A Delicious Gujarathi Evening

A tribute to Mrs. K M. Mathew (Annammakochamma) written by her husband, the late Padma Bhushan Mr. K. M. Mathew (former Chief Editor of Malayala Manorama and one of my mother’s younger brothers). 

Annikki and I had the good fortune to be hosted to a Gujarathi dinner evening in Oulu on Saturday.

Besides enjoying the camaraderie, we were amazed by the assortment of dishes served up by the hosts. There were over 15 different preparations including 5 different types of roti, including my absolute favourite, the Gujarathi sweet roti. 

Such amazing talent was on display. 

It took me back to the days when I would visit Anand and Baroda and stay with my Gujarathi friends.

I enjoyed every dish, all vegetarian and spiced to perfection by our hosts. A truly amazing experience in Oulu. 

How we wish there would be someone with the courage to start a vegetarian restaurant featuring not only Gujarathi dishes, but also the vast variety of true Indian vegetarian cuisine, such as from Andhra, Chetinad,  Kerala, Maratha,  Rajasthani, Telengana and Udipi, vegetarian food that I am very familiar with and which is a distance apart from the North Indian food served up by the majority of Indian and Nepalese restaurants in Finland today.

I am the nephew of the late Mrs. K. M. Mathew, who every Malayali lady knows because of her many decades of culinary expertise she used to share in the Malayala Manorama and the Vanitha ladies magazine, which is also now published in Hindi from Delhi. 

I was fortunate to be taught, in 1963, the elements of cooking by Mrs. K. M. Mathew before I set off to England for my studies. She taught me a few crucial dishes to survive and even hand-wrote some of the recipes (which I have preserved all these years).

"Life fragrant" by Mrs. K. M. Mathew.

An endorsement to Annikki and me written by her son, Chacko, in the book "Annamma" on his mother written by his father.

List of books on cooking written by Mrs. K. M. Mathew.

Modern Kerala Dishes

Flavours of the Spice Coast

The Family Cook Book,

Modern Kerala Dishes.

An endorsement by Mrs. K. M. Mathew to Annikki  in her book on Kerala Cookery.

Kerala Cookery 

A revised version of the Family Cook Book.

A revised versiion of Modern Kerala Dishes.

When we lived in Shawbury, England, Mrs. Mathew came to our remote village home to meet Annikki and our first born daughter, Susanna.

Annikki with Mr. & Mrs. K. M. Mathew who hosted us at their residence in Kottayam (1991).

After we returned to India in 1969, we visited Mrs. Mathew regularly when we went to Kottayam. When she came to Chennai, she would make it a point to visit Annikki. Although a generation apart, it was a mutual admiration society as they shared many common interests, art, cooking, education, music, fashion, upliftment of people, to name just a few.

Mrs. K.M .Mathew examines the White Chocolate wedding cake Annikki made for her niece's wedding (Chennai, 1999).

Mrs. Mathew had a regular column in  the Malayala Manorama, the largest circulating regional newspaper in India. Every Kerala lady waited eagerly every morning  her next tested recipe. (The way to a husband's heart is through his stomach!)

She would wake up at 4 am and work with her assistant to create the next recipe which would then be published in the newspaper. Her first assistant, Vasu, now retired, was awarded the EU Certification for his cooking!

We would tease her husband and children that their newspaper circulation was not based on their expertise in publishing but rather on what new recipe Mrs. Mathew turned up for the day.

We eat at Royal Garden Chinese Restaurant in Oulu run  by Michelle Hu from Kolkotta, two days a week, every week. The buffet table is unique and a feast. The salad spread is delicious, the sushi selection is truly scrumptious, the hors d'oeuvres spread of vegetarian dumplings and spring rolls, onion rings, papadams, Chinese crackers, Chinese cooked vegetables, fried fish or Chinese fish, the mushroom or fish soup, fried rice and noodles, and the main food selection, which on Thursday's is a beef curry and Friday's a chicken vindaloo, make the experience for us to go through the week satisfied, waiting for the next Thursday and Friday to arrive. And the price is very reasonable as is evidenced by the crowd of regulars every week. Michelle is an excellent cook and hostess and the entire kitchen staff and serving staff are very professional.

I have no doubt that Garam Masala, the only real Indian Restaurant in Oulu, serves excellent food, but it is too spiced for our elderly palettes. 

Both Annikki and I feel that to eat there is difficult for us as I have to take along my bulky walker. The restaurant is small and it would be inconvenient for other guests as the restaurant is popular and always full.

But I digress, as yesterday's Gujarathi dinner  experience was truly marvellous. A gourmet's delight.

How we wish some these experienced talented ladies would take the plunge to put up a different type of Indian restaurant than what we see all around in Finland. 

I have heard that there is one such restaurant in Helsinki set up by a former Oulu based Indian, but our travelling days are over, so that is only a dream. 

We know the talent exists across the board, as the Malayali gentlemen dish out a true Kerala traditional meal every Onam, which we are always happy to join and enjoy.

We have such untapped talent in the ladies and gents who have come from all parts of India to Oulu. Annikki and I would have, in our younger days, been at the centre of promoting this type of cultural exchange. 

Many years ago, Annikki did teach Indian cooking to the polytechnic in Ylivieska, and it was greatly appreciated by the students. She specialised in using easily available Finnish ingredients to create Indian dishes. 

When she produced "her" Masala Dosas, we had a queue of people lined up in our house waiting to enjoy the preparation. She even had a large  powerful coffee grinder to make the rice and urad dal powder! 

Michelle told me that recently a  restaurant was opened by a Michelin Star  Chef in the centre of Oulu which had queues of people waiting to get in. Her critical review was that it was not of any superior quality.

Running a restaurant is, however, not just serving good food but also good management and marketing.  The ambience must be perfect.

With an immediate market spectrum of over 200000 inhabitants, we are confident that a good Indian vegetarian restaurant in Oulu would draw in the crowds. 

Surely a much better draw than the 50 plus pizzerias scattered around Oulu, 

As I have had to take charge of our home kitchen, I worked out a ergonomic cooking schedule as we are just two people. Working from a wheelchair is difficult. 

Also, when we got married in 1967, my dear wife tolerated me in the kitchen for exactly one week, not because I was not a good cook, but because I was extremely messy!

If good food is available, like in Royal Garden, we would be dining out all weekdays. We have the benefit of 18 free taxi trips every month without any cost. 

Also, I am fortunate to have many Oulu taxi drivers from various communities, Ethiopians, Somalians, Sudanese, Zambian, and also many of my former Finnish  engineering students who have retired and who drive taxis. These would help us get to the restaurant economically.

Come on, dear Indians, please take on the challenge and get to produce an exclusive new "Indian" vegetarian restaurant for the people of Oulu. 

Annikki and I will be the first to help you break into this area.

New Blog from today

 

Today we have launched our new blog called 

Collectibles By Annikki

We hope you enjoy this new blog and you find things that really suit you. We should have a new entry every day, so come back and look what we have to offer.

An important question about Indian Cities

 

Ramu Katakam (profile photo from

his Facebook page).

We live in a country, Finland, famed for its modern as well as traditional architecture. It is also in harmony with nature.

Architects, as the late Alvar Aalto, changed the face of architecture not only in Finland. I remember him when he created the all plastic house in the sixties!over the last century.

Yesterday, I read an article about how a Middle East country is planning an undersea tunnel to India with a length of 1500 km. 

But where are they heading?

Then I came across this article by an old friend from my alma mater who is an architect. Ramu Katakam was a close friend of my cousin, Mammen Mathew.

Our history goes back over 50 years,

When I stood for the President of the St. Stephen’s College residents in 1961, it was an audacious move as no 2nd year student had ever gone forward with such an ambition. 

My cousin, who was then in the first year, headed my campaign  rounding up all possible votes. He knew that I had a vision for the future and the tenacity to see it through.

However, he ran into a road block with his good friend, Ramu Katakam, who intended to vote for someone else!

Till today, the bone of contention between these two dear friends has been the vote he did not give me.

Both these characters are fantastic, each in his own way, as after finishing college, the two of them hitch-hiked ftom India to London where I was studying. 

Mammen went into journalism and today heads the Malayala Manorama newspaper and its over 40 major publications, almost all leading in their spheres. (The WEEK, Balarama for children, Vanitha for ladies in Malayalam and Hindi, Manorama Weekly in Malayalam,  Manorama Directory in English, Malayalam, Tamil, Bengali and Hindi).

Ramu went to Cambridge and specialised in architecture.

This article by Ramu, featured below, appeared in The Wire.

I, with Abraham Thomas, who was Managing Director of the building group Southern Investments,  and author of a book "The Affluent Machine" authored the concept of rural urbanisation in I976, which is still several steps ahead of the Smart City concept which is heralded as future of India.

I will blog our article "Rural Urbanisation" shortly, but I think it is important to go through the critical views of Ramu.

"Why Is Modern Indian Architecture So Banal and the Cities So Unlivable?

The present period will be seen centuries later as piles of steel and shards of glass.

By

Ramu Katakam 

Representative image. Photo: Sriharsha/Flickr CC BY SA 2.0

A recent article in The Wire titled ‘Why Conserving Modern Architecture Has Become Nearly Impossible’ raised several questions that have been worrying architects, especially after the series of demolitions and planned demolitions of post-independence buildings.

The country is emerging from a long stretch of European colonisation and is finding its feet amongst the arts and architecture of the modern age. But European influence still plays a role in this quest for what is Indian and what is mere copy. It has been difficult for Indian architects to create a style that adequately presents a rising civilisation to the rest of the world – and to its own denizens. 

 

A country that has produced so many beautiful buildings over the centuries is now having to formulate its identity and design of buildings. Take the Hall of Nations, designed by Raj Rewal and built in the 1970s to provide a space for international exhibitions in the heart of Delhi. Before it was demolished by this government, it was arguably one of the finest works of architecture in the post-Independence era. It represented a new approach and borrowed nothing from Bauhaus ideologies or from Le Corbusier’s enormous influence. The architect found a way to build a unique structure that was modern and monumental.

The Hall of Nations. Credit: The Wire

Unfortunately, our administrators felt it occupied a very valuable amount of real estate and they had no understanding of its historic value and proceeded to tear it down. By this logic, one could argue that the Purana Qila (‘Old Fort’) – built by Humayun in the 16th century, which lies next to Pragati Maidan where the exhibition grounds are located and also occupies valuable land in the city centre – should be demolished too. Luckily, the fort is under the protection of the Preservation of Ancient Monuments Act, 1958. Indian architects are now suggesting that a new act be brought in to protect architectural buildings of significance, regardless of age.

When the British decided to shift their Capital to Delhi from Kolkata, they chose a large area adjacent to Shahjanabad, the capital created by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. They designed and built an imperial city that was to last a thousand years (something we have heard before and since). But after just 25 years, they had to abandon the capital. 

 

Their New Delhi was created as a set of imposing buildings that exhibited the might of the British Empire. The present Rashtrapati Bhavan was originally the residence of the Viceroy, who was the representative of the King of England. The North and South Blocks, while architectural masterpieces of colonial design, were intended to rule India, the ‘Jewel in their Crown’.

 

All Union governments of independent India have been hypnotised by these imperial buildings. The president of India lives in the erstwhile Viceregal Lodge and the main ministries of home, defence, finance and external affairs are ensconced in the Secretariat.

Ministers sit in their grand teak-panelled offices and members of the Indian civil services continue to enjoy their pre-Independence pomp and glory. The present regime has tried to bring about change and has built new buildings along the main vista that was once called Rajpath, later Janpath, or ‘people’s way’ and now Kartavyapath. All of these are signifiers of an India that continues to be ruled rather than governed.

 

Forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan. Photo: Rashtrapati Bhavan, GODL-India

A prescient Gandhi saw the impact these imperial buildings would have on those in power and, after Independence, pleaded with the state to create another capital that would leave the British legacy behind. It would have been simple to acquire land at that time but instead, we now have the satellite towns of Noida and Gurugram which are really vast suburbs of concrete, steel and glass. A faceless set of buildings that appears in rings of roads around the capital of Delhi housing millions of residents.

 

Of course, it is not as if Indian governments were the only ones seduced by grand buildings: the new rulers of Russia used the Kremlin palaces (the old residences of the Czars) as their headquarters and the Chinese used the palaces of the Forbidden City (residences of Emperors for several centuries) as the staging post for their May Day parades.

Architecture plays a significant role in the manner cities are planned and the remains of a civilisation are largely seen through the buildings that are left behind. Architects are told not to hark back to history but how is it possible to ignore Nalanda, Sanchi and Ellora – all treasures of design created by previous civilisations? Today we are reduced to banal edifices of square and round skyscrapers that represent what a large number of people term prosperity and development. Tagore’s vision of creating a recognisably distinct Indian civilization is fast disappearing as the subcontinent’s buildings try to replicate the tiny principalities of Dubai and Singapore. However, these replicas do not match the quality or scale of the modern age ‘wonders’ seen in the global cities. Will our present civilisation be seen a few centuries from now as piles of twisted metal and shards of glass? 

 

None of India’s cities offers a solution for the modern city. They are all increasingly becoming unlivable, making the privileged few seek second homes in Goa, in hill stations or abroad. A chance to see real change was available when a capital was envisaged for the residual Andhra Pradesh state. It was to be called Amaravati, after the Buddhist capital that was the centre of the old kingdoms of this area. (Few know that people in the land that is now Andhra Pradesh followed the Buddhist faith for 800 years.) However, after several attempts, the present state government chose to make three capital regions and power was decentralised – a smart decision given the length of the state. But these different capitals just had more rings of suburbs where concrete and glass thrive.

All this sounds very bleak and indeed it is. The future of Indian architecture and its habitat is represented by a few grand villas in Goa and some oversized air-conditioned flats in Mumbai and Delhi. It is therefore important for architects to attempt to bring cityscapes together and create new designs that are community-driven. Colaba, a suburb of Mumbai, is a classic example of a settlement where the rich and poor mingle and live complete lives. It is a microcosm of the mighty ‘maximum city’ and is a place where everything is available and some protection is offered to heritage buildings. Re-use of buildings is being done and an excellent example is the cafe built inside a former godown which was gutted and the exterior kept intact. Another well-known renovation is an ice factory in Ballard Estate that has been converted into a modern gallery and exhibition space for events.

 

Amongst the other major cities of India, Mylapore within the city of Chennai is a good example that has coexisted since the inception of the city. Many British residents made this area into their homes and while it is in good condition can be well restored for the reuse of a cityscape.

 

The old city of Hyderabad with the Charminar as its focus is also an independent settlement within the megapolis of the modern capital and is quite independent of the chaos of modern Hyderabad. Due to its antiquity, the inhabitants live and work on an ‘island’ with their own economy. Many other cities in India have these qualities – with Jodhpur, Lucknow and Kolkata among the largest.

 

Charminar. Photo: Vandana And Vaibhav/ Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY-SA 4.0.

This may not be perfectly pleasing for aspiring architects who want to design magnificent edifices but they may have to start making buildings that are more on a human scale. If new cities are to be made (and several are needed to cope with increasing numbers), then the planning will have to be on a gigantic scale. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has embarked on building a 170-km-long linear city called ‘The Line’. It is a revolutionary city that doesn’t look to the past, attempts to cater to the future, and has big names and big money undergirding it. There are several aspects to the project that raise questions but the attempt to think anew is to be recognised. 

 

India’s wealth – and, more importantly, its population and its needs – will rise dramatically in the next decades and hence will have to consider something as spectacular and monumental as The Line City envisaged in the desert. The country has to decide whether it is going to pursue the limits of wealth which will sooner or later implode as the planet does not have the resources for this growth or follow a path that will allow the planet to survive the upheavals and lifestyles of the modern age.

Ramu Katakam is an architect."

One hopes that visionary architects will arrive on the Indian scene to make it possible that India is a liveable country. We are not so confident as was expressed in our last book "The Titanic Called India",

 

Madman of Norway

Gunnar Toresen, Head of the Child Welfare Services of the city of Stavenger in Norway is nothing short of being a Megolmaniac Madman urgently requiring physcological care.

His kidnapping of two Indian children in Norway and his recent letter to the Indian Government requiring them to respond to him on the laws applicable in India to Indian citizens is truly bizzarre.

His sense of grandoism shows that he cares little about the children but wants to show his Nazi-like power craze as he tries everything in his assumed power to stop the Indian children to be returned to their motherland.

Norway is not the colonial master of India and he is not the King of the World to dictate to India about Constitutional Rights of Indian Citizens within India!

Not only does Gunnar Toresen require to be institutionalised immediately but the case of the children kidnapped by him, besides these two Indian children, needs to be investigated to see who are his advisors and the financial implications of each case.

The jurisdiction of Norwegian Courts and Norwegian Judges also needs to be put under scrutiny by the European Human Rights Commission, as such violation of the Human Rights of innocent children and their parents can be infectious in these Northern Countries.

It is obvious that certain individuals were benefiting financially from this kidnapping.

Were they fellow social workers and psychiatrists and friends of social workers? How were these people vetted to be given a place in this multi-million Norwegian Kroner money rolling scheme?

The case of the Norwegian foster parent who has been convicted of child molestation should be investigated and his relationship to Gunnar Toresen established.

Is Gunnar Toresen the conduit to provide his friends with innocent children to be used as sex toys?

In our 27 years in Finland we have seen many excesses of the bureaucracy and legal authorities in interfering in the lives of the weaker sections of society.

Gunnar Toresen is one example of the madness of this policy.

It takes a perverted madman to carry out such crazy behaviour and destroy the lives of innocent children and their parents.

Please act by writing to the Norwegian Prime Minister to stop this Norwegian Madman NOW!

First time (also published my KOOLER TALK blog)

Stephanian S. Y. Qurashi

In my almost 70 years and over 48 years as an adult with deep interest in politics, this was the first time I actually spent a few hours, in Finland, watching an election process in India.

In the 70s I was close with many politicians of all parties and knew exactly how corrupt all of them were. So I kept my distance.

Votes appear to have been cast this time in 5 States over a period of time and today was the counting and declaration of the results. Results were announced from Goa (1.5 million), Manipur (2.7 million), Punjab (28 million), Uttar Pradesh (200 million) and Uttarakhand (10 million).

Over 240 million people were choosing their local politicians to serve them for the next few years. It was a mixed bag of results with the National Parties less successful than the regional parties.

Watching on an Indian internet TV Channel, NDTV 24x7, I was quite intrigued by the mixture of languages being used by the participants. Since I know English, Hindi, Punjabi (a bit), I wondered whether this channel was watched by the majority of Indians who are only familiar with their regional language.

Obviously not.

Quite a few of my juniors from my alma mater, St. Stephen's College in Delhi, were on the box, either as politicians in different parties, as tv anchor men or women, or as "experts". It was quite easy to recognise them as they had a different air about the way they handled the subjects.

I thought to myself whether I was the same! I hope not, as I consider myself as individualistic rather than moulded by my alma mater characteristics, especially with regard to politics!

On the whole, following the election was an interesting experience, especially as I could view it from a distance and not be involved with it in any other way.

The main thing that struck me was that several corrupt politicians fell by the wayside.

The independent Chief Election Commissioner, Dr. S. Y. Qurashi, is also a product of my alma mater, about 10 years my junior. His interview on NDTV was very interesting as he has to keep his head above the murky waters of Indian Politics.

This experience was also followed by an interesting news item I noted in an Indian internet newspaper which said that the top two jobs in the Indian Administrative Service and in the Indian Police Service were also filled by Stephanians.

These are IAS officers Pulok Chatterjee, the Prime Minister's Principal Secretary, and Ajit Seth, the Cabinet Secretary, and IPS officers, Nehchal Sandhu, Intelligence Bureau Chief and A. B. Singh, Central Bureau of Investigation Chief.

Many of my classmates and those who were in College during my years there, have served in very senior Government positions (62ers Mani Shankar Aiyar, Rathikant Basu, Ashok (Tony) Jaitly) and also as Ambassadors (62er Niranjan Desai, 63ers Siddarth Singh and Aftab Seth, etc.) in different parts of the world.

They have also served in the United Nations, 74er Sashi Tharoor, the Commonwealth Secretariat, 62er Kamlesh Sharma, the World Bank, 63er Montek Singh Alhuwalia and 62er Sarwar Lateef,  the Asian Development Bank, 63er Karthik Sandilya, and many many more such world bodies.

It would be interesting to compile a Who's Who of Stephanians!

Norwegians amazing behavior

Although I do not know the full story of the Indian children taken away from their parents and placed in a foster home, as it has not been covered in Finland, from what I have seen on the Indian media and have read about this subject, the behaviour by Norwegians of "officially kidnapping" children and placing them in "foster homes" at € 30.000 a pop is truly amazing.

In a detailed article by a Norwegian in The Hindu, the background to this kidnapping is explained.

The iron hand that rocks the cradle

MARIANNE HASLEV SKÅNLAND

I must compliment Indian newspapers, not least The Hindu, for giving a thorough coverage to the case of the Indian couple deprived of their children by the Norwegian ‘child protection services' (CPS).......

This foster home scandal included sexual abuse of the children by one foster parent who has now been convicted in Court.

Norwegians are not told the facts. The parents of the children taken into foster homes are deamonised. And they blindly believe the bureaucratic version as they are brought up to believe that the authority is always right.

Hopefully, the case of the Indian children will make some Norwegians to sit up and look at the way the system is being exploited for profit by a group of corrupt individuals.

In the meantime, please make as much noise as possible to get the children released and sent home to India.

How time has passed!

Ruki Family

As usual, I have several excuses why my blogs has not been updated. None of them are valid except that I have not just been on the ball as I have had problems in running my retired life business.

I am glad to say, thanks to Rukshana, the daughter of a dear friend, Yezad Kapadia, I was introduced to a young man living in Helsinki, Yogesh Kale, formerly from WIPRO Administration in Banaglore, an experienced hospitality manager and a very sincere person.

He took time off from his working life to look after his baby daughter for the last 9 months while his wife went back to work.

He and I hit it off from Day 1. He has come in as a shareholder and Director of Raantel Oy from this month. He will take charge of Helsinki, Espoo, Vantaa and also Tampere. He has brought a new face to Raantel. I am sure we will grow in South Finland and operate on a similar model as we are doing in Oulu.

I will not blow the trumpet about Yogesh as I watch him develop Raantel into an internationally acclaimed company.

With his induction, probably life will get a little easier for me. Knowing me, whenever a gap appears in my life, I jump in with a new idea or new project. I have so many up my sleeve that I should start keeping a diary of all the projects that have just been overlooked in the last 40 years.

I have lost much of my skills, but some do remain and hopefully they will result in a few more good projects.

Visit of Indian Ambassador to Oulu

Ambassador Om Prakash and his wife Vineeta 

Thanks very much to Asheesh, the CEO of Medipolis I GMP in Oulu, the Indian Ambassador to Finland, His Excellency Om Prakash and his wife, Vineeta, were invited to Oulu to meet the top city officials and also to share an afternoon with the Indian Community here.

Indu and Asheesh, Aruna and Mahesh and Nushrat and Arindam took the lead and organised a wonderful event. They were assisted by a small band of youngsters who also helped to clear up after the event.

On Thursday, Asheesh rang me and asked me to give the introductory address about Indians in Oulu.

I spoke for about 10 minutes highlighting the arrival of Annikki, Susanna, Jaakko and me to Oulu in 1969 when we were en route to India. This was followed by our visits in 1975 and 1979, till we moved here in 1984. I also gave a glimpse of the relationship I had with two former Ambassadors, Fabian and Cherpoot, both of whom were our guests in Oulu on official visits to the Unversity.

I told the audience of Fabians outstanding talk on the "North South Dialogue" which was published in full, with his permission in my book "Seven Year Hard Labour in a Finnish Holiday Camp - A Finnish University".

The historic dual citizenships (Now vanished!)granted to our children, Joanna and Mika, the close links between the Microelectronics Laboratory of the University of Oulu and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and the way in which Oulu had become our home and how the Indian Community here had grown and become strong, featured in my short talk. There was much to say, but I did not want to bore the audience!

Mahesh then gave a a very well done presentation about the history of the City of Oulu. It was quite embarassing as he kept referring to my contribution in the aspects of Oulu life. (I was assisted by several people and it was embarrassing to be referred to it as the sole architect!)

The Ambassador gave a speech, which was a little sad, as he informed us thet he was just a few days from returning to India. I discovered that he was from the same University as me, Delhi (1971, Hindu College), considerably junior, and he had served under both Fabian and Cherpoot and also knew my good friends, Ambassadors Niranjan, Siddarthand Aftab, andf also Tony (former Chief Commissioner for Jammu & Kashmir), all of whom were Stephanians of my years in college (1960 - 1963).

The afternoon snacks provided by Nushrat and Arindam (Indian Cusine) were well received by the medium sized audience.

I was a little surprised why several prominent members of our Indian community did not come. Although most of them got the message through O-India, and the event did not cost a dime to attend, the lack of enthusiasm by one section of our community is a little sad.

I hope that in future we will have a better turnout, as these events help to cement a bond between the Indian ex-pats who are almost all doing well here in Oulu.

I also later suggested that in future the invitation to our Indian Ambassadors should be made at the start of their tenure as then we could get recognition and co-operation over the 5 years of their term in Finland.

After the event, Atul, my co-moderator at the O-India Group, has asked for a regular Coffee (Beer) Club session of our community, something that I started with CHAFF (Chamber of Assistance for Finns and Foreigners) and all ethnic minority communities and Finns, several years ago. That had been a huge success, but after I handed it to the members, it died a slow death.

All such Groups need a motivator and a theme. Just a casual get together may work for a few weeks, but one which needs to succeed over a longer term needs the undivided attention of a couple of people who make it an exciting event to attend. In short, they must get some personal value out of attending!

Let us hope Atul succeeds in his adventure of forming this group.

And I thank all those who organised the event and our Indian Ambassador, His Excellency Om Prakash and his wife, Vineeta, for the chance to share a few moments with all many Indian friends here in Oulu.

Jai Bharat.

What was this?

A few weeks ago I wrote about my experience of ordering a biriyani in one of the three Indian restaurants in Oulu. I regretted that day.

Last week I was tempted to have a biriyani in another of Oulu's Indian restaurants. This was what was served up:

From New Album 16/05/2010 06:40

What does it look like? (I won't answer that question as I dislike public use of foul language!) Where else in the world does one get a biriyani served up in this fashion? Where was the rush of colours from white to golden red? Where was the red tinge of Kashmiri saffron?

The only thing to be said about this biriyani was it had plenty of cashewnuts and well-cooked large mutton chunks, but with no smell or taste anywhere near what I consider "a biriyani"!

Look at what a typical serving, of what I think is a biriyani, should appear on a table (as I had posted on my last entry on this subject):

From Jacob's Blog

The fragrant smell of saffron, the beautiful colour layering of the rice, the burnt onions, are all a must in a biriyani - not a mish mash of a curry sauce and rice, in which are thrown large chunks of cashewnuts and meat.

Yes, I do yearn for a good biriyani in Oulu! Maybe I will have to cook it myself!

Why this joy at eating masala dosais?

My blog readers in India must think me crazy by talking so incessantly when I get a masala dosai to eat here in Finland.

Any corner shop in Tamilnadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh or Kerala (or for that matter anywhere in India), will offer a masala dosai and all these vegetarian dishes as common fare on their daily menu, so why this excitement when I am served a masala dosai here in Oulu?

The sad part is that we cannot walk into a corner shop in our town or in a radius of 600 km (or even 1000 km) to get hold of a dosai.

Some kind heart, like my wife, has to take the trouble to make it. That means, unlike in India, the heart and the stomach, and especially the taste buds, yearn to eat what is not so freely available.

I certainly had my fill of masala dosais,



vadas,



idlis,



gulab jamuns,



sweet curd, and other Indian delicacies, when I was in India for 2 months last year.

Almost two months have passed and the taste buds are yearning for all of them one more time.

My suggestion on our local O-India Google Group, which caters as a discussion forum for the 100+ Indians in Oulu, certainly got buzzing when I suggested I was intending to start a South Indian Vegetarian Restaurant in Oulu.

The local Indian Restaurant owner was quick to come back to say that he would start one if I could find him a suitable spot for a Take Away counter. He promised to bring a great Chef from India.

My suggestion to have the restaurant on wheels to take this nearby to where the Indians are working, also got a very favourable reception. They work in about four locations around the city of Oulu.

Now it is time to strike while the iron is hot.

Anyone interested to join me in this venture as a financial / working partner, is most welcome as, like me, all the Indians (and many Finns and Findians), who love Indian cuisine would be crazy over this idea.

(Why not make it a joint effort as a public limited company with the lovers of South Indian vegetarian food as the shareholders?)

I intend keep the prices within reason and serve up fresh food with freshly made spices and with fresh vegetable, as otherwise this would be doomed!

Yes, I yearn for a dosai, a vada, an idli, a gulab jamun,... as well as a K. C. Das sweet curd, a Gujarati Thali with sweet chapati, an Andhra Thali served with spicey gun powder, ..... yum yum! :-)