History repeating itself?

Annikki and I were enjoying our regular Friday buffet lunch (with a speacial spicey chicken vindaloo) at The Royal Garden restaurant in Oulu when a young couple walked in. 

Michelle showed them around and they settled at a table. (Obviously they were new!)

MG University, Kottayam (School of Chemical Sciences)

(Photo from Mahatma Gandhi University website.)

As they came to the buffet table I asked the young gentleman where he was from. He was from India, then Bangalore. 

Having established our primary connection I dug a little deeper and found out he was a Polymer Chemist, and then came the shocker, when he said that he did his degree from Kottayam.

I had to travel 7000 km to do my studies in Polymers. At that time only London and Akron, Ohio, USA had reputed courses in polymer science and technology in the English speaking world. Although there were excellent courses in Germany, France and Italy, those were not an option for me.

As my brother was already in London, the choice was automatic, as Ohio seemed to be a little too distant for me.

When I did a little digging I found that the director of the Dept of Chemical Sciences at the Mahatma Gandhi University is a Prof. Dr. Anitha C. Kumar. She had done her Polymer Science degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, with which I was actively cooperating with in the early seventies when Prof. Guenter Menig from Germany was there to start the department. 

Prof. Menig and I had worked on similar research areas, especially the use of the Brabender Pladtograph to characterise the processing behaviour of polymers.

When Prof. Menig left back to Germany, we took his maid, Susheela, to look after the children as she spoke English. Annikki was at that time just starting to learn Tamil.

I hope to share a few evenings with Anupam, just to catch up on what is happening in the polymer field. I have more or less stopped reading stuff in my primary area of work for almost 15 years!

The only subject I do keep abreast of these days is the controversial topic about Polymers and Recycling technology.

Welcome Anupan and Juyel to a great city, Oulu, Annikki and my  home for the last 40 years

This is indeed a very small world!

Brinda Somaya, Outstanding Architect

Brinda Somaya

 I have posted a tribute to a good friend Brinda (nee Chinappa) Somaya, one of India’s leading architects. 

She is a school friend of 50 years with both of our families having deep roots in Karnataka.

We beat our 2005 Blogging Record

 We have done it. 

unmasked!

Our most popular blog entry was about my childhood hero, world champion wrestler Dara Singh, which I posted on 15th November  2005. 

As a 9 year old I had sat next to him in Sampige Stadium in Bangalore and watched him crush King Kong and Flash Gordon and see the Madked Angel refuse to fight him, as he would have been

The blog had innumerable comments from “their” family members, wrestling enthusiasts, biographers, of the “two” Dara Singh’s. YES, there were of them!

This entry of 18 years ago, with its comments, is considered as one of the authoritative active sources about our Indian world champion wrestler.

In this era, where the Champion Indian women wrestlers, who have brought great laurels for our country, are fighting for their honour, and Annikki and I stand with them, we use this our blog to highlight how it is important to stand by our 10 Guiding Principles.

The hits for the Dara Singh blog crossed 19400.

Today we crossed 20000 hits in the month of September alone.

Thank you to the rogues who made Annikki snd me to terminate our membership to O-India Ry for generating such a great interest in our blog. 

It is their criminal behaviour that we exposed in our blog that has driven this interest worldwide. 

Many are shocked to see how some Indians in Finland can behave in this manner, shaming the name of our great country, INDIA.

(I am doing research into the great controversy about the name of our country, whether  it should be India and/or Bharat. As it is a factual historical, financial, political check, it is taking time to prepare this blog - do stay tuned. 

In the meantime I continue to say that I am pround to be sn INDIAN, so beautifully sing by the Shillong Chamber Choir.

We restarted our blogging on 3rd of August this year. We made four blog entries in August snd we had just 287 visitors.

We started regular blogging about every two days in September and the  visitors to our blog have gone through the roof. 

The visitors peak in September has exceeded the visitors we had in the period 2009-2010.

And it is ripping the universe now.

Today 23rd September!!!

The visitors from around the world are coming at over 2 per minute. This sortof result for the blog is truly amazing. 

This statistic was seen at 2:58 am on the 23nd September morning. The bulk of them were from Android app users. They came from all corners of the globe. The search engines were directing the traffic to our blog which meant the keyword we have been using are to the readers interest. Also most readers were coming directly to our blog and not being directed by social media. 

I checked with AI for possible reasons. The answer was clear. People are interested in what we are blogging, so they are coming.

The most popular blog entry was the one we explained why we terminated our membership the the O-India Ry, a Finnish association claiming to cater to people interested in India in the Oilu region.

It appears that the bulk of the visitors came because of the 10 Guiding Principles we applied before quitting this association.

Truth and the Sacrd Trust we abide by, seem to have hit a chord with those who visit the site. We promise that we will continue with this philosophy 

Recently, we were invited to take part in an event to be organised by a member of this association. Although the person is a friend, we declined as we thought it inappropriate to share our time and space with people who behave in a manner opposed to our principles. 

We wish to keep our integrity.

We thank each visitor to our blog for making our blog so popular that it has given us the incentive to blog  in a manner that keeps your interests at heart while abiding by our 20 Guiding Principles.

And if you have been through the comments section on our Dara Singh blog entry and would like to add some information we have missed, please do write to me about it.

It is almost the time we may have to think like this!

Thank you a million times.

Edible Art 1

 

When we published Annikki’s book "Edible Art" about her history of cake designing, the cakes were designed by her, most of the photos were taken by her, the text was written by me, but the maximum hard work of making these photos ready for publication was done by our dear friend SRK, Sriradhakrishnan Polsetti, who was working in Oulu on deputation from Nokia in Bengaluru. 

Annikki’s coffee table book covers her 40 years of making all sorts of cakes from cakes for children, gingerbread houses, birthday cakes for me and herself, wedding cakes for family members, unusual mosaic cakes, cakes with ponds and fishes in them, mountains and many art cakes.

All her cakes were original and showed her talent as an artist. 

Before getting married, she worked in a small Italian cake shop in Shrewsbury near Birmingham in England. Today Sidoli is a huge enterprise.

The first designer cake, a train cake, she made for us a family was for a joint birthday party in 1970 for our two children, Susanna and Jaakko, in our small house in Defence Officer’s  Colony in St. Thomas’s Mount on the outskirts of Madras.

Her first gingerbread house was created in 1974 at our Velacheri Road house in Madras. She worked on it for seven hours. We stayed out of her way. When she was ready, she ran upstairs to call us down to see her creation. When we reached the living room all we could see was our golden retriever, Ruby, licking her lips as she had devoured the entire house.

Then I understood the meaning of Finnish ‘sisu’ as Annikki rolled up her sleeves and made another more beautiful gingerbread house and had  powder sugar floating down to cover the house and make it exactly as  snow covered!

We moved  to Bangalore in 1976 and she won the prize in the cake competition where she displayed her first vegetarian cake made using yoghurt.

Gingerbread house making is an art. Every piece has to be made on cardboard, and the gingerbread baked using these cutout shapes. They then have to be painstakingly stuck together and then decorated.

Annikki always was way above the competition, first to introduce interior lighting and then even fitting doors and windows which could open and shut.

When she was looking after her mother, she first designed the garden so that her mother could sit at the dining table and enjoy her garden. Then she designed a gingerbread construction replicating the garden.

From then it was one new dimension after another and she was winning every gingerbread house competition in Oulu till they finally stopped the competition.

She diversified from traditional gingerbread houses to make Finnish constructions as Lappish kotas and the straw store houses.

Annikki never lost her sense of humour. When she reached the tender age of 60, she created a gingerbread house which she called "ruins". The lighting was entirely the streaming of natural sunlight.

When our grandson, Samu, returned from India before his first birthday, he had learnt one Malayalam word for crow - Kakay.  For his first birthday Annikki made him a cake of a crow sitting on her nest with a lot of eggs, all on a cake pine stump base. Samu looked at the cake pointed and said “Kakay”!

When four young ladies from Aricent, India, asked Annikki to make them a cake, she deswignede one of a typical farm scene!

Annikki’s adventure in cake designing is truly one which was exciting as she tailored each cake to suit the individual she was making it for, especially me, our children, other family members and close friends. It was never a business - just art for the sake of art!

The Finnish vocational school from Espoo did an entire video of Annikki and her cake designing to motivate the elderly in Finland to show them life does not end at 70! (In Finnish)

The book Edible Art” represents all the talents of an unique personality, an artist, a cake designer, a wife, a mother and grandmother, a sister, a great friend of many, a daughter, and a daughter-in-law!

Above all the unrivalled talent of a Findian!

Passing of a legend DARA

It is with great sadness that my childhood hero, Dara Singh, wrestler, actor, director, parliamentarian, passed away this morning (12th July 2012) at 07:30 am at his Juhu residence in Mumbai. He was born on 19th November 1928. He was 84.

He suffered a cardiac arrest a few days ago and was on a ventilator at the Dirubhai Ambani Hospital.

Respecting his wish, he was moved back to his home where he passed away surrounded by his family and friends.

The last rites will be performed at 14:00 hours Indian Standard Time.

He is survived by his wife and two children.

Dara never lost a fight in the ring. He was the undisputed world champion. A very gentle personality but a towering fighter, he gave all when he was in the ring.

He served the nation in the Rajya Sabha and will be remembered by all who ever saw him fight in the ring.

May he rest in peace.

I wonder what goes through her mind?

Zebras by Annikki - made for my mother.

 Took 7 months.

As I look out of the window, I see my better half of the last 45+ years doing many things in the garden. Moving small things here and there, and sometimes really back breaking work like moving a load of sand from one place to another so as to put a rubber sheet underneath so that the grass does not grow through the sand. She does things painstakingly, and occasionally stands back to enjoy what she has done. She seems to know exactly what should be done, when and where!

I thought to myself that all through my working life and since, I have been busy, not with the express purpose of making money, but the end result of what I did was make money. Even as I help many tens of people today in Oulu, Tampere and Espoo/Helsinki, the final result is that I am gaining some monetary benefit, however much I try to disregard that aspect of my work.

But looking at Annikki pottering around, I thought of all that she has done in the last 47 years that I have known her. Almost 99% of it has not been for money or financial return. All her paintings were for her personal pleasure.

On the page of Annikki as an Artist which I created on her 60th birthday, there are two photographs.

The first is of the only painting she has ever sold, and that too with great regret. The second photograph is of the large tapestry she created for my mother almost 30+ years ago. This hung on my mother's living room wall till her passing away and now adorns our living room wall!

The gingerbread houses and the cakes she has designed were for the pleasure of her family and friends. The gardens she has so painstakingly created and maintained have been for the pleasure of those who want to enjoy it. The food she cooks, the clothes she washes, the houses she has maintained - all for her pleasure and of her family. She does those things as her "duty" to her family members, never thinking it is a duty.

I thought to myself whether I could ever be like her! I felt I would never achieve that sort of status in my life - a person who has been so selfless in her work and who enjoys everything she does. She is happy when others are happy. She is sad when others are sad.

How many people are like that in this world?

No doubt many of you will say that their mothers and their wives are of the same mould.

I agree that the work of a woman is priceless.

I remember seeing an article in "The Times" of London, many decades ago, which valued the work of a woman, housewife, mother. The conclusion was that no man would be able to pay his better half enough for the work she does to run the family. This is more so today than it was a few decades ago.

I value Annikki for all that she has been and is - Daughter, Girlfriend, Wife, Daughter-in-law, Mother, Grandmother, Artist, Author, Educator.

I wish everyone had a person like her in their life!

Who in their right senses would...

I read with great interest how billions were being promised as new investment in Bangalore and how the Chief Minister had rode rough shod on the protesters.

Those of whom have been following this blog when Annikki and I were travelling through India, and especially when we were in Bangalore, would certainly be wondering what I thought of this!

Being a Bangalorean by birth and a lover of Bangalore when it was a "Garden City", what I saw was a unplanned, unmanaged growth where only the power of money ruled the streets. A filthy, unkept Bangalore where kids and garbage were brought up side by side, as the "investors" have no time for such niceties of keeping a clean healthy city, as it would affect their bottom line if they did anything about this.

I am unlikely to visit Bangalore again, unless I have to. It is "dead" city to me.

I refer to my many posts on this blog about Rural Urbanisation.

I wish those investors planning to invest their billions would show some sense before the "oil catastrophe" symptom of the Gulf of Mexico, in its land form, hits and destroys.

As I have said a couple of times - the only salvation will be when Bangalore dies and sees rebirth!

Old Cottonians act

I have mentioned on my many blogs the unfortunate media publicity attached to some of my alma maters.

I am heartened to see how the Bangalore Old Cottonians Association (OCA) have acted swiftly to ensure to show that they are actively concerned about their alma mater. Past Old Cottonians, as both my late father and uncle, who served as Chairmen of the OCA, would be proud of the stand taken by the present OCA.

I reproduce here the letter that was sent by the present Chairman of the OCA to the Moderator of the Church of South India as per the resolution passed at an Extraordindary General Meeting of the Old Cottonians in Bangalore. Sitting here in Finland, I was kept abreast of the developments and I too fully support the actions of the OCA.:

PLEASE CIRCULATE THIS EMAIL TO OTHER OC's YOU ARE IN TOUCH WITH AND ON YOUR SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES.

5th April, 2010

The Most Reverend Vasantha Kumar
Moderator,
Church of South India
Mission Road
Bangalore


Dear Sir,

We, as the Old Cottonians' Association, have a considerable stake in the upkeep of the fair name of Bishop Cotton's Boys' School and all that this entails. Principals and members of the Board of management may come and go, but once a student passes out of the school, and leaves its gates, he becomes an Old Cottonian and this status remains throughout his life and no force on earth can take it away from him.

We earnestly hope that other stake holders in the school should realise this and act accordingly.
Recent happenings in the school have caused us great concern. Old Cottonians from all over the world have expressed their deep worry.  As a consequence, the OCA held an Extraordinary General Body meeting at the Rotary House of Friendship, Bangalore on the 3rd of April, 2010 and the under mentioned resolution was passed and the same is being communicated to the various persons connected with the management of  the school.

Accordingly I quote below:

"The Old Cottonians' Association (OCA) noted with anguish that the matters concerning the administration of Bishop Cotton Boys' School, Bangalore had recently become the subject matter of various media reports, which had tarnished the good name of the Institution.

The OCA further noted that under Article 2.2 of its Constitution containing the "Aims and Objects", the OCA was entitled and obligated ".... to be in constant interaction with the Management of the School in the matter of maintaining the standards, traditions and conventions of the School."

It was therefore unanimously RESOLVED that the Board of Management of Bishop Cotton Boys' School, Bangalore be called upon to take immediate corrective measures to ensure that the incumbent issues be fully resolved, so as to restore the smooth functioning of the School in keeping with its rich traditions and standards, and to keep the OCA informed of the said measures.

It was further RESOLVED to offer the assistance and support of the OCA to all concerned to enable the resolution of all outstanding issues.

The Chairman and Management Committee of the OCA were accordingly requested to communicate the aforesaid resolution to the Principal, Bishop and Board of Management of Bishop Cotton Boys' School, Bangalore, and to await a positive reaction to the same before undertaking any further course of action."

Yours faithfully


MICHAEL WATSA
CHAIRMAN
OLD COTTONIANS' ASSOCIATION

I wish my other alma mater alumni, The Stephanians, would also act with the dignity and purpose shown by Old Cottonians.

Remember your first Fountain Pen?

Those were the days when we did not have ballpoint pens around.

I used to covet my mother's beautiful Shaeffer, a black and white striped shell bodied pen, very large and easy to hold. Pure gold nib and clip.

Whenever I had the opportuniy, I used to use it.

My mother noticed that I was getting quite good at writing with a pen. On my 10th birthday in 1953, she bought me a wonderful pen by the brand name of "Platinum". It was expensive with a lovely gold plated cover. The body was a wonderful purplish shade.

I loved it the minute I got it. I spent the next hour writing and writing.

I knew I would proudly show it off in school that day.

Bishop Cotton Boys' School was just ten minutes away, as we used to run to school in the morning and run back to have our evening tea. Then we would get into our sports uniform and run back as we had so many pitches that each year had its own pitch.

On morning of my birthday, after filling the pen full of ink, I proudly pushed the clip into my khaki shirt pocket and rushed to school.

Everyone in my class loved the pen. I could see many were envious, but I let lots of the boys use it. The teachers told me how lucky I was to get such a nice present.

I set of home at 15.30, when school lessons were over. I jumped over the school back gate next to the Bangalore Club, and ran down to the petrol station at Richmond Circle, where the manager was a good friend of mine. I showed him the pen, and he loved it. (He was a palmist and in 1953 read my palm and told me I would marry a girl with golden hair and have four children! Amazing fellow!)

I pushed the pen firmly back in my pocket and ran the 50 metres back to home down Lalbagh Road,

I rushed to tell my mom how everyone had loved my pen. As I was babling my story to her, I put my hand on the clip to show the pen to her. As I pulled the clip out, only the clip came out. There was no pen. I felt inside the pocket, but there was no pen body there.

I started to cry as I told my mom that it had been there just 2 minutes earlier.

She got the servants together and sent them to look for the pen on the road and pavement between the petrol station and home. I had crossed the road twice.

As we looked, we found no trace of the pen.

I was shattered.

I knew that if my dad got to hear of this he would scold my mom by saying I had been too young to be given such an expensive pen.

I clutched the beautiful gold top, my heart pounding with sorrow.

But my mom had an idea.

We quickly got into the car and went to the pen shop. There she asked the shopkeeper for a cheap pen but onto which my top was fitting. He gave a few pens. Out of them my mom chose one which was the best. She bought it, gave the cheap looking cover back to the shopkeeper and fixed my expensive platinum plated cover to this pen. She told me not to breathe a word to anyone, as it was our secret.

I scribbled with the pen, and it was just perfect. Although not quite the same purple, it was a lovely maroon colour. It looked almost identical. She had my name engraved on it in gold letters.

I had my new Platinum pen - a rather unique one, thanks to my mom.

Till this day no one knew the secret of my lost pen and how it was fixed!

The Garbage Dump - India

By Annikki & Jacob Matthan

The good news of yesterday. Samba Siva, our dear friend from Patni Computers, who used to be in Finland and is now working in Electronic City outside Bangalore, rang Jacob to tell us that his wife has delivered a beautiful baby boy, 2.6 kg. He was off to see them as they are near her parents place in Andhra. I have conveyed best wishes on behalf of our entire Findian community to them.

It is difficult to know how to start this piece. We are not writing this to offend anybody. But we are seeing reality, our way.

Yes, we are in Incredible India.
Yes, we are in Ahmedabad, from where Mahatamaji started a mission.

We are about to try to start a mission or be clobbered by all of you for even thinking of starting it!

It is 10 years since we were last in India. Jacob came back a few months after our visit to his niece, Suchi's wedding, to say his last farewell to his mother. At that time, by some quirk of fate, there was an enormous traffic jam just outside Chennai Airport and it took Jacob about 2 hours to reach his mother’s home. That was an unusual morning.

During that visit he did also make a visit to Bangalore. He noted that the city had exploded. It took about an hour for a journey which used to take him just 15 minutes 15 years earlier. Progress?

Yesterday evening, as we watched Indian TV, there appeared an ad in which someone opened a car window and tossed an empty bottle onto the road in front of a scooter rider and his passenger. The scooter rider picked up the bottle, sped through the traffic, probably breaking hundreds of traffic laws in the process, caught up with the car, knocked on the window. When the window opened, the bottle was tossed back into the car!

Effective ad? Effective message?

When you are living in a garbage dump, shifting the rubbish from Point A to Point B, hardly seems a worthwhile activity. And breaking laws to do that seems even more of a “No! No!”.

This time, for our visit to India, we landed in Mumbai at 02:30 am and were duly impressed by Sea Link, designed just like many of the cable stayed bridges in Finland.



Above is a picture of the Replot Bridge (Swedish: Replotbron; Finnish: Raippaluodon silta). It is a cable-stayed tuftform bridge connecting the island of Replot with the mainland in Korsholm, near Vaasa, Finland. It is 1,045 metres (3,430 ft) long and the longest bridge of Finland. Two supporting pylons are both 82.5 m (271 ft) high. The bridge was inaugurated 27 August 1997 by the president of Finland Martti Ahtisaari. (Acknowledgement: Wikipedia)


Mumbai Sea Link - 2009, the pride of Mumbai.

Our visit to Mumbai taught us that the traffic situation had got worse and even with all best intentions, there would not be much improvement.

Our daily blogging of our India trip, which is reaching many thousands of people in all corners of the globe, has got us some good and interesting comments. One, from a dear friend in Finland, sticks out. He commented how nice it was that we were not writing about all the dirt in India.

We could hardly contain ourselves - Dirt in India?

People in India are living in the largest Garbage Dump in the world. This is what The Honorable Jairam Ramesh, the Environment and Forest Minister in the Indian Government said last week:

If there is a Nobel prize for filth, India will win it: Jairam Ramesh

NEW DELHI: Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh, known for making forthright comments, today said if there was any Nobel Prize for dirt and filth, India would get it.

"Our cities are dirtiest cities of the world. If there is a Nobel prize for dirt and filth, India will win it, no doubt," he said at a function to release a report of TERI.

Ramesh lamented the poor facilities for disposing municipal waste in majority of the cities in the country.

The ministers' comments assume significance as the TERI report on 'Green Indian 2047' says that waste management is not given priority in local bodies.

There is poor compliance with the solid waste management rules.

Dirt and filth could have both the physical and philosophical interpretation! In India, it has both, which are intertwined at the hip.

Mumbai was bad, but on our first few days we were too busy to notice this. Although the stench and dirt was everywhere, we somehow coped with the situation, seeing all the positives.

We then went to Cochin.

In the old days, Kerala was always considered to be the home of the clean.

The very first evening, Jacob needed to buy a camera, so he walked to the shopping centre nearby. It was like walking through a sewer. And this was just metres away from one of the top radio stations in Cochin, a couple of hundred metres away from the local home of one of the largest media conglomerates in India.

Anyone oblivious?

The drive the next day between Cochin and Kottayam confirmed to us that this was not the Kerala of yesteryear. With all the progress, the roads were just as wide as before. The traffic had tripled, quadrupled or x-upled. The entire infra-structure is in shambles,

As we walked around Kottayam, Jacob was amazed how such a clean and beautiful city of his childhood could have become yet another amazingly large rubbish tip.

If Kerala was bad, our next stop, Bangalore, Jacob’s birthplace, was infinitely worse. It used to be referred to as the Garden City as lush green parks, well maintained, were the heart of the town. Beautiful buildings, well laid out roads and avenues, fountains, were all part of the landscape of the city centre.

This is a city which is now in terminal decline. Every nook and corner is filled with rubbish, every road is a metal jungle. there is no such thing as civic sense. Home to the biggest IT giants, these mighty men, who are among in the richest in the world, care two damn hoots for their surroundings, the health and well being of their workers or the people of Bangalore. All they provide is lip service and then point to corrupt politicians. They may know something about IT but they know nothing about urban planning, health or welfare. They know how to stash away their billions, and leave their industrial bases in total and complete turmoil.

In all this, Jacob came upon one little oasis, where the small corporate group run by his friend, 59er Elijah Elias, was trying to keep some degree of sanity in this madness. A losing battle, but it showed Jacob that if one wanted, it was possible to have a sense of civic sense and pride and maintain an atmosphere of dignity for one’s workers.

To our surprise, Chennai, our home between 1969 and 1976, was a welcome change, although the frailty of the system was exposed by the heavy rain which caused much of the city to be flooded, roads to be clogged and traffic to be severely hampered. As we wandered to the far reaches of the city to meet our friends, we found that the civic sense of the new centres was lost, especially once the IT companies moved into a region. The only intention seemed to be to maximise their bottom-line while throwing the rest of the area to the dogs!

Yes, there were plenty of stray dogs around.

Knowing several of the professional chiefs in many of India’s top IT companies, we do hope that they will suggest to the top management and corporate owners that they should change their ways.

The longer subsequent visit to Mumbai revealed to us that opulence is living side by side with filth and dirt on a scale which is hard to imagine.

Yes, the fisher folk in the small hut on the seashore do have a satellite antenna stuck on their roof, but they have no sanitary conveniences or “education” as they foul the rocks daily in full view of the enormous sky scraper world behind them.

Does anyone care?

Some of the worst possible slums in the world are located around the city. They harbour infections, breed diseases and the slum dwellers are the scum of this earth to the surroundings.

As 59er Anil Ruia put it, Mumbai generates 7000 tonnes of garbage every day. Even with 10 tonne garbage trucks to haul this away, it would require 700 trucks moving in and out of the city every single day just to take this rubbish “somewhere”.

Where?

The garbage trucks presently plying the streets are fit only for some metal junk yard, These toy trucks are probably filled by just going down one street. The hydraulics do not work and no compactation is possible. So the streets remain filled with garbage and stink to high heaven.

Over 15 years ago Jacob had written an article “Western Recycling Doomed; A lesson From India”.

He now eats his words, as Incredible India has moved into the darkest of ages, while the rest of the world has progressed in civic sense, concerned about the environment, health and hygiene of the population. India has given up its past ways and now follows neither its old philosophy or the western model - moving the country into chaos surrounded by filth and dirt.

What was an ordered established system that worked has now descended into nothing but hell. Instead of trying to give dignity to the untouchables who did yeoman service to the entire country, they were treated as animals and forced to give up their profession. Instead of uplifting them, giving them the tools of the trade and a salary and honour for the noble work they did in keeping a country clean, they have been denied their right to improve themselves. And there has been no one to take their place.

The Jerrypuranwalas who used to roam the streets gathering the junk, have virtually been done away with, only causing more and more rubbish to be dumped onto the streets around the country. Almost all open spaces are strewn with rubbish.

What a terrible sight. What a health hazard!

But who cares?

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, meeting yesterday the US President Barack Obama, would probably have been better off asking for help in converting the Garbage Dump called India into a habitable country, rather than asking for assistance on the nuclear front!

It is not that Indians do not know what is to be be done and how to do it. But it is greed and rapid expansion of a middle class into existing urban areas, led by an even more greedy corporate leadership, who remain “uneducated” about social values and responsibilities, that is partially responsible for this chaos. The corrupt politician and bureaucrat, a corrupt police force, all lead to the same way - chaos.

About 30 years ago, Mr. Thomas Abraham (Ebbi), a philosophical and brilliant engineer with an equally deep financial sense, the then Managing Director of Southern Investments (P) Ltd., a large construction company operating out of Chennai, wrote a wonderful small book called “The Affluence Machine” about the way cities of the future should be designed. Even then he was not talking futuristically, as all the technologies existed at that point of time to execute his dream.

Based on his book, he and I authored a paper called “Rural Urbanisation” which would take the development away from the existing urban centres and move them into to serial distances away from them which were manageable but would help each centre to benefit the hinterland. The idea was that every two hours away from a metropolis, two hours on a high speed motorway, there would develop a self-generated urban spread, which with the minimum of Government inputs, could be developed into thriving economic power houses, where the people would self generate their wealth.

Just imagine, 2 hours (roughly 150 to 180 km) between every metropolis all around India.

The concept of Mr. Thomas was to have a central core of the city where all the major services would be located, enough to serve the population of that region. The old and elderly would have housing generated near to this city centre and the city would expand along the radial axis. The suburbs would develop to serve the younger local population who were mobile enough to use their own transport. A very efficient public transportation system (futuristic in some sense) would be created for most of their needs. The circular rings would generate areas of economic activity. From the circular rings, high speed transportation, which at that time would have been considered futuristic, would bring the outlying population into the City Centre.

The major traffic would be kept out of the city area as the economic public transport system would be developed to serve each suburban community and link them to the central hub as well as the outer rings.

Facilities such as sports fields, etc, would be on the outer rings, ensuring environmental harmony.

Mr. Thomas, who is a builder of great repute had crunched the numbers. He knew that with the seed capital, this model was a self supporting, self generating one, which he as a builder would have been happy to be part of.

Our joint paper was submitted to many Chief Ministers, but only one showed interest, but he too was out of power before he could commence his intention of following through this model.

In response to a recent email from me, this is what Mr. Thomas wrote yesterday:

It was wonderful to remember those days.

"The Affluence Machine" was the name of my book, which was of interest to just four or five people. I remember that Mr. V. Suresh, the CMD of HUDCO once took a copy for a Minister friend. The report that you prepared was once used by Tamil Nadu industries Development Corporation in their proposal for an industrial township. I have a (not yet moth eaten) copy of that particular report.

After the failed attempt at building new cities, I got into this far out idea that human intuition is a pattern recognition algorithm. I have a website www.intuition.co.in which describes that idea.

More tilting at windmills!

Still, the property development thing is going OK and my son now runs it.

Do keep in touch.

Ebbi

His new website is fascinating. But it is sad that Ebbi moved away from developing a concept which would have avoided the present random development followed by utter chaos.

Take for example the development of Panvel on the outskirts of Mumbai. This would have been an ideal centre to develop the City Model described in “The Affluence Machine”. But presently Panvel demonstrates how one should not allow growth to occur.

The decision to build the new international airport there and the way Mumbai has clogged itself, caused the property speculators to rush into this one paan shop ( biriyani restaurant) town and ruin not only the area, but make it one of the dirtiest centres in India, even before the first stone for the airport has been laid.

And the journey from Panvel to Mumbai is tragedy in itself.

Our visit to Ahmedabad, from where Gandhiji was able to run his mission to free India, was to see how things were shaping in Western India. We were totally disappointed with what we saw. Although not as bad as Mumbai or Bangalore, it is another city which is falling quickly by the wayside.

Gujarat had started its trunk road system way back in the 60s and 70s, making intercity transport fast. But they stopped there and allowed the uncontrolled city growth to happen within existing city centres while not developing the civic services to meet the demands of the expanded population. What now exists, like all the other cities that we have visited, is a junk yard and garbage dump as far as the eye can see.

One wonder what the residents feel like living inside a garbage dump?

Beautiful buildings of the past are no longer visible as hideous constructions as overbridges are developed a few feet in front of them. Beautiful monuments reflecting a glorious heritage are covered in dust and tucked under the rubble of even more monstrous flyovers and approach roads. The left hand does not know what the right hand does. NGOs battling to look after our traditions are left powerless and speechless by the financial muscle of the corrupt politicians and industrialists.

And when you drive along any street, what you see is that every second shop is an eatery, every third house is a “bank”, every fourth house is a mobile phone dispensing centre. Each one is struggling to keep alive. They live together in squalor and spread more. Are these the only industrial activities that we can be involved with? Are these the "industrial activities" which push up the GDP?

We do not want to appear to be purveyors of doom. We still hope to see some of our faith in this country be rejuvenated when we visit New Delhi and Chandigarh. But from what we have seen so far, greed and corruption pervades all.

Constructive suggestions:

1. Road construction:

We give a simple example how in Finland an activity of building a new road or bridge is done. The first step after the designing of the construction is to set up the diversion route which takes the traffic away from the construction site so that there is no disruption to normal life. Once this is constructed and the traffic pulled away from the area, the area is cordoned off so that building work can proceed rapidly. Target dates are hardened, special areas for materials designated, service roads built. Materials move in on a Just-In-time basis and work is done on a 24 hour basis to ensure that the dates are kept, as otherwise severe penalties are imposed on the contractor. Usually the work is completed ahead of time, and the well planned diversion becomes an emergency road, not to be just done away with because the main job is done.

In all this, the normal work of the citizen is hardly affected. Time is valuable - but in India, only the time which affects the pocketbooks of the rich and mighty is considered valuable. The rest of the citizens be damned.

What is more important is that the quality of the work is never affected. The materials are not contaminated, there is little waste, and everything can be done "on time".

2. Household garbage:

Or let us look at how household garbage is handled in our small town of Oulu. Each house is provided with two bins. One is for mixed waste, the other is for bio waste. Every wek a truck comes to the area and collects the waste, just one man with his well equipped truck where he wheels the dustbins onto a loading platform which automatically lifts the bin, empties it into the back of the truck and this is compacted immediately. the whole operation takes hardly a minute and it is clean, neat and with no spill or left overs.

Recylable rubbish, such as newspapers, cardboard boxes, plastics of all forms, glass, metal are kept by home-owners separately. Nearby centres with huge well like dustbins, lined with ultrastrong tarpaulin fabrics are built into the ground. residents take there rubbish there at their convenience and empty them. The special trucks with gear to empty these wells and put fresh storage bags arrive as soon as the bags are filled. being located in strategic places as petrol stations and supermarket complex compounds, it is not much of a problem for residents to take and dispose their recyclable rubbish at these points.

In addition, near every colony there is a large container which is especially meant for newspaper and pure paper waste. No other waste is permitted in this container as it goes directly to the paper mills for making new paper.

In addition to all this there is a huge rubbish centre just on the outskirts of the town. there you can take all your different types of waste like electronics junk, refrigerators, fridges, radios, wood, all metal containers, and dump them into huge containers which are then sent to special recycling centres.

There is a huge mixed waste centre where you weigh your vehicle and trailer when you enter and you can dump this into the tip. You weigh your vehicle and trailer on the way out and pay a small fee for using this tip, as the city has to find suitable means for disposing this. (A biogas centre has now been developed to utilise this waste.)

In addition, any dangerous and hazardous materials have a special section where they can be dumped.

As a result you see no rubbish lining the streets of our town. Once established and the residents educated, this is like clockwork and any rubbish lying around sticks out like a sore thumb.

When, Oh when, will this happen in India?

Incredible?

If India is to survive, it will not be because of the rapid growth of the middle class as an "uneducated" mass which trundles to work regardless. It will be when each citizen can be proud of his or her country. Sadly that vision of that day is receding by every hour that passes.

A rude awakening....

Annikki went to her Seventh Day Adventist Church in Byculla.

I had about an hour to spare. I decided to visit the grave of my elder sister, Nalini, something I had not been to see since the gravestone was laid there in early 1961.

My taxi driver found the cemetery after asking around a bit. The cemetery office was well managed and run. The office was open. The officers quickly found the location of Nalini's grave on paper. But when the guy took me out, could not find the grave.

We returned to the office to recheck. First, he told me that probably the plot may have been purchased, suggesting that someone else may have been buried over her grave. Then he said that no tombstone had been laid.

I assured him that I was there when she was buried and also I had been there when the tombstone was laid.

He then handed me over to another cemetery worker,. This gentleman took me to another part of the cemetery - just 10 metres from the office. At first, he too could not locate the grave. But suddenly, I recognised the large tombstone my parents had laid for their daughter, my sister.

As I stood in silence, something that had never struck me before, hit me right between the eyes - Nalini had been just 23 when she had died, not even in the prime of her adult life.

I wept at this thought as I had always considered Nalini as my elder sister, the mature one, the old one. And she had always been that to me.

To think that here was I, at an age of 66, looking down at my sister's grave some 49 years after her passing. It was a shock to me just to think she had been just 23 years old when she had left us.

I remember much talk in our home that she would soon be too old to get married. The rush had been on to find her a husband.

And what tragedy had followed.

As the marble grave was raised, almost to knee height on a granite slab, it was not dirty of filthy like many around it at ground level. I thanked my parents for their foresight, something which had not been given by my siblings when they planned the graves of my parents.

Is it a life of coincidences?

Yesterday, I had an email from someone in the USA asking whether I could recall an M. Varghese who had studied and finished from Bishop Cotton’s School in Bangalore in 1956. As I had left when I had completed the IVth Standard in 1953, I did not recall that name.

I replied to the gentleman that maybe he could contact Aditya Sondhi, the school historian (in my eyes), or my cousin, Anand Matthan, who had finished school in 1955. Or, maybe he was thinking of my cousin Varghese Matthan, who would have completed school in 1956 had he not left to join Madras Christian College School in 1952.

In passing, I asked the Old Cottonian whether he was any relation to the fabulous cricketer of that time who used to play for the school. I had watched him many a time, sitting on the stone parapet around the school ground, plucking and eating the fresh bamboo sprouts that lined the first eleven pitch.

I quickly had a reply from him, thanking me for my efforts and that Aditya had provided him with loads of material. Further, he was indeed the cricketer that I was thinking about. And his father had been a friend of my father.

Further, he added, that was I not the same person who lived opposite St. Joseph's College Hostel and who had a quiet shy sister, Nalini, who, obviously had been the heartthrob for many of the St. Josephites - and he listed a few of them to me.

He was thinking that as he had lived just around the corner from where I had, maybe we had played tennis ball cricket together. We did have a team but I do not recall this outstanding young cricketer of our time sharing the field with the likes of me and our rag-a-muffin cricketing friends!

In passing he paid me a nice compliment which I will treasure. He wrote:

You are a Renaissance type of an individual ( passion, vision, empathy & creativity ) & continue your quest of keeping us informed.

Sadly, I am not a blogger about Cottonians as I was there too short a time to write about for 10 to 15 years nostalgically. I do wish there was someone doing just that!

It is indeed a very small world . As I am having a bit of a discussion on Facebook with some Home Educationists, I wondered how all this would fit in with their thinking of isolating the children from the real world of childhood, daily interaction with many tens of children, and the most important cry of our Mumbai School "School First, House Next, Self Last".

But that is another subject that maybe I will take up later.

Suffice to say that when I returned back to the Guest House, my thoughts were on my sister, a shy pretty girl, married at the age of 22 (because many thought otherwise she would be too old to get married), childbirth at 23 and followed by her tragic demise 15 days later of tetanus. Thoughts kept flooding back to my mind and I wondered what a difference life would have been if she had been around.

Finally, in passing, as nostalgia is on my mind. I thought I would share with you a photograph of my family dating back to the early 1980s.



Much water has passed under this bridge!

Jumping a day again to Bangalore

(Sorry no photographs till I can upload to my server in Finland!)

Although Thursday was a most intriguing day in Cochin, I will come back to it later as I jump to yesterday, Friday, in Bangalore.

Our hotel is in the most crowded part of Bangalore, but as it is on a side street, it is relatively quieter that the rest - but I emphasize, relatively. I had finished blogging last night at around 4 am so I went back to bed and was up by 7. I had asked the driver to come by 8:30, thinking I would let Mika and Annikki sleep through the morning.

But the brightness and the noise had both of them up by 7:30, and they were ready by 8:30, so we trooped off to MTR for our breakfast. Annikki was still to full from our meal at the Mainland China to have breakfast. Mika downed his masala dosai and coffee, while I enjoyed the idli and masala dosai with a mug of tea. It was just too much for me. The place was crowded as usual and the atmosphere was the same as when I had last been here. Time has stood still in many ways at MTR!

We then visited my Basavangudi home on Market Road. I cried when I saw how my mother's carefully crafted garden, our childhood home, had been destroyed by the developer. It is a tragedy caused by "greed".

As Brinda had told us she would inform the owner’s of my grandfather's home in Basavangudi to show us around, we went to "Grace Home" To enter the compound was sheer joy as not only had our old childhood paradise been kept well, it had been improved upon significantly.

The owners had left the previous day for London. When we informed the caretaker, Kamala whom we were, she allowed us to see the house. It was so wonderful to enter this home which has been preserved in all its glory and also, like the garden, improved upon. I wiped away tears of joy as I went around this home, knowing that my grandparents would have approved of all the changes. I remembered the wonderful times I had spend in this house, hiding under the staircase, running around carefree, sitting with my grandparents around the enormous dining table, playing cowboys and robbers in the lush garden. It was a joy to be here.

Next port of call was Infantry Road to see some cousins and see what had happened to my dividend cheques. We were surprised to get one handed oer to us, and find that Indian Bank had returned two cheques deposited there last year.A tidy sum was lying there for us which we had no knowledge of!

I also met the binder who is the father of one of the employees there. He promised to bind the Coffee Table Book by 7 pm. A lot of compromises, but I was sure that I would get the job done before I left for Chennai.

Off too open an account at the ICICI Bank. Annikki and I were surprised at the wonderful way we were treated at the bank at a special NRI Counter. The process was long but the experience was rewarding as we left with two accounts in the bank - a NRE and and an NRO Account.

On to Indian Bank where the atmosphere was completely different. No wonder our nationalized banks are in decline! The Manager accepted the failings as there was proof of everything we had said, and he could offer no explanations whatsoever for these.

I managed to get our accounts updated, new balance statements and new check books. i will use them to close the accounts if I see no improvement in the next few months!

Visit to my eldest cousin (George Natthan) on the Matthan side in Bangalore - Baluchachen. A wonderful feeling to meet him and enter another of our childhood haunts. We spent a couple of hours till Nirmalakochamma returned home. These two looked so young.

On to Somakochamma and Georgekuttychayan's (Mr- & Mrs. G. K. O. Philips) place which was surrounded by chaos as the roadworks extended around their home in every direction. Again a paradise in a concrete jungle, The only bit of preserved lawn where we spent a pleasant afternoon with our two eldest cousins from the Kandathil side in Bangalore. We were joined by their youngest son, Peter, whom we had not seen for over 25 years. He is such a great lad. Such a joy to be with our cousins and nephews. Georgekuttychayan is preserved and Somakochamma zips around in her little car People in our family do not age in India!

Then it was time to visit the binder (Sree Kanyaka Parameswari Power Press). He had promised a 19:30 delivery. We reached there at 18:45. I watched him work diligently is a ramshackle place, but he knew what he was doing. Chaos became the work output of a craftsman with nimble fingers as he lovingly created the hard cover for the Class of 59 Directory. He handed me the final documents at 19:40.

No time to go to the hotel to change before going tom meet our Patni friends in Electronic City. Our driver, knowing our time demands, asked whether he could drive as a "Bangalore driver" as he weaved through the traffic and got us to the wonderful hotel about 45 minutes late. i was overjoyed to see my old friends from Oulu patiently waiting for us. The dinner was simply exquisite - a buffet and as none of us had had a morsel since morning we scoffed the wonderful food with relish.

I had said that they were my guests, but they outsmarted me and paid the bill behind my back. Then just as we were leaving they brought out a gift from them. I cried at the gesture, as I was expecting no such thing as these were my children whom i loved so much and who had given me much joy when they lived in Oulu Annikki was also overjoyed at seeing them and feeling their great love and affection.

Thank you boys, and remember you are always welcome back at Oulu as my friends

The return journey did not take as long but even at this hour of around midnight the roads were throbbing with traffic.

Exhausted, we crept into our beds after midnight. I was sure i would be up early to put up my entry of another day of our visit to Incredible India.

Obituary: Husband of Nalini Punnose (née Patil)

In the 50's and 60's we had a wonderful teacher in the girl's school by the name of Nalini Patil. She married an officer in the Railways, Mr. M. G. Punnose.

Today, thanks to 64ers Rajiv Ved and Deepak Deshpande, I heard of the sad demise of Mr. Punnose. (Obituary Notice below from The Times of India.)



Our family knew the Punnose family very well. Nalini was a close friend of my mom and dad. In Bombay, she used to attend the St. Thomas Cathedral and, if I remember right, Mr. Punnose also attended the same church where several of us, 59er David Colaco and his brother, the late 58er Michael Colaco, the Vaney brothers (49er Peter, 57er Herbert), 57er Aubrey Ballantine, teachers Willie Shiri and Willie Patel, were taught to sing a tune under the strict supervision of our choir master, the late Charles Velu.

In Bangalore, Nalini used to attend St. Mark's Cathedral, the church where I used to go to Sunday School in the early 50s. My mom and dad were both members of this church in Bangalore.

I convey our deepest personal condolences, and also from all Cathedralites, to Nalini and her family. They will remain in our prayers.

The passing of my Godmother

Tomorrow would have been her 91st birthday. I had already planned to send her my birthday greetings.

When I reached my computer this morning, a nephew from Bangalore, Chacko Kovoor, had a message on Skype for me telling me of her passing away at 4 am Indian Standard Time, this morning. I was informed that after six weeks of fading health and a day short of her ninety-first birthday, she had passed away.

A great sadness ebbed over me.

Chinchaya in Bombay in 1990.

Dear Chinchaya (Mrs. Elizabeth Thomas - née Matthan) was a loving personality who knew how to bridge the generation gap. She was a friend to people of all generations, and to me she was a wonderful and caring Godmother. She took special pains to attend my Confirmation in 1957 (which was St. Thomas Cathedral in Bombay).

She spent time with me and told me the meaning of life and how to live it.

Chinchaya was always practical and organised in what she did and how she lived her life.

Chinchaya was the immediately younger sister to my father. Of her siblings, she is survived by her youngest brother, Jacob (Kochuppapen) and her two younger sisters, Grace (Accachi) and Susan (Papachi).

She is survived by her daughter, cousin Nirmala, who is the same age as me, Nirmala's husband, Gulden, and their son, Vikram and his family who live in the US. Vikram was the golden boy of Chinchaya and she waited for him to come to Bangalore for his holidays.

I last saw Chinchaya in 2000, when on a flying visit to India, a few months before my mother passed away, I did a detour to Bangalore, especially to see her. She told me that she hoped that Annikki and I would come again soon as she did not have much longer to live.

But, soon after she was on the internet and she was exchanging email messages with me. When I told her that I would like to have the birthdays of all our family members, she painstakingly compiled it and sent it to me in a letter.

I know that this was an act of great love and this is letter that I treasure in my collection of family memorabilia.

In my last conversation with Chinchaya, she had told me that she was passing away the time till she could be in peace. I had asked her to wait for me as I longed to see her again. But, sadly, she could not and in that I grieve, with Annikki of the passing of a great lady, a wonderful friend, and above all, my loving Godmother.

Our deepest condolences go out to Nirmala and her family.

The funeral will be held in a few hours at the St. John's Church, Bangalore, which was close to her home. She will be cremated shortly thereafter.

May Chinchaya's loving soul rest in peace.

India in the Finnish news

Here in the near Arctic Finland, India, and especially Karnataka, appears to be much in the news.

There was an article in the Business Section of our local newspaper, Kaleva, the other day of an Oulu based company, INCAP, and its tie up with a facility in Tumkur, a town one hour north west of Bangalore. It is near enough to Bangalore to draw on the benefits of India's IT explosion, and yet far enough to get the benefit of lower costs than the exploding Bangalore.

(Bangalore is not just an IT centre, as it has developed during the last decade, as it has been long established as a major heavy, medium and light engineering centre in India.)

There was an almost full page section about Karnataka in another issue of the Business Section of the Kaleva. Much of the old stereotyping of Indian cities continues, and it was difficult for the writers, who had no idea of the past, to accept that there is continued great growth going on along with the the continuing poverty.

The figures about poverty levels indicated are nowhere near the claims of the Indian Government, but as it is still visible means that I do not give equal credence to the Indian Government hype, either.

Karnataka is no longer the same as when I grew up 60+ years ago. In my time, I have seen a beautiful garden city grow and be destroyed and made into a concrete jungle. I have also seen the level of corruption sky-rocketing that would make my grandfather turn in his grave. He had been the First Member (Prime Minister) to the Mysore Maharaja in the State of Mysore, pre-Independence. Mysore was reputed to have the cleanest and most forward looking and efficient Administration under the Maharajas.

My father, who was an engineer in the Mysore Electricity Board up until the early 1950s, migrated out of Mysore and moved to Bombay because of corruption at the highest political level in the State.

Similarly, one of the reasons that I quit Bangalore in the mid Eighties was because we could no longer live with the corruption in almost every walk of life in the State.

Another article that appeared a few weeks ago (2nd September 2007 - no online link available) about India was written by the Chief Editor of our local newspaper, Risto Uimonen.

He and I have not been on the same page for many years. I think he is arrogant, just as much he thinks the same about me!



The article on the whole is well written.

However, as can from the picture and the inset, he uses a term "neekerityttöjen" in the text, which is equivalent to using the derogatory "n----r girls" in the USA.

It shows a lack of diplomacy and language (his own) control by this individual.

Also, it shows his lack of understanding about the history and culture of India.

The Negritos, who are the broad-headed Negroids from Africa, were the oldest people to have come to India. These people are now only found in patches among the hill tribes of South India (Irulas, Kodars, Paniyans and Kurumbas). They survive in the Andaman Islands where they have retained their language. They are an inconsequential element in the population of India.

The use of the offensive language, totally without a basis for use, shows the crudity to which was stepped to and it reinforced my previous opinion of this individual.

Thanks to Shalu

Anand and me

Many thanks to Shalini, wife of Anand (son of the late George Matthan Sr.) and daughter of the late Dr. Nainan Varghese, for providing me with the name of her daughter-in-law (Kavita) and also correcting me that Pushpa's only son's name is Rohan George. Pushpa is the second daughter of Jacob Matthan Sr. (me being Jacob Matthan Jr., but not the son of Sr., only a nephew). The Dewan Bahadur Kuriyan Matthan page has been updated.

One small story about Shallu's late father, who was one of the most famous haemotologist that India has ever known. He met me at a party one evening in Madras where my parents were also present. We were all standing together and my dear mother was ranting about how much dessert I was consuming and that I would soon become a diabetic like my dad.

Dr. Nainan Varghese chipped in and told my mom that I would never become a diabetic!!

Coming from such a renowned expert, I was taken aback, as were both my mom and dad. He went on to explain that as both my mom and dad were considerably shorter than me, I am 6 foot 2 and half inches (191 cm) while both of them were below 5 foot 6 inches, the level of inherent growth hormone in my system would always keep me from becoming a diabetic as I had the natural anti-dote.

We all laughed, but he was deadly serious, as he had made this a serious study and was convinced that the immense volume of data he had collected had no exceptions till that date!!

And, in truth, I have been a borderline diabetic for many many years. I have never reduced my sugar intake, usually in the form of chocolates, biscuts, ice creams, barfi, sweet curd, and every other delicious form of sweetmeat that I can lay my hands on (my mouth just waters when I think of carrot halwa, jelebi, gulab jamuns or a tin of condensed milk), and I remain as such, a borderline diabetic. The moment I do some gym work, within two days my blood sugar will fall well below the borderline!!