Madhumita
Calling dead people’ in the Wind Phone Booth– isn’t that adventurous! If we miss our close ones we call them. But what would you do if the nearest one is no more in this world, and you are missing him/her too much? Even though we earnestly wish, we cannot contact with someone who has left the world. All our sorrow remain untold!
But do you know, there is a telephone booth from where dead people can be called? Japan’s Atsushi region was almost destroyed after the tsunami. About 10% of the people in the area died. Since then the locals went to the telephone booth on the hill commonly known as ‘the wind phone’ and spoke to their dead relatives.
One Otsuchi resident, Itaru Sasaki, had lost his cousin in 2010 and decided to build a phone booth in his hilltop garden from where he would call his dear relatives. In this way, he finds a path of dealing with his grief. After the 2011 earthquake, Itaru Sasaki opened his Wind Phonebooth to the public and allows the members of the community to mourn their losses in the same way he had.
Now it became a folk tale. It is reported that the phone in the booth is out of work. But through the phone, they can talk to dead relatives. Locals claim that tourists visiting the area also visit the booth to talk to the dead relatives.
The whole matter is very weird. But research has shown that such unusual outlets for grief can help people deal with grief and accept their tragic losses.
Based on the topic of white telephone booth connected to nothing and nowhere a touching documentary created by Japan’s national public broadcasting network, NHK, called “Phone of the Wind- Whispers to Lost Families”, and inspired its creator to write a best-selling book entitled ‘The Phone of the Wind- What I Have Seen Via the Phone in the Six Years Since the Earthquake’.
A feature film called “The Phone of the Wind”, directed by Nobuhiro Suwa and inspired by the true story of this unique phone booth, is scheduled for release in 2020.
