About Me

Partha Rao (パルタ　ラオ ）

I have lived in Tokyo for the past 18 years and call this city from home. There have been other homes in the past, Patiala for 24 years and smaller stints in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune, Mumbai and Ludhiana.

Tokyo took time to absorb and it took time to absorb me, but having lived here for close to two decades, struggled through the rush-hour subway traffic, navigated the routes, it is a city that remains with me.

Writing had always been an interest and occasionally a passion. I got hooked to travel writing when I read ‘In Patagonia’ by Bruce Chatwin. The captivating account of travel across a bleak landscape, full of interesting accounts, people and I learned later , a smattering of fiction, inspired me to write about my travels and experiences.

There were other writers, Pico Iyer and his almost lyrical book ‘The Lady and the Monk’ or the wonderful ‘The Global Soul’, Jan Morris’s ‘The World’, Paul Theroux’s ‘Riding the Iron Rooster’ or VS Naipaul’s unsettling ‘India A wounded civilisation’ have kept the interest running.

I had the good fortune of meeting Pico Iyer in 2012 at a Tokyo Literary Festival and he wrote ‘I hope you enjoy all the happiness in your Global Life’.

So this website is a reflection of my Global Life, limited to Japan for the initial years and with the travel that came with my job truly global. It contains a few Blogs, a few Photologs and a few old memories. My interest in photography, dormant for many years, returned in, renewed and hopefully will remain.

So the site and the blogs are about a global life, living in Japan but traveling the world and the Indian influences which affect each part of my experiences.