Unparalled beauty alongside tragedy

As I stepped out at midday today, to go an pick up Mika from his water immersion physiotherapy, I drove out of the gate, and was struck by the scenery in front of me.

I stopped the car, got out and clicked this photograph.

Scenery from gate of Vesaisentie, Oulu, Finland.

When one is surrounded by such beauty on a normal day, at one's door step, it is difficult to see much further than the tip of one's nose.

But inside the house, on TV, scenes of tragedy from Haiti were just unfolding.

One was forced to think how unfair life can be.

As I witnessed the scenes from Haiti, Pot-au-Prince was a city of 50,000 which now housed 10 million, I thought back to my visit to Bangalore, a city of 120,000 which now houses 8 million. The civic society there has collapsed. Building activity, authorised and unaithorised, matches the economic growth by many fold as people crowd into this city. The pumping of ground water, legally and illegally, goes on. The level of corruption is increasing every hour, as only money talks!

Those who have read Annikki's book "...for the hour of his judgement is come:..." (The Holy Bible, Revelations, 14:7) will know that Bangalore is in an earthquake prone. We lived through one in 1984. More than 5 on the Richter scale.

Such building and construction activity which goes on presently in Bangalore does so with a blind eye being turned to quality and safety. Even if the contractors want to do an honest job, the sheer chaos that prevails in the city means that they cannot!

What has hit Port-au-Prince could well hit Banaglore.

I sincerely hope not. But it is something all who live and work there must take seriously, and SOON! It is your life which is bering put at risk.

Paras Optic in Ahmedabad

Yesterday, when we were driving back from the City, Annikki noted a shop with the name PARAS Optic.



Paras, in Finnish, means "The Best".

As I had forgotten my glasses in Finland, ie., my short sight glasses, and I had been managing with the glasses I use for looking at my computer, I walked across to this shop in the morning, as it was just about a kilometre away from where we stay.

As I did not have my prescription, I had my eyes tested (only for short sight), chose the best Indian frame available (Rs. 1400 = € 20) and got a glare-free lens (Rs. 2100 _ € 30), all in the space of 3 hours

Cost wise it was 5 times more than Eye Savers, but the choice was much greater, and the speed of service excellent.

Certainly this small roadside optician in Ahmedabad lived up to the Finnish version of their name!

(Note: Parasnath Temple. The highest hill in Jharkhand, towering to an elevation of 4480 feet. The Parasnath Temple is considered to be one of the most important and sanctified holy places of the Jains. According to Jain tradition, no less than 23 out of 24 Tirthankaras (including Parsvanatha) are believed to have attained salvation here.)



On my walk to the Optician, I passed by a camel cart sauntering into Ahmedabad. I woud not have been surprised to see the cart driver using his mobile phone -Is this legal or illegal in India?



I also watched the ladies at work shifting sand on their heads on a building site which will house an ultramodern complex in the near future. The men standing around were, busy, supervising the work.





I saw the gents and ladies of Ahmedabad with their masks astride their motorcycles and scooters. They do not wear the legally prescribed helmets but they rather protect themselves from the air and dust pollution. Which is the more deadly killer - they seem to think it is the pollution.



I also saw the beautiful work of the local roadside potters as they displayed their wares on the roadside. Going for a song!

Some of the streets of Ahmedabad do have pavements, but the condition is just atrocious.



Here is a recently laid pavement, which shows the quality of the work! Wow! Is this the work of trained engineers in 2009?





And I wonder what use is such a pavement where the trees form the centre of it leaving no room for any human to walk on it. Annikki and I are wondering what name should be ascribed to this wonderful concept?



Or take this form of pavement, where every gate to a house breaks it up as their own territory, making it quite impossible to use it as a pavement.

An Indian architect and his future American wife walked into our service apartment to see it as they are getting married in Ahmedabad next January. They were looking for a place where the family of the lady could stay.

We got talking. The architect told me that no one follows any rules as far as building construction is concerned. To each his own. The contractor decides what he will do. So the encroachment of pavements is a matter left to the contractor - and, of course, that means this public land is considered by the house owner as his / her own property to do as he / she wishes.

What is the meaning of town planning? Or have the people ever heard of such a concept?

I understand now why Ebbi and I could not get any progressive plan passed in 1975 about Rural Urbanisation. It appears to be infinitely worse today than then!

I wonder whether it will get better when India is still a democracy and the population reaches 1.5 billion? :-)