Hindu Astrology - Author: Late Dr. Anthony Stone

This blog entry is in two parts, the first on the book "Hindu Astrology" by my late friend Dr. Anthony Stone (Tony) and the second part of the blog is the inauguration of the Ram Mandir Temple in Ayodhya by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 22nd January 2024.

The first part is being cross-posted on all my major blogs while the second part is only being posted on my main blog - Jacob’s Blog.

Late Dr. Anthony Stone

Tony was my teacher of Mathematics in St. Stephen’s College, Delhi, and my good friend. His book on Hindu astrology is to be shortly released as a paperback and I wanted to give you a look into the facts behind Indophile, Tony, and our relationship pre the release oif the paperback edition.

I was sent the details of this book by the publisher, another dear friend and alumni of St. Stephen’s College, Professor Prabhu Guptara.  

Tony was the teacher of Mathematics in St. Stephen’s College in 1962-63, my final year. He took over the duties of Principal S. C. Sircar in the Mathematics Department and joined Professors S.R. Nagpaul, S. B. Mathur,  and Ranjit Bhatia (Rhodes Scholar and of Indian Olympic fame) in the college Mathematics Department.

I lost touch with Tony till he turned up on my Kooler Talk Blog in the late 1990s. We established a close  relationship. When his wife Bertha was hospitalised and he had a short holiday in 2000, as he was then caring for Bertha, he decided to visit Annikki and me in Oulu, Finland. He stayed with us for a week and we had wonderful reunion, and discussed many of his projects.

He was well versed in Indian culture and he was working on a few projects, one of which was Hindu Astrology.

He was also working on a special area of mathematical research which coincided with the interest of a Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai, friend of mine, Bhupinder Singh Anand (Bhupi).

Bhupi was a couple of years senior to me but stayed on in School to do the 12th standard HSC qualification. He was also from Savage House and in our final year, he was the Head Boy of the school while I was the Savage House Captain.  

Bhupi, the School Captain is sitting third from the left, while I am sitting second from the right.

I did keep in touch with Bhupi as he joined my “Seventh Heaven” Cathedralite Heaven Google Group although he was not technically a 59er. I had great respect for dear Bhupi as he was a sincere individual and a true Cathedralite.

The publisher of this book on Hindu astrology is Professor. Prabhu Guptara, from St. Stephen’s College, junior to me but also a good friend now living in Cambridge in the UK.

Prabhu had done an chapter in the book "Malayali Diaspora" several years ago about the oldest Malayali in Continental Europe (not the UK), which was about me. 

Frank Raj was the editor of "The International Indian till 2017".

Frank Raj (Picture from LinkedIn)

This was later published in his magazine with pictures of us and our family in the Dubai publication “The Indian International” edited by Frank Raj.

In 2014, when for several reason, I was stranded in New Delhi, which is explained in Annikki and my book “The Titanic Called India”, Prabhu put me in touch with Ivan and Silvia Kostka.

Ivan and Dr.Silvia Kostka (Picture from LinkedIN)

I had the pleasure of dining with them and a couple of friends. Just a couple of months after they were harassed by the Hindutava faction because they were practicing Christians devoting their their life to uplifting the OBC Community. They were raided by the Delhi Police in October 2014 for supposedly saying derogatory statements about Goddess Durga. Their publication FORWARD Press was being targeted by the Hindutava faction of Narendra Modi’s BJP/RSS wing claiming that Ivan and Silvia were converting Indians to Christianity.

Here I must make a point that I went to Christian schools in Mysore, Bangalore and Mumbai. In my class in Mumbai we were just 4 Christian’s while the rest of the students were Hindus, Jews, Muslims Parsi, Sindhis and Sikhs, from all parts of the world, not just India. I did not even know or even care, what religion the students in my class were.

60 years later, I am still the fulcrum of keeping the surviving classmates together and there is not one single student who has changed his/her religion. They all subscribe too a secular education which has broadened their attitude to life and there is no discrimination on any grounds whatsoever. 

Christians lead by example of the two principles laid down by Christ. . 

There is only one God (different names: Jehovah, Allah, Brahma). Secondly, we must love our neighbour as ourselves. 

All the other laws are man-made derivatives of these two fundamental principles.

Thefollowing year, I had the good fortune to get an email from Silvia (a noted plastic surgeon) that she and Ivan were likely to transit through Helsinki and they were likely to be delayed in their return trip to India. She was interested in meeting up with me.

I did offer to put them up in one of the apartments that Annikki and I had in Helsinki during their stay but we lost contact after that.

Ivan was the Founding Editor of FORWARD Press and it was likely to be shut down by the intolerant society which had spread its wings under Narendra Modi. Silvia had told me then that the last edition of FORWARD Press was likely to be in March of that year (2015).

However, FORWARD Press has survived and is thriving even today under Anil Varghese who is the current editor-in-chief.

So that is my personal background to the book on Hindu Astrology penned by Tony.

Until a few years ago, interest in astrology was widespread - but thin. 

Now the astrology market is growing by leaps and bounds.

In the US, over the four years to 2019, revenue from the top 10 astrology apps market saw an astonishing  compound growth rate of 72.8 percent per year! In India, ten astrology firms in 2021 raised INR 1300  million -300% the combined amount raised by ALL such start-ups over the previous five years!!

No figures for the UK are available, but here is a BBC report:

 https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210205-why-astrology-is-so-popular-now

Into this burgeoning international demand, Prabhu Guptara’s “Pippa Rann Books” imprint is publishing the paperback version of Tony’s book, Hindu Astrology.

The hardback came out some decades ago, but only in India.

The author, late Tony, was an Oxford PhD in Mathematics who went as a university teacher to India, where he was so intrigued at finding most highly-educated people allowing their lives to be ruled by astrology that he learned Sanskrit for the specific purpose of reading the texts in the original language, and writing an adequate history of Indian astrology as well as evaluation of it. 

Brief information on the book is attached below, in form of the full cover the book.

But of course the field is highly contested!  

The honourable Supreme Court of India proclaimed in 2004 that astrology is a SCIENCE.

On the other hand, Madhavankutty Pillai argued in OPEN magazine (2011) that astrology is a HOAX - 

openthemagazine.com/features/living/the-scientific-case-against-astrology/

In a 2018 article in The Guardian, “I was an astrologer”, Felicity Carter concludes that astrology is a form of ENTERTAINMENT.

And here is a recent article arguing that astrology is a SCAM: Digital ‘Vedic Astrology’: The $40 Billion Scam | Madras Courier

Naturally not with reference to the articles mentioned immediately above but, in general, Tony concludes: “…it is a pity that many critics of astrology argue at a very superficial level. My purpose in this book is to shed some genuine light on the subject.  I hope the book will stimulate serious discussion about astrology.”

Do we need to start more knowledgeable debates and discussions on astrology?

Read the book and come to your own conclusions.

Remembering our loved ones

 Dateline 28th November 2023

(Posted on Jacob's Blog, Seventh Heaven Blog for Cathedralites and Kooler Talk (Web Version) Blog for St. Stephen's College alumni.

Cathedral & John Connon School 59ers have lost many of our ones in the last few years. 

Here is a partial list of those from our 2969class who have passed on. 

(I do not have any information about our lady classmates except dear Farhana. I hope someone will update me on this.)

Ashok Ruia

Bala Parasursman

Dossu Pagdiwalla

Fali Dhondy

Farhana (Kably) Poonawala

Farukh Kanga

Flicky Shroff

Hasnain Chinwala

Indrajit Shah

Jacob Eapen 

Jack Haskell

 Jaswant Ghatge

Kurshed Balsata

Michael Colaco

Murali Balani

Naubir Mohindar

Pradeep Bhakar

Prem Goel

Ramesh Mirchandani

Virat Gidwani

Trevor Newnes

I have deliberately left out from this list, one of our dearest, who was tragically lost  15 years ago, Ashok Kapur.

59erGolden Reunion Directory

Our Mumbai 59ers met as a memoriam to Ashok

At our 2009 Golden  Reunion of 59ers,  Annikki and I dedicated our Reunion Directory to Ashok with these pages:

But besides Ashok, we lost many others during those fateful days, which has been brought to mind by Rajiv Bhatia on his Facebook page.

26/11

Remembering the late - Ajit & Monica Chhabria, Sunil & Reshma Parikh, Sanjay & Rita Agarwal, Rohinton Maloo, Mohit Harjani, Lavina Harjani, Anand Bhatt, Pankaj Shah, Vishnidas-Nilam-Gunjan Narang, Neeti-Uday-Samar-Kang, Rupinder Randhawa, Ashok Kamte, Hemant Karkare, Vijay Salaskar, Tukaram Omble

I also remember one of my other alumni from St. Stephen’s College with this post from our alumni Facebook page. 

None other than the heroic Ashok Kamte:

Ashish Joshi , the Moderator of our alumni Facebook   page posted this.

LEST WE FORGET

This is what my friend & college senior, Gary (Justice Anupinder Grewal), wrote in the memory of late Ashok Kamte (Gary's batchmate) a brilliant police officer who attained martyrdom on 26/11. Late Kamte was a friend & one year senior to me in the College .

ASHOK KAMTE

I have been attending the annual St. Stephen's College, Reunion very frequently ever since I passed out of college in 1987. However, this year on 14th December, it was drastically different as it turned into memorial service for Ashok Kamte and I was entrusted the painful task of paying tribute to Ashok. 

It was a tragic personal loss as besides being my classmate in college and a friend, I had the privilege of living with Ashok and his family at his mother’s Flat in Hira Mahal on the Amrita Shergill Marg for about year while studying law. 

Ashok had joined us at St. Stephen's College for his Post Graduation after he had Graduated from St. Xavier’s College, Bombay. What stood him apart from the rest of the Stephanians was the enormity of his physical stature, which alongwith his quest for academic excellence was a rather unique combination. What surprised many was why is the National Power Lifting Champion pursuing Post Graduation at St. Stephen's. There is no preference for sports persons for admission in M.A. Little did they realize then that Ashok always strove for excellence, whether in the classroom or the playing field. He had single minded commitment to succeed. He was very happy when he was selected to the I.P.S. He used to say that he was meant for action and disliked other civil services for their bureaucratic file work.

While training for the Power Lifting Championship, he would not compromise on his diet. As his mother would not allow him to have more than two eggs, due to its high cholesterol content he would buy a dozen eggs from the market, cook and eat them at his neighbour's house. He had broken three national records in Power Lifting and won half a dozen Gold and Silver Medals. He had also won the Bronze Medal in Junior World Power Lifting Championship. Power Lifting is one of the toughest sport and Ashok would train for hours in complete solitude. Despite his powerful build, he was extremely agile and could sprint quite fast. Besides his love for swimming and squash he would generate amazing pace and bounce while bowling on the rather placid College Cricket pitch at Morigate. He had played an important role in the victory of our team. 

Ashok was proud of the fact that he had the blood of two Martial Races the Maratha’s and the Sikhs. While his father is a retired Colonel settled in Pune, his grand-father was in the Imperial Police. His mother Mrs. Paramjit Kamte,, who now lives in Gulmohar Park is from the well known Bawa Family of Goindwal Sahib and is grand-daughter of Late Bawa Budh Singh of the Indian Service of Engineers. Bawa Budh Singh was the 14th descendent of the Third Sikh Guru, Guru Amar Dass. When I called on Mrs. Kamte, she said that though she is proud of the fact that Ashok has become a National Hero yet at times she cannot comprehend that he is no more. He was the only male member in the family whom she could look forward in times of need. He had perhaps inherited his very fair features from his maternal grandmother Mrs.Surinder Bawa (maiden name Violet) an English Lady. His sister, Sharmila, a well known model and a ballet dancer, now runs her famous Dance Academy in Dubai. His wife, Vinita, stays at Pune alongwith his sons, Rahul and Arjun. Besides serving the U.N. Force in Bosnia, Ashok had also trained in Punjab for some time. 

Ashok was known for his high integrity and efficiency which was evident in his earlier stints in Maharashtra especially in Solapur, where he had brought an inflammable communal situation under control within a few hours. I had spoken to Ashok sometime back when as Commissioner of Police, Solapur, was in the news for bringing to book the local M.L.A who was flouting the law for noise pollution. Ashok had personally gone and arrested the M.L.A. from his residence at mid-night after the M.L.A. had earlier roughed up police officials. I had asked him whether he had really beaten up the M.L.A. He replied that if he had done so, the man would not have survived as though he no longer competed in power lifting but maintained regular exercise regime. It was his conscientiousness, patriotism and devotion to duty which made him the target of the terrorist attack at Mumbai. He was the Additional Commissioner, (East) and even though the area around the Cama Hospital(South) did not fall within his jurisdiction, he had reached there as he had undergone specialized training to handle terrorism and hostage situation. He would lead from the front and was not the kind to send subordinates to do risky jobs. He lived for others and had a proactive approach. He made the supreme sacrifice and attained martyrdom in the battle field and made his family, friends and the nation proud. "

Anupinder Grewal

Additional Advocate General, Punjab (Now Judge, Punjab High Court)

Let us each keep a moment’s silence, wherever we are, to honour of all our alumni. Founder’s Day for the school was November 14th. That for our college is 7th December. 

May all these dear ones friends 

Rest In Peace.

Delhi hosts us

It was so great that the Delhi Cathedralites Alumni organised a special event so that Annikki and I could meet with them yesterday.

Two of us present were wearing the new Alumni tie - 49er Yezad and myself. Deepak has one, but he thought the event was informal, so did not wear it. After all, he organised it, so his strict definition of "smart casual" was tieless! :-)

The Cathedralite Delhi Chapter had so thoughtfully brought back a tie for his classmate, Jamshed, which was presented to him at the occasion by Yezad. I was so touched that Jamshed made it to the party.



Among those who attended included 49ers Jamshed Desai, Raj Bhandari and Yezad Kapadia (with wife Rati). 54er Rahul Bajaj, Savage House Captain and also a Stephanian, stayed back in New Delhi especially to be present at the occasion. Ravi Jaitly, another 54er attended with his wife Krishna. 55er Anil (Bobby) Bhalla was present. 56er Pradeep Anand was there. The 57ers present was Tony (Ashok) Jaitly, who is also a Stephanian, and Annelita (nee Uttamsingh) Thadani and her husband, Ravinder K Thadani (Baby). 58ers were represented by Maiti Sayal. 59ers included Harmo Rani Malik (née Uberoi) accompanied by her daughter, 82er Priya and Vijay Nayar, (and myself). 60ers were Dellinder Kohli and Jotsyna Singh (née Jaitly) accompanied by her husband, my Stephanian classmate, HE Ambassador Siddarth Singh, and the 64er present was Deepak Deshpande who organised the entire event with the help of his colleague, my fellow mallu from Alleppy, Joceylin. (Dellinder Kohli left early, so is missing from the photograph. Also missing in this picture is Deepak's lovely daughter, Pallavi, whom I got to talk to quite a bit about journalism. Pallavi took the group picture with our camera. Thanks!)

The food was simply superb and served scrumptiously. I had a bit too much of everything, especially the delicious sweeets.



The Delhi Alumni presented Annikki and me with a wonderful gift, "The Speaking Tree Collection" of the Times of India column in 4 Volumes plus an extra volume, entitled "Inspiration for the Soul".

It was so touching that they had chosen to honour us both in this fashion.

(I was also so happy that Deepak thoughtfully arranged it that all those who helped in running the event also got their share of the food.)

Visit to my Alma Mater 3

I went to my alma mater, St. Stephen’s College, this morning.



Much had changed and much had not changed. The most important was that it was a no smoking zone! Amazing but simply wonderful. Many buildings had been added, mostly of the same style.

As soon as I arrived I met with four staff members at the gate, all after my time. Then to the Principal’s office. He was not there, but I spoke to him on the phone to get permission to do some unobtrusive photography.

First shot - The Blacksmith, which was now a modern water cooler. However, the significance of the Blacksmith has vanished as water coolers have been installed in all the blocks, making those evening and night visits to it now unnecessary.

The general atmosphere was the same except to see girls trooping around everywhere.

The greatest disappointment was the condition of the JCR.

In 1961-62 the JCR Committee had worked so hard to make the JCR a wonderful place where we could not only enjoy ourselves but feel comfortable in clean and neat surroundings. The place was now in shambles. The small rooms at the back were store houses for all sorts of paraphernalia and one was a carom room. Two TT tables now stood in the main hall. Nothing much else. It just did not feel a comfortable place to relax in during the long evenings.

But the boys there seemed quite contented - so who am I to say what it should be.

I bought a College tie from Balan in the Sports Department. Cost was just Rs. 160, but he could not sell me a college T-Shirt! Meant for students only, I guess!



The cafe had been expanded and modernised. The cane chair s were still there and the fare was a slightly more modern.

I am going back on Monday to attend the Founders’s Day Service. Hopefully I can spend a bit more time looking around.

I rushed back and with perfect timing arrived back just as K. P. Fabian, former Ambassador to Finland arrived at the Guest House. He was looking as sprightly as ever and he is active with an NGO. He also has a great blog where he writes about socio-political issues.

I still remember his wonderful speech at the Oulu University about North - South dialogue, something I should reproduce here on the blog. In today’s context, it has even more significance.

It is 4:30am. Rushing off to Rajasthan now to see the Check Dams Project. So will complete this entry on my return. (more photographs tomorrow.)

My other alma mater is Cathedral and John Connon School, Bombay and here are list of few of those are Alumni of both of these institutions.

Rahul Bajaj, Ashok (Tony) Jaitly, Peter Philip, Sujit Bhatacharya and myself, Javob Matthan. If you belong tonthesectwo Alumni, Please send mecdn email to jmatthan@ gmail.com

Alumni Dinner

Apologies - Several of you wondered where my posts had gone after Day 2. By some quirk, they entries had gone into another of my blogs. I have shifted them back to my main blog, so go backwards to read everything after Day 2!!)

After our hasty retreat from the Church, we left home at around 20:45 to go to the Blue Sea on Worli Sea Face for the Alumni Dinner. (Just to tell you that 56er Ubi had brought me an Old Boys tie to wear at the Church. What a thoughtful gesture.)



The Blue Sea Event was a huge affair - with over 600 people attending. I was greeted by the Alumni co-President Viral Doshi who said that he had a present for me and that I should see him before I left.

Annikki was exhausted. I soon found a large round table. 59er David and wife, Jane, and Annikki and I sat down there. We found that this table had been reserved for us 59ers.

It was HOT under the canopy and within a few minutes I was consuming gallons of soft drinks.

People of all years were searching for me. I realised now how widespread my blog was being read. Knowing I was attending, alumni of all years were asking others if they knew me and whether I would meet up with them! Crazy!

Everyone wanted to call me for dinner or give me some present. 64er Rustom sent me a box of dried fruits. 69er Prakash sent me a hilarious "head scratcher" and a car seat briefcase hanger while he sent Annikki a beautiful pair of earrings. Annikki does not wear earrings but she knows what to do with what she got. 54er Sadhana had a key chain for me and gift vouchers for Annikki! A candle holder and candle from......, and so on. Thanks to all of you. But no more presents - Please? This blog is for our fun - not to promote myself!

I met 54ers Ravi Jaitly, Rolf Sonawalla. 54er MP Rahul Bajaj came to greet me. I chatted with 52er Yoku Hamied CEO of Cipla, 57er Shyam Chainani, the well known environmentalist and Roxanne Davur, who is running the Terra Anima Trust for Animal Welfare. I met 63er Ashok Adavani of Business India. 49er Yezad Kapadia was around and wanted to speak more at the Delhi get-together organised by the Delhi Chapter. All the 64ers who I had already met came to say hello and brought more friends.

Many were friends from the past. Many were my heros while at school. Yoku had left before I joined school, but he was active in the Kanga League and I used to go and see our Old Boys Team cricket play. I told both Yoku and Shyam of the wonderful work that they have been doing - one bringing the Indian Pharmaceutical business into the limelight internationally and the other for setting the tone for India in the environmental context. I am sure that Roxanne can do with all the help any of you can give her.

I met 69er Sheeba Eapen, younger sister of late 59er Jacob Eapen. Sheeba is a friend of my Italian contributor, 69er Barbara. Sheeba has promised me some photographs of our 59er and a short write up about him.

It was wonderful to meet up with 54er Zarine Aga and her husband Minoo. Zarine has become a dear friend.

As I wandered around I was stopped every few metres - I was greatly embarrassed by this as I could not respond with my usual "I know you" response. People talked to me about our late cat, my late mother-in-law, Annikki's snowmen and her cakes. People knew us intimately and I did not know them.

59er Farhana brought her son, also a Cathedralite, to meet me. What a wonderful youngster.

Madhu, Ashok's wife, to whom I had given one copy of our Class Directory told me that once she had reached home, she had read the whole book from cover to cover - a great tribute to Annikki and me from a good friend.

Annikki declined to have dinner. she was in great suffering. I made an attempt to eat the wonderful spread of food - but the heat made the food unappetising.

By now the sound in the hall had become unbearable. I wonder what it was like in the dance hall? I decided to call it a day as we had to set off early today by car for Alibaug.

Alumni co-President, Viral Doshi had a special gift for me.



This is the Alumni Tie which is being released for the 150th year celebration of the school. It is indeed a grand gesture and in return I gifted one copy of our 59ers Directory of our Golden Reunion to the Alumni.

They are planning a similar publication for the 150th year celebrations. The stakes have been raised and they have to come with a publication better than what we 59ers have turned out.

Our reunion, the 59ers, is certainly the Mother of All Reunions, the reputation of which will be further enhanced tomorrow when we proceed for a day of fun and games at Alibaug.'

Thank you Alumni for the signal honour -I love you all and I love to blog for you. Keep those emails coming, but do also let me have a photo, so that next time I can identify you and not be embarrassed that only you know me.

So by 10:30 we were in our taxi driving back to the Guest House. Both of us were exhausted, but i decided to complete the entry. Unfortunately some error was being generated, so i could not post this entry till the morning.

Stay tuned for more.

Also a Cottonian....

Mysore Palace

Yesterday I took on another hat. I became an Old Cottonian. Although I did not complete my schooling from Bishop Cotton's, Bangalore, I studied there between 1949 and 1954, when I shifted to Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai. But my formative years were at Cotton’s and I enjoyed my years there, both in the kindergarten in the Girls’ School and later in the Boys’ School.

Due to Aditya Sondhi, I became involved with the writing of his wonderful book about Cottons and thanks again to him, I have stayed in touch with major events happening in the school.

It just so happened that our visit to Bangalore coincided with the 5th General K. S. Thimayya Memorial Lecture. The subject was by 64er Gopal K. Pillai, IAS, and the current Home Secretary, Govt. of India Old Cottonian (1964) on “India’s Internal Security: Challenges & Responses”.

Mika and I attended the lecture, which was preceded by a morning coffee in the school garden in front of the simply enormous Bishop George Edward Lynch Cotton Auditorium built in 2004 on the 3rd XI field.

As we walked into our alma mater, many changes were observed as on a saturday morning sports practice was in progress on the 1st XI pitch and the school was humming with activity. Greeted in front of the Warden’s Office, a feeling of great nostalgia came over me as I recalled my years in this school. They had been pleasant and wonderful days indeed. I met Aditya Sondhi (Managing Trustee) for the first time and was impressed by his cool and calm appearance and the way he and his colleagues, C N Kumar, Kiran Lakhani, Jairaj Daniel, Rajeev Purnaiya (Trustees of the Gen K S Thimayya Memorial Trust (Regd) handled the Old Cottonians and the numerous distinguished guests who had arrived for this august occasion.

After a really wonderful morning repast produced by the catering division of the school, we trooped into the auditorium, which was then packed to the brim. Mika and I represented a whole host of matthan’s who had passed through this school, starting from the very first Indian girl, Mrs. K. C. Chacko (my father’s eldest sister) right down to Mika, who had, like me studied his formative years in the school between 1976 and 1983.

The lecture was simply excellent as we were briefed on the issues and the responses of the Indian Government in a most candid manner. After the lecture we had a question and answer session and this was a no holds barred session with the final set of questions by the father of the late Late Major Sandip Unnikrishnan, who gave the supreme sacrifice on 26.11.2008. He had been an Old Cottonian. The questions were hard hitting but respecting the wishes of the father, I do not put forward his concerns on this public forum. The lecture and question and answer session overran by almost a hour

After the lecture we adjourned to the Bangalore Club where we were entertained to a lunch by the Trustees. Annikki and I had a chance to have a very intimate conversation with General Thimayya’s daughter, her husband and daughter-in-law and also meet some very old family friends who were not only Cottonians but also those whom I had shared our childhood years with. We recalled many past events of our families and it was with great sadness we pulled ourselves away from this very august gathering and returned to the hotel - exhausted.

As Annikki and Mika rested, i ran to see another dear friend, anil Ananthakrishnan and his wife, Lalitha. It was really wonderful to see how much they had accomplished during the past three years in developing and launching the EKO Vehicles concept which has been Anil’s life’s work from the early 1960s. What he has achieved with his wife in the last three years is truly outstanding.

A tough day but much was left undone. We go on to another exciting day ahead!

(PS: Annikki was brought up as a Seventh Day Adventist Christian, as her father discovered his true faith after the Finnish - Russia Winter War and World War II, where he had served and survived on the frontline (as a soldier) all through it. However, it was not till 1984 that Annikki took the step to be baptized into the faith after her marvellous experiences in the hands of her God. She was baptized in the Church in Bangalore. She attended the Church while Mika and I attended the lecture.)

(PPS: I will return to uncovered dates as I get some free time. Today is the Bangalore Malayakil Matthan Reunion lunch followed by a trip to Mysore. Hopefully back around midnight.)

Driving 1100 km on the same day

(Also on the Seventh Heaven and Kooler Talk Blogs.)

After a hectic weekend, when I went to Tampere with Sunil, in a van taking materials to set up four apartments and which included a side trip to Helsinki to check on how Raantel apartments were doing there, we left Tampere late on Saturday evening to return to Oulu so that I could speak at the Free Speech Day in Oulu Otto Karhi Park.

We arrived back at Oulu about 6 am on Sunday morning. I had a nap and went with Annikki to the public park, equipped with my speaking stand.

The opening procedure was just taking place and the Chief Editor of Kaleva Newspaper, a new person, was making the welcome remarks.

He ended by saying that each speaker would be given 5 minutes at the mike.

My talk, which this year was about "Justice Delayed is Justice Denied" would have taken the good part of 1 and half hours.

Ii approached the gentleman and asked that I set up my own stand as in previous years and be allowed to speak. He rejected the idea saying he had no powers to allow that. After much persuasion, he pointed me to a lady. She said that I could do that away from the main central area.

But it was clear that they did not want to move away from their prepared script. Annikki and I decided against making a speech this year under these conditions.

In short - this was no copy of Hyde Park Corner as this was a very controlled exercise to make Finns believe that they have Freedom of Speech - which they don't.

I had promised to meet Ajeet on Monday in South Finland. He and Sari are on a flying trip here to take part in a couple of conferences. So our Alumni meets were scheduled for Monday at 10:30 am, and this time in Toijala, wher he was staying.

I left Oulu by car at 3:50 am and because of the GPS Navigator (the cheap one), I did the trip to Tampere in just 5 hours (477 km). After attending to some Raantel Oy work there, I drove on to Toijala to be greeted by Ajeet and his wife, Sari.

Our joyous Cathedralite and Stephanian Finland Chapter Alumni Reunion was a working one. 100 % attendance as usual!

I exploited the combined legal expertese of Ajeet and Sari.

Ajeet confirmed he would be in Bombay for the November 12th Cathedral Founders Day event. After my 50th year Golden Reunion Celebrations are complete, Annikki and I will go to Ahmedabad where I will give a talk at the Indian Institute of Management about the new developments in technology taking place and their implications on world society.

Then we would all spend a few days at Mount Abu, where Annikki and I have never been.

I left at 14:30, stopped at Tampere to attend to some more Raantel Oy work, left Tampere at 16:30 and arrived back in Oulu at 22:30.

A 20 hour round trip of 1100 km - and because of the hectic weekend of travel and work, this one partially knocked me out.

I got a good scolding from Annikki who thought I was on a leisurely train trip to Tampere!!

Back again to our teeny weeny world

Posted on my Jacob's Blog, on the Mumbai Cathedralites Seventh Heaven Blog, on the Stephanian Kooler Talk Blog, and the Oulu CHAFF Blog.

Glad to get back to regular blogging.

The last two weeks were a delight in that we were were not snowed under by snow, but with love and affection and greetings from all over the world.

(Sadly, as an aside, this is the first time in the last 23 winters we have been in Finland (and Annikki's some 40 winters she has been in Finland out of her 63 winters) that we did not have snow in this near Arctic location. Remember we are just 200 km from the Arctic Circle! A sad reflection of the effect of global warming!)

Into our 10 email addresses, 5 Blog Accounts, 3 Google Groups, our mobile phone number, our landline phone and our snail mail postbox, a total of just around 70000 (YES 70000!) season's greetings poured in.

I had a task sorting them out and then updating mailing addresses in our numerous mailing lists, grouping them into the various groups, i.e., family (Maliyakals and Kandathils), friends (Indian, Finnish, world), Mumbai Cathedralites, Delhi Stephanians, Bishop Cottonians (Bangalore), Findians, CHAFF Participants, O-Indians, past colleagues, present colleagues and others - making sure we were not sending out duplicates or to dead addresses and then send our greetings to all on our lists. (If it was not for 3 trustworthy Macs working round the clock this task would have been impossible for just one computer idiot!)

Out of a total 37000 postings (the last ones were today), I am glad to say that this year we had hardly around 300 returns! I had taken out all those who had university addresses in the US and UK, and that had cut the mailing list from the 80000+ to this more manageable figure.

We are sorry to all whom we may have missed.

But this is proof that we have a teeny weeny world of our own. But this teeny weeny world is even smaller than we thought!

A few weeks ago I had about 6 emails, all with the same attachment - some pictures of the Old Bombay - a truly great collection of pictures. Most of the emails were forward.

One of the persons who forwards me great emails is Cathedralite from Mumbai) 56er Ubi (HS Uberoi). (Another is Cathedralite 49er from Mysore, Naval Patel.)

When I looked at the forward I noted that it was from his daughter-in-law, Anahita. Besides Ubi, she had forwarded it to one Farookh Mehta.

I sent an email to Ubi asking him whether this "Farookh" was the same "advertising" Farookh who was married to a great Maharashtrian stage actress, Vijaya. I explained to Ubi that we had sailed together from Venice to Bombay in 1969, round the Cape, and Farookh had beaten me in the Table Tennis final on board the ship. Farookh played well on a tilting and listing ship!

Ubi's reply was swift as it was amazing. Yes, this was the self-same Farookh, who was also a Cathedralite of the 47 era, married to the Maharashtrian stage legend, Vijaya, and whose daughter, Anahita, who had been a few months on that voyage was Head Girl in Cathedral School in 1985, when Ubi's son, Samir, was Head Boy, and the two were married!

A year or so ago, Farookh and Vijaya's son, Ravi Khote, had passed through Finland and I had talked to him about his parents.

Since this exchange of emails I have had emails and photographs from Farookh, which I will blog soon.

But the moral is that our teeny weeny world is much much smaller than we thought!

Ignore or reply?

Posted on my Jacob's Blog, the Mumbai Cathedral School Seventh Heaven Blog and the Delhi Stephanian Kooler Talk Blog.

Although the bulk of this posting relates to my alma mater, St. Stephen's College, Delhi, the moral and rationale that I talk about here applies to all my alma maters and also to my many readers on my primary blog.

It has been quite a while since the exchange of views on the Kooler Talk Blog about the appointment of Rev. Valson Thambu as Acting Principal of St. Stephen's College and then his radical new Dalit Christian oriented admission policy to the College.

I was greatly honoured when John Dayal, Member of the National Integration Council, Secretary General of the All India Christian Council and President of the All India
Catholic Union, asked me to contribute to a book which would consider the aspect of admission of Dalit Christians to minority educational institutions.

Then came those couple of Anonymous postings in the Comments section of the Kooler Talk Blog which accused me of being a fundamentalist Christian.

That made me sit back for more than a moment and search through my 11 years of writing on the internet to see whether I had ever given cause to be considered as a fundamentalist Christian.

There was a time when I took part in a fundamentalist Hindu web discussion site where I came out strongly against Hindu Fundamentalism and Muslim extremism in the wake of the Gujarat massacre. It left a very bad taste in me to get into a discussion with a set of rabid and illiterate Hindu fundamentalists located all over the world who were foaming at the mouth when challenged about their fundamentalism.

Then there was a time when, thanks to Stephanian Prof. Sreenath Sreenivasan, Professor of Journalism at Columbia university, New York,I was looking in on the South Asian Journalists (SAJA) Discussion Forum where, again, a few well-educated Hindu Fundamentalist "journalists" were putting forward all sorts of arguments to prove "their" theories of the Indus Valley Civilisation to demonise other religious groups in India.

There was no limit to the twisting of the truth, very much as George Bush continues to use his "Christian Fundamentalist" values to kill innocent Afghanis and Iraqis to achieve his ends.

As a result I had decided not to be drawn again into such arguments as they only leave me with wanting to use a new mouthwash!

When I decided to wish Rev. Thambu well on his appointment as the Officiating Principal of St. Stephen's College, I had no idea that I was being drawn into a major controversy which is raging there.

I am 7000 km away from India. I have not visited India since the year 2000. I am not an expert on anything Indian. I have only my nostalgia of a time long gone by and that does not make me competent to even write a line in support or defense of policies of education, religious fundamentalism or any other matter related to what is taking place in India.

After much deliberation with my friends and my main confidante, I felt that I would only be adding fuel to the fire if I wrote about the controversies. After 8 weeks of much thought and prayer, my wife and I decided that we should not be embroiled in a battle of which we knew nothing about.

We have a reputation, which has been stated by many of our regular readers, that we have never done anything or written anything which violated the trust of all the different religious and ethnic groups that read our many blog pages.

When I went through the Indian Press Reports that I get daily, yesterday there was this one in the Times of India "Exclusive quota for backward Christians and Muslims in Tamil Nadu". This is for the second time that DMK Chief Minister M Karunanidhi has sought to provide exclusive reservation for specific castes in the backward classes catagory. In 1989, he had carved out 20 per cent of the 50 per cent reservation for Backward Classes for the Most Backward classes.

This has been Karunanidhi's vote gathering politics.

Rev. Valson Thambu's strategy was to divert the attention from his controversial appointment to a more amenable to improve his public ratings. In that he succeeded admirably by focusing on the concept of social justice.

To continue to stay away from the personal glare, yet another step was undertaken to undo anything controversial that previous Collge Principal had done. Rev. Thambu took steps to end the open ended permission that Principal Anil Wilson had given to the Centre for Mathematical Sciences (CMS), run by the Mathematical Sciences Foundation (MSF), by asking them to move out of the Stephania campus, causing a section of senior teachers at the college to protest.

What is happening in Stephania today is not based on the ideals that I imbibed in the educational institutions that I attended in India.

Principal Anil Wilson was obviously wrong to have made such an agreement with the MSF. The Bishop of North India was wrong to appoint his son onto the Supreme Council of the College. Principal Wilson was wrong to have continued to hold his position as Principal when he went forward as Vice Chancellor of another University. The Supreme Council was wrong to appoint Rev. Thambu as Officiating Principal when they had not resolved the issue with Principal Wilson. Principal Wilson was wrong to publicise his dissent. Rev. Thambu was wrong to start his tenure with moves meant to divert attention away from his appointment. Principal Thambu was wrong to cause the still waters of campus life to be stirred so violently.

And, all this is being done in the name of "education" and "Christ".

To me none of this stands up as promoting "Christian values".

I know there are many senior and outstandingly intellectual and honest alumni, before and of my era, in and around Delhi like B. G. Verghese, Rahul Bajaj, Ashok Jaitly, Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Mani Shankar Ayar, Shanker Menon, John Dayal, etc., who have the depth of vision to tackle these issues rather than someone as uneducated as me who is so far away from home base to contribute anything worthwhile to resolving them.

All I can do is to tell my audience of all alma maters that what is happening in St. Stephen's College will happen in all minority institutions when internal and personal politics supersedes the values which we should adhere to.

I do not appreciate anonymous input. One should have the courage of convictions to put a name and identity to what one believes. Have the courage to call a spade a spade. As otherwise the spade is being called a bucket to hold the nightsoil!

Do I approve of the actions of the Bishop of North India, his son, former Principal Anil Wilson, or present Acting Principal Rav. Valson Thambu in what is happening in the college?

The answer, from this distance is - NO.

That is because it is not in keeping with the values which were imbibed by me from all my Indian alma maters - Good Shepherd Convent, Mysore, Bishop Cotton School, Bangalore, Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai and St. Stephen's College, Delhi.

These values have nothing to do with any religion. It has to do with Fair Play.

I request the alumni in all these institutions who are nearer to the home bases to get actively involved in the institutions that they love to ensure that what is happening in St. Stephen's College is not repeated elsewhere.