More Indians Turn to Ramen

India is a curry land and its people are said to mind little having three curried meals a day the year around. I love curried rice but once a week will do. Well, it's culture - more power to curry.

Now, here's a story, an ambitious story of challenging that culture.

There is a buoyant section in New Delhi known to the Japanese residents as Daikanyama in New Delhi. Young Indians flock here in numbers. Strange, there is no Indian eating joints around; they come to enjoy non-Indian foods - Chinese, Japanese, Thai and you name it. They have half left India's traditional foods partly out of curiosity many have come to like them a lot.

Let me make history by skipping sushi, already winning fans among the Indians, and tell you about a young Japanese ramen expert who, after his share of ups and downs, is on "a right track" he says, making some business out of a unique ramen menu of his own.

Satoshi Akimoto was formerly an auto mechanic. Told by a little bird one day, he resolved to make a go of a ramen shop. Akimoto recalls:

"India is a huge country with a population of 1.4 billion. I asked myself how it would be to let them taste Japan's soul food "Ramen". Worth trying, thought to myself...."

Worth trying, indeed. He tried hundred times to have them adjust to the taste of ramen and failed just as many times. Then, an idea flashed in his mind one night: why not cater first for one-third of the people - vegetarians.

He spent much of his time creating a soup based on vegetables - carrot, onion, etc. Five months of trials and errors brought him a marvelous soup. Akimoto introduced a new menu "Vege-Ramen".

Vege-Ramen turned out to be a hit. Local people were few in the beginning (20 %) but grew in numbers in no time, and now more than half of his customers are Indians. A customer comments grins:

"Gee, I haven't had anything this delicious! The owner even teaches us how to manipulate the chopsticks."

More power to you, Akimoto-san. This is Nathan Shiga.