Draped in sari, Japan’s First Lady’s set to charm India
By IANSMonday, December 28, 2009
NEW DELHI - Draped in six yards of elegance, Japan’s First Lady Miyuki Hatoyama, a former actress and an occultist, touched down in India along with her husband Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. In Delhi, she will visit a Hindu temple and have an interaction with slum children.
Mrs Hatoyama’s choice to wear a glowing red sari was no freak inspiration as she and her husband Yukio Hatoyama touched down at the Mumbai airport Sunday evening to begin a three-day visit to India.
It symbolises the changing world of Japanese diplomacy since Hatoyama of the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in the August elections, ending the nearly 54-year run of the Liberal Democratic Party.
Miyuki Hatoyama, a former actress born in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, was quick to inject a fresh dose of glamour and chutzpah to her position in a country where the wives of prime ministers are rarely seen in public.
Outspoken and striking in appearance with a stylish hair-do, the 62-year-old Miyuki Hatoyama is not bothered about sporting flashy clothes and shoes in public. When she cast her vote on Aug 26 last year in the election, her husband wore a suit, but she opted for jeans.
Perhaps one of the most colourful first ladies in the world, Miyuki Hatoyama has chronicled her “extra-terrestrial journeys” in her book Most Bizarre Things that I have Encountered”.
She is slated to visit one of the capital’s landmarks, the Lakshminarayan temple.
A spiritualist who claims to “eat morning sun rays” for energy and has travelled with aliens to planet Venus, Miyuki Hatoyama is sure to strike a chord here in this land known for its seers and mystics. Her belief in reincarnation, too, should find an echo in this land of karma and dharma.
One of Miyuki Hatoyama’s unfulfilled wish, she has said, is to direct an Oscar-award winning film starring Tom Cruise, whom she claims to have known in a previous incarnation, when the actor was Japanese.
Much before she became First Lady, she has been writing columns for Mu Magazine, a publication that explores arcane mysteries and phenomenon like UFOs.
Celestial adventures may have earned her the tag ‘Mrs Occult’ in international press, but Miyuki Hatoyama has more down-to-earth passions and compassions too which she broadcasts with panache on television networks.
The Japanese First Lady, who likes to call herself a life composer”, will interact with slum children at the Ambedkar Basti Tuesday when her husband will be busy talking affairs of the state with his Indian host, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
She may or may not sight a UFO or experience visitations from Hindu divinities pitching her into headlines, but Miyuki Hatoyama appears set to leave a trail of curiosity behind.
