all his hearts in whatever the matter he participates, with the belief of "nothing works out without hardworking."
Mr. Kumar is the initiator and now the host of Namaste Fukuoka, a big two days long Indian cultural event of the first-of-its-kind in Fukuoka. After the successful inauguration in 2016, the second Namaste Fukuoka was successfully held in Tenjin Chuo Park in the middle of April this year.
Namaste Fukuoka 2017; A Short Report - ASKSiddhi
According to Mr. Kumar, the first Namaste Fukuoka in 2016, initially a day long, was materialized just in two months since his idea came up in his mind; he said that was because he had people who were ready to support immediately and of course, a great luck.
However, on the morning of the event at around 1:30 AM, a massive earthquake and aftershocks hit Kumamoto and Oita areas of Kyushu and no exempt of Fukuoka from the impact. Frightened and worried people sought his decision, but he never thought of calling off the event; because "so many people have already worked hard for the event, including those who come from afar."
Namaste Fukuoka 2016 concluded with a large applaud; later, I heard from a couple of people about a lot of the legendary episodes of those who made the event successful. He has no doubt a born leadership. Later after the event, Mr. Kumar rushed to the affected sites in Kumamoto and helped volunteers to distribute plates of curry and naan to the evacuees.
I feel he has many big visions of bridging between India and Japan, or India and Fukuoka. He wants to encourage and enhance people connections of two countries. Personally, I hope he would be a key person to promote Pune and Fukuoka networking, considering the unique advantage of Pune having many Japanese language students. We had two hours on the day to talk about many such dreams, but it was too short. I look forward to keeping in touch with him, a future leader of India - Japan world.
"I will never leave Fukuoka, and my base will remain Fukuoka," said Mr. Kumar. I believe he is the most trustable key person in Fukuoka if we talk about a bridge person.
Mr. Kumar in Fukuoka media, click the image to read it in full size.
