Gursewak Singh composed his first letter to Japan*s justice minister when he was 10 years old. Almost seven years later, he is still writing. In all, he has written more than 50 letters.

He has yet to get a reply.

The letters, all written in Japanese, have become more eloquent as Gursewak has grown up. But the message is unchanged 〞 a plea to the Japanese authorities to recognize him and his family as residents in a country where he and his younger twin siblings were born and his parents, natives of India, have lived since the 1990s.