GURGAON, India — Yasuko Malhotra traveled from Japan to India for the first time in 1993, a translator for Buddhist monks who had come to meet Mother Teresa. Six years later, she returned for love.
Malhotra, now 63, met her future husband on her maiden visit, and as their romance blossomed, she decided to leave Fukuoka, her seaside hometown, to settle in India, a country she is still trying to decipher.
What does she miss the most? “Everything,” she said. “My food, my language … from our history to the way people’s personalities are shaped, India and Japan are very different.”
In her basement studio in Gurgaon, a sprawling satellite city of New Delhi, Malhotra teaches young Japanese women traditional methods of cooking and arranging flowers. The space has become a refuge for her — and for fellow homesick migrants.
There were just over 8,000 Japanese citizens living in India in 2024, a minuscule figure in this country of 1.4 billion, but it represents a nearly fourfold increase from 2005, according to the Japanese Embassy in India. Many have come to work for Japanese companies like Maruti Suzuki, Panasonic, Toyota and Mitsubishi, which have inaugurated office buildings and manufacturing plants in India’s industrial hubs. Over time, the expat presence has become increasingly visible in Gurgaon, where Japanese restaurants serve up quality sushi and imported sake, and where exclusive clubs organize games of mah-jongg and other cultural events.
“Your Japanese comfort haven in the heart of Gurgaon” is how Dia Park, one of the first hotels established to cater to Japanese professionals, advertises itself. Yasuhito Ono came to India in 2010 to work as a chef at Dia Park and now, alongside his wife, manages four restaurants in Gurgaon and Delhi.
“India lacked authentic restaurants catering to Japanese tastes,” Ono said, adding that this niche food and beverage industry is booming like never before.
Indians, in turn, are developing a taste for Japanese flavors. In 2020, Japan exported $5.3 million worth of prepared food, alcohol and tobacco products to India; by 2024, the figure had jumped to nearly $22 million, Japanese trade data shows.
“It used to be momo-momo, now it’s sushi-sushi,” according to Aman Nath, owner of Neemrana Hotels, who said interest in sushi rivals that of the ubiquitous momo, a beloved Himalayan street food.
Life here can be lonely for new arrivals, said Malhotra, who sees herself as a godmother figure to younger Japanese women, many of whom moved because of their husbands’ jobs and had to abandon their careers. Each week, she hosts a three-hour class for them, hoping to impart a taste of home.
On a recent morning in her rented basement, nestled among the dusty residential lanes of Gurgaon, five women huddled around a sparkling kitchen setup, following to the letter Malhotra’s neatly stacked recipes. The air was soon filled with the aroma of turnips stuffed with minced meat, radish-rice cakes, and a Japanese-style egg and vegetable stir fry. When the cooking was complete, the women sat for a group meal.
“It has truly enriched our life in India,” said Tomoke Mishige, who moved to the country two years ago
It’s a rare chance for the women to speak their own language outside the home, share their frustrations and ask questions — about where to source Japanese ingredients or the best Indian flour to use for rice cakes.
There are questions too about “what international school they should send their kids to, how to negotiate with Indian landlords, and what gifts to buy people for Diwali,” said Malhotra, referring to the Hindu festival of lights.
A few miles away, on the second floor of a plush serviced apartment complex run by real estate developer Central Park, is a sealed-off world known as Sakura Town — an enclave designed with Japanese sensibilities in mind. According to Harleen Singh Rawal, Central Park’s vice president of hospitality, around 300 Japanese nationals live in the complex.
Chef Ono and his wife serve homestyle meals at Ginza, the in-house restaurant; an acupuncture clinic run by Junko Okawa affords relief from India’s sensory overload; a salon called Bochi Bochi offers familiar cuts from home. Public bathhouses, a mah-jongg room and a golf simulator round out the resort-style campus. Open to all but inhabited almost exclusively by Japanese expats, Sakura Town functions as a soft buffer from the bustle and churn of Gurgaon.
There are less hidden examples of Japan’s growing cultural footprint — if you know where to look. In one of the hundreds of nondescript malls typical of Gurgaon, there are five Japanese restaurants on a single floor.
Inside Kuuraku, bowing employees greet every entrant with a chorus of “konnichiwa” and chefs shout rapid-fire orders in Japanese. Soy and grilled meat perfume the air; sake bottles line the counter; a woman folds gyoza behind a thin wooden partition; upstairs, diners remove their shoes and settle into floor-level tables.
Most of the staff members come from India’s northeast and are trained meticulously in the gestures and rhythms of Japanese service. There are Japanese, Korean and Chinese guests, as well as Indians seeking a curated slice of Tokyo in suburban Haryana.
Local diners often arrive with their own expectations — shaped less by Japanese tradition and more by their exposure to anime, a fast-expanding cultural bridge. Many Indians have become hooked on Naruto fight sequences and Studio Ghibli dreamscapes.
“In two years, anime viewership in India has jumped from 30 million to 118 million — suddenly the world has woken up to India as a serious market,” said Jayanto Banerjee, chief operating officer of Hakuhodo.Sync, a Japanese advertising company with an office in New Delhi. Across India, Banerjee said, kids are flocking to anime clubs, from Kanpur in the north to Vadodara in the west.
Indians fascinated by anime are also curious about other aspects of the country that created it, whether ramen, stationery or literature. Haruki Murakami is no longer the lone Japanese scribe at Indian bookstores; new titles are landing each month, some translated into Hindi and other Indian languages.
There are attempts at fusion, too, with some restaurants offering paneer maki rolls and butter chicken sushi. “The way India adopts culture is that it morphs it,” Banerjee said.
Still, the Japanese cultural boom is unevenly felt. Japanese ingredients and authentic meals come at a steep cost, available mostly to wealthier Indians and expats.
Kento Takahashi, who moved to India this spring with his new wife, can afford to indulge at restaurants like Kuuraku only occasionally. The 30-year-old works for a small Japanese firm that helps companies hire Japanese-speaking staff — a job with promise but few perks.
When he moved, he packed his suitcase with soy sauce, spice mixes and instant soups, which he says are too expensive to buy regularly in Gurgaon. His wife, overwhelmed by the noise and speed of the city, has struggled to settle in.
“I wanted to stay here for at least five years, but if my wife asks, we will leave after a year or two,” Takahashi said.
For some, despite all the cultural crossover, home still feels very far away.
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