From Okayama City to Pune.

 The Pune-Okayama Friendship Garden encourages cultural, traditional, economical and industrial ties between India and Japan.

As five-year-old Ashwin runs full speed to the entry ticket counter of Pune's Okayama Japanese garden located on Sinhghad Road, his grandmother Priya waits for her daily group of walking buddies and the silver brigade is off for their evening walk. A little distance further two collegians are discussing how best to go about their science project while enjoying the serenity of the garden is a couple who has taken respite from their daily grind of household responsibilities. Welcome to the Pune-Okayama Friendship Garden which is based on one of the major gardens of Japan-The Korakuen Garden that is located in Okayama City and has a Japanese history of 300 years. A perfect bridge between Okayama and Pune, the garden has encouraged cultural, traditional, economical and industrial friendship ties.
The garden is also known as the Pu La Deshpande garden named after the great Marathi writer Purshottam Lakshman Deshpande or Pu La Deshpande.
The plants that are chosen are evergreen ones and include Bakul, Filicum and Khaya trees. Another must have of a Japanese garden is Bamboo with its evergreen look. The garden has it in its railings, bridges or as plantation bamboo. Since Japan itself is a group of islands surrounded by oceans and seas, water as a design element in their gardens is essential.
Simplicity, refined elegance, the preference for odd numbers and the use of the suggestive rather than the descriptive mode of communication is visible in this garden's waterfalls, pagodas, mounts, channels, slopes and the stone lanterns.
Each stone lantern which is symbolic of a flower or sekka here has a different shape and the koi or carp fish, symbols of strength and courage are a big attraction for kids and adults alike. The golden or pale white black spotted fish \swimming in one big shoal from one side of the bamboo bridge to the other have added a smile on many faces.
And if you feel like dipping your feet in the cool shallow water with round smooth pebbles that are meant to suggest foam on the ocean, then the two long wooden benches facing each other are where you should be headed. With an overhead enclosure the benches are strategically located above the water steam that originates as a water fall and then meanders further down into the garden.

--Khursheed Dinshaw