Meet Kenkichi Futami, in many ways the archetypal Japanese salaryman of the postwar period whose sacrifice helped position Japan so productively in the world today.
Kenkichi Futami (center) and his wife, Ayako, meet Dr. Prem
Nair, medical director of Mata Amritanandamyi's (Amma) charitable
hospital in Cochin, Kerala, in southern India last March.
For 35 years, five days a week, he rose every morning at 5:40 a.m. in order to leave his house in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, some 100 km from Tokyo. By 6:20 he was on the station platform to catch the commuter train into the capital. By eight he would be at his desk at electronics conglomerate TDK in Nihonbashi.