"It's only recently that the great mass of Indians have begun to feel that rising in the world and becoming rich was a good thing, a valuable thing," says Asha Amemiya.
"Before that they had a different value system. In their thousands of years of history there hadn't been much change in values. For example, one has to ask why so many millions of people looked to Gandhi and thought his ideals of simple living without money were so meaningful."
I am speaking with the textile artist as she lounges back on the wooden floorboards of her home in the mountains of southern Shikoku. Her three daughters are constantly nearby, asking questions, making food, straightening the house or correcting their mother's mispronunciations of Bengali words that come up in the conversation.