If you seek god, will you find everything else too? This philosophical query has exercised the minds of sages through history. But go to Bodhgaya in Bihar and you could find some answers. Yuki Inoue, for one, would readily reply in the affirmative. On her first visit to the Buddhist pilgrim town in early 1998, she fell in love with Sudama Prasad, 32, then working as an interpreter with Jet Airways and Indus Heritage. Yuki's father, Takahiro Inoue, a fine arts professor in Kyoto, who was accompanying her, was also impressed. Prasad and Yuki tied the knot in October 1998. Today, like a typical Indian woman, Yuki wears a salwar-suit, has colourful bangles on her arms and applies sindoor on her head. The match seems to have been made in heaven.

Sunil Rathore married Takako Kazi in 1996. They live in the Japanese city of Sapporo.

"We have total faith in each other and there is no problem, even though we belong to different socio-economic cultures," says Prasad, who now runs Hotel Mahamaya in Bodhgaya. Like an Indian wife, Yuki even practises rituals that promise to bring prosperity and well-being to her husband and family. Prasad often visits Japan on a spouse visa and does social work in Kyoto.

Theirs is no isolated case. East is increasingly meeting East in the temple town. Call it happenstance, call it heaven's blessing, but youths in the land of the Buddha's nirvana now court Japanese girls with rustic aplomb. The past few years have seen quite a few marriages between Bodhgaya's men and Japanese women visiting the town. The inspiration, if you look beyond the spiritual, is, according to the local people, a media man who married a Japanese visitor and is now settled in Mumbai.

It was also a successful Indo-Japanese alliance for Amardeep Kumar and Asakawa Keiko. The two first met during Asakawa's visit to Bodhgaya in 1996. She came again the following year and stayed at Kumar's guesthouse. In 1998, Kumar got a letter from Asakawa inviting him to Japan. There Kumar met Asakawa's parents who were impressed enough to agree to a marriage. Kumar and Asakawa became husband and wife in 2000.

Matrimony is preceded by hundreds of doubts and periods of wavering. Prasad remembers the hurdles he faced before he could marry Yuki. "My family members did not approve of the idea for religious, social and cultural reasons," he says. His stubbornness, however, made them relent.

Amardeep Kumar first met Asakawa Keiko in 1996 when she visited Bodhgaya. They became friends and finally married in 2000 after both the families assented to the match.

The alchemy is helped by the fact that the Japanese are conservative, as are people in Bihar. Yuki says coming to terms with an entirely new society and culture was tough in the first three months. But the support of her in-laws made adapting easier. Back in Japan, Yuki's friends have finally seen her side of things. "After the success of my marriage, my friends in Japan have become crazy about Bihari boys," she says. Yuki is keen to adopt Indian culture. "Mera pariwar Indian hai isliye main yahan ke sare riti-rivaj aur parampara sikhna chahti hoon (I want to learn all the Indian rituals and ceremonies since my family is Indian)," she says in newly learnt Hindi. She is so much an Indian that she is mirthful of the inevitable cross-cultural gaffes. She remembers an incident on a train in Japan. "I had applied vermilion in the parting of my hair. Some of my co-passengers were shocked to see my head and started screaming, 'Blood, blood'," recalls Yuki with a twinkle in her eyes as if to say, "Those silly Japanese."

Things are on a roll for Kumar and Asakawa too. "We have no problems," says Kumar. "I know a little Japanese but we got attracted to each other because of our natures." Their families too are satisfied with the way their life together has turned out.

While many Japanese women settle down in Bihar, some go back home. Sunil Rathore and Takako Kazi, who married in 1996, live in Sapporo in Japan. Rathore is a history teacher at Hokkaido University campus in Sapporo. Pramod Jaiswal, another Bodhgaya man who married a Japanese girl some years ago, now owns a chain of hotels in Japan and India. There is Ajay Sao too, who married the daughter of a well-known Japanese politician in 1998.

Sudama Prasad got married to Yuki Inoue in 1998. Yuki has adapted to life in Bodhgaya and considers herself a typically Indian mother to their children, son Hikaroo and daughter Maya

Rathore, rather immodestly, says the reason for so many alliances of this kind is the good image Indian men enjoy among Japanese women. "Indians, even if they are poor, are traditionally kind-hearted and committed people," he says. "So Japanese girls are attracted towards them." Takahiro represents the impressed Japanese father-in-law when he talks approvingly of his daughter's choice, "Sudama has a sharp mind and is a hard worker. He was suitable for my daughter," he says. "He knows not only our language but our customs and manners too."

For the Indian youths, such nuptial ties can bring in a geographical dowry. The marriages take them a step close to a secure lifestyle in a rich and developed country. Talk to any bachelor in Bodhgaya and he is more than ready to say sayonara (goodbye in Japanese) to India.

But amid this fairytale scenario there is a touch of the unsavoury too. News of philandering by the town's men has put a question mark on the desirability of such alliances. Yuki admits some Japanese girls are unhappy with the playboy nature of some of the men. Prasad too is sad that the idea of marriages between people from two different cultures and countries is being undermined. "We love each other like Laila and Majnu, and our married life is full of happiness," he says. "The wrongdoers are a taint on our society and country."

Strangely, it is mainly Buddhism that seems to arouse marital desires in pilgrims. Says Bhikhu Bodhipala, the monk in charge of Mahabodhi Mahvihara and member of the Bodhgaya Temple Management Committee: "At various places of Buddhist heritage-like Kolkata, Delhi, Sarnath, Agra and Jaipur-even Japanese boys have married local girls and gone on to enjoy happy married lives."

The spiritual significance of Bodhgaya among the Japanese, it seems, is itself a factor in facilitating such cross-cultural matches. "Like Lord Buddha, my daughter came here to get ultimate enlightenment," says Takahiro. "It was her fate that she got married at Bodhgaya to Sudama." Marital bliss and spiritual fulfilment-not a bad bargain at Bodhgaya.