Rabindranath went to Osaka on 1st June at the invitation of Osaka Asahi Shimbun (Udiyaman Surya), the news paper. They arranged a lunch party in honour of Tagore. After the lunch he delivered his famous lecture in the Tennoji Hall on the subject " India and Japan". The auditorium was full with more than three thousand audience sitting on the mat made up of one kind of grass on the earthen floor. Kawaguchi gave an introduction of Rabindranth and also interpreted his lecture. Rabindranath said that he was very happy to come over here as he was interested in Japan since his young age.Bur his first experience about this country was not fare :
The whirlwind of modern civilization has caught the rest of the world, and a stranger like myself cannot help feeling on landing your country that what I see before me is the sample of the modern age where before the brazen images an immense amount of sacrifice is offered and an interminable round of ritual is performed. But this is not Japan. He has reached Japan very easily but in ancient time the Budh monks had to come here after lots of trouble. In the days of heroic simplicity, it was easy to come near to the real man, but in modern times it is the fantasm of the giant time itself, which is everywhere and man is lost beyond recognition.
But he will not be frustrated. He will try to find the real Japan. What is unique and not merely the mask of the time which is monotonously the same in all latitudes and longitudes."
The lecture delivered by him was immensely praised. But Stephen N. Hay wrote;
" however, the Tokyo Asahi, the nation's most influential news paper, displayed a more negative attitude toward his message, reporting it under the heading, " Tagore curses civilization".
Japan Weekly Chronicle [ Kobe, 8 June] quoted from another English daily that wrote an article on, "Sir Rabindranath Tagore : A criticism of Modern Civilization "
Rabindranath sent a paper cutting of this article to Rothenstien.
