Tsurugashima, Saitama Pref. ¨C Restaurateur Manish Kumar is not getting much sleep these days.
Wearing a cap and a glum expression, the 54-year-old Indian national sits at one of the empty tables inside his colorful restaurant in Tsurugashima, Saitama Prefecture, that was built from formative experience gained cooking for a five-star hotel in India. Papered to the wall are articles and reviews celebrating the business, and well-thumbed menus featuring biryani, naan, curries and lassi are splayed out on the restaurant¡¯s half-a-dozen tables, but no customers pass through. The phone is silent, the kitchen empty.
In April, Kumar closed the business he ran for 18 years ¡ª a casualty of stringent changes to Japan¡¯s business manager visa. Having arrived in Japan 30 years ago, the future for him, his wife and two teenage children is now up in the air; their lives suddenly untethered.
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