A Japanese tourist enjoys water sports on the sea near Konark. Telegraph picture

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 8: A group of Japanese tourists arrived here to learn water sports and Indian music.

They learnt playing tabla and harmonium, practiced yoga and tried their hands at water sports. While it was Odia music composer and singer T Shourie who honed their musical skills, noted scuba diver Sabir Bux taught them scuba diving and wind surfing.

Shourie met the team earlier this week and gave them elementary lessons in Indian music. He even took them to a recording studio and explained them the art of playback singing and song recording.

“The group was a vivacious one. They picked up a few Hindi and Odia words during our meetings. I was also impressed to hear some of their folk and rock songs,” said the music director. The group wanted to record a song about their Odisha experience.

Later, under the watchful guidance of Bux, the visitors enjoyed surfing and diving at the beaches of Chandipur, Ramchandi and Taalsari. Bux, who has been doing a lot to popularise water sports in the state, trained the visitors for a week.

“The presence of all these tourists and their enthusiasm to learn water sports here is a big boost to our morale. A lot needs to be done if we have to put Odisha on the global map of water sports,” said Bux.

The tourists received a warm welcome from the Odisha tourism department and they even got the opportunity to meet R.K. Jena, the MP from Balasore.

“We wanted our trip to be an all encompassing one. We had listened to a lot of Indian music and wanted to learn it. Also, the beaches of Odisha are beautiful and very different from one another. The welcome we got here was overwhelming,” said Reiko Tanaka, an avid traveller hailing from Tokyo.