Which country was writer Francesc Miralles most fascinated by as a teenager?
A no-brainer, one would say, if one were to go purely by the success of his 2016 book―Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life―that he coauthored with Héctor García. But it was India, and not Japan, that called to him first. “India influenced me when I was 14 or 15, first through western writers like Hermann Hesse who spoke about India and then by reading about Ramana Maharshi, J. Krishnamurti and the Buddha,” Miralles tells THE WEEK on the sidelines of the recently held Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode. More on that Indian influence later.
Today, at 55, the Catalan cannot escape the expectation that comes with the Ikigai fame―the book, first published in Spanish, “became viral in two, three weeks” and is now available in “66 languages”. “I had written many other books,” he says. “They were not centred around one topic. So, when I used to go to a literature festival, I would talk about my novel, travels or psychology. Since Ikigai got released, 99 per cent of my interviews or conversations are on this topic. So, I must accept that it is very famous around the world, and I am like an ambassador of this topic.”
Ikigai’s success, perhaps, is no surprise in an age where terms like anti-aging and reverse aging trend. The book―clothed in a beautiful powder blue cover with a burst of cherry blossoms―is the culmination of a crucial investigation that Miralles and García undertook in Okinawa, Japan. At the centre of the Okinawan way of life is the philosophy that everyone has an ‘ikigai’―a purpose for living. “And, in this place of centenarians, we discovered that there was a link between longevity and purpose,” says Miralles. “We started exploring what this purpose is, what ikigai is, and it opened a big field of investigation.”
Okinawa, explains Miralles, is an island south of Japan, closer to Taiwan than Tokyo, with a subtropical climate. “The people are more like Indians: open-minded, warm, composed and making jokes,” he says. “We discovered this little secret of their happiness―that people never retire. They are always doing something that they are passionate about. Thus, ‘ikigai’ became the title of our book.”
As part of their investigation, the authors interviewed many centenarians, read their medical reports, studied their nutrition, and even the climate. They found that Okinawans avoid overeating, and have a diet rich in antioxidants and vegetables. Doing low-intensity exercises, working in the garden and being in contact with nature is part of their daily routine. The authors observed that they have a strong community, too. “So, you don’t eat alone at home; you invite your neighbours,” says Miralles. “You don’t celebrate alone; you go out with other people. This sense of belonging to something bigger than you gives them a lot of trust and happiness and confidence.” But then, the authors also observed that people have individual passions, which give them a purpose in life even at an advanced age.
Born to a dressmaker and an administrative assistant in Barcelona in 1968, Miralles says he has had more than four ikigais at different phases of his life. “It is something that changes when you change as a person,” he says. “For instance, there was a part of my life where my ikigai was being a teacher of German language. But now I can hardly speak German. I studied German philology, literature and language. German was the most important thing for me then. And then through travels and different influences from people, I changed and then I started working as a translator, and then as a publisher. And then, being an editor [in a publishing house focused on self-help books] became the most important job in the world. And it was an obsession.”
During his days as an editor, he wrote books under multiple pseudonyms. “For instance, there was Francis Amalfi to write books of quotes,” he says. “Amalfi is the name of a town in Italy. It was like working for the books industry, but behind [the scenes], not letting know who I am.”
But at some point, a spiritual and personal crisis hit Miralles and he lost the motivation to go to work―he felt the editing job was more like a confinement. And, Miralles did something that many before him had done―leave everything and go to India. “It was my first trip to India,” he recalls. “The year was 1998. I abandoned my job, my salary, my security, everything and went to India to learn. I first came to Mumbai, then went to the south. I lived a couple of months cheaply, knowing the sadhus and masters, speaking with other travellers.” It was during that long journey through India that Miralles wrote his first novel Perdut a Bombai (Lost in Bombay). He also decided never to return to an office job. Thus, he became a freelancer, combining literature and journalism in his works. His literary career flourished over the last two decades and many of his works got translated into multiple languages. But then, a trip to Japan and Ikigai happened. Along with García, who has been living in Japan for more than 18 years, he explored the concepts of forest bathing and Ichigo Ichie (the art of making the most of every moment) in his subsequent books centred on Japan.
Miralles, however, believes that concepts like ikigai are not strictly Japanese or eastern. “You could find the same in India, in a place where there are good relations between people,” he says. “Also, in a city like Barcelona, which is very different from Okinawa, we can apply ikigai.” He says this exchange of ideas between the east and the west has always been there, but reached a high point in the last century. “If you go to Tokyo, [you may feel that] it is a western city,” he says. “And if you go to some communities in Spain, you may feel like it is a place in India. So, I think that it is a good mixture because the western way of thinking is analytical. It is based on logic and the eastern mentality is more about exploration of the inner self. And I think these two dimensions go well together.”
Miralles also has an explanation for westerners travelling to the east when in a spiritual crisis. “The word orientation itself comes from the orient,” he says. “Westerners go to oriental countries to look for ancient wisdom. And, I do not think that is because it is Indian [wisdom], but just because it is older wisdom. When we speak of mindfulness or yoga, for westerners, it is just one century [old]. But it existed here in India for over 3,000 years. So, when we go to Japan, to China, to India, it is not geographical, but coming to the roots, to the cradle of all these ideas.”