Dear Tahara-san,
You might be surprised to receive this postcard after so long, but I thought I should let some time pass since returning from RIKEN before writing, so as to gain some perspective.
As you know, my visit to your group last summer was my first trip to Japan. Even though I knew several Japanese scientists and had heard of the unique work culture from friends who had been there, the first-hand experience was still amazing and beyond any expectation. I returned with a tremendous amount of respect for Japan in general, and for RIKEN and the Molecular Spectroscopy Laboratory in particular. Wherever we went, we felt a warm glow of friendship and acceptance that made us long to go back again and again.
During my stay in RIKEN, I was most impressed by the work culture there. All the researchers are highly zealous about their work and would go all the way to get to the bottom of the problems they are addressing. Th e intensity and enthusiasm of discussion in the group meetings were infectious. What I liked most was that very fundamental issues of physical chemistry were being addressed using novel state-of-the-art techniques. Seeing your group at work, I was constantly reminded of some famous lines composed by Rabindranath Tagore, a celebrated poet of India: "where the mind is without fear and the head is held high, where knowledge is free,...where words come from the depths of truth, where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection..." On a different note, it felt great to be involved in experiments with Wei and Takeuchi-san. While doing so, I felt as if I had grown younger. Of course, the social gatherings were awesome too.
Thank you for having arranged the visits to other laboratories as well. The attosecond lab, the microscopy lab and the novel materials fabrication lab were particularly impressive. I feel that my exposure has increased manyfold during the couple of months that I spent in RIKEN and I have come back rejuvenated and more motivated, with goals set much higher than before.
Let me thank you once again for having invited me to visit last summer. It was really a wonderful experience. I am really happy that our institute and RIKEN have signed an agreement on an international joint graduate school and that the first student under this program, Achintya, is now working in your group. I hope that the relationship between our institutes and our laboratories will get stronger and stronger with the passage of time.
Best regards,
Anindya Datta
Associate Professor
Department of Chemistry
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Powai, Mumbai 400 076, India
Dear Anindya,
Thank you very much for your wonderful postcard. I am not sure whether we deserve your nice words, but I am very happy to hear that you enjoyed your stay with us.
As I said to you before, I hope that our personal relationship could be a seed for a future broader relationship between your institute and RIKEN, and more generally, between India and Japan. I believe that good international relationships are based on mutual trust between individuals. Let's keep in touch!
Best wishes,
Tahei
