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.

Good Advice to O-indians

Going through my various blogs, Google groups, web pages of the last 40 years, I found this very good post on O-India Google Group by Sreekanth Kanjarla from December 2007!

First O-india meeting in Oulu. January 2008

Here is a picture with the young handsome Sreekanth kneeling in the front before Renu and Dipu came to Finland. 

He and Vishu Mallabadi were living in Peltola and I had the good fortune to join them for a small celebration of Christmas in their home. 

Those were some beautiful days of OUR O-India! :-)

I thought that I should blog it as advice to newcomers to Oulu. Those who would like to give additional up-to-date advice can send it to me and I will blog it.

This, taken with our book “Handbook for Survival in Finland” published in 1994 (30 years ago), should help some of you get acclimatised quickly!

Sreekanth and his delightful wife, Renu, are still in Oulu and their son, Dipu, is a fine example of a Findian. 

I have known Dipu from the  very first trip when I picked them up from Oulu Airport. I knew we had a fascinating addition to our group in Oilu and I have not been disappointed.

I had an email from Rajesh Kumar just this week, who has returned to Helsinki. He recalled how I did drive him snd his family (of three then) from Oulu Airport their new new home in Oulu. 

Rajesh and his family now back in Helsinki.

He sent me this beautiful photo of his grown up family in Finland. They all look so gorgeous and I wish them a happy stay in our country! I have invited him to Oulu to catch up with us.

I digress, as here is Sreekanth’s great 2007 post to the O-India Google Group:

“sreekanth

12/7/07

to o-india@googlegroups.com

Dear O-Indians,

 

Here are some of the contents (i:e @ Oulu)   that can go into the front page of our "O-India" website, which we are planning to develop. This is only draft version and sub-contents can be modified with the actual information.

 

Fresher @ Oulu

            i. Items to bring from India

            ii. Formalities at Oulu (Bus pass, population registrations etc…)

 

Apartments @ Oulu

            1. Formalities for apartments

            2. Looking for new apartments

           

Schooling @ Oulu

            i. Kindergarten,

            ii. Pre-school,

            iii. Primary/High School Educations

 

Kids @ Oulu

            i. Tips for take care of small kids

            ii. Kids shops

 

Banking @ Oulu

            i. Open a new account

            ii. Closing of account

 

Library @ Oulu

            i. Library care issue information

 

Games Clubs @ Oulu

            i. Cricket

            ii. Vollyball

            iii. Skiing

            iv. Swimming

 

Indian Food @ Oulu

            i. Indian Shopping stores

            ii. Indian Hotels

 

Passport Info @ Oulu

            i. Passport Expired

            ii. Passport Lost

 

ByeToOulu @ Oulu

            i. Closure formalities of apartment ( Bank account, gas connection etc…)

Regards,

Sreekanth Kanjarla”

Please feel free to add or suggest, so that I can include them to this list.

For your information there are over a thousand posts about the past of O-India in Oulu from 2007 onwards.

I  have decided to make our O-India group more active.

The Moderators are Atul Mahajan, Mani Shankar Bhowmik, Pushpa Dhundwal and me. 

All posts are moderated.

 

 

Indian Twins to the North Pole

Recently, I read a request for the loan of an Indian Flag as someone wanted to take it to the North Pole.

As Atul had brought 2 Indian Flags during his last visit to India, I asked him to loan it to this guy.

Venkat is part of a pair of identical twins from Hyderabad. His twin (Lakshman) is a cosmetic skin care scientist working in Denmark since 2001. Venkat came to Finland in 2003.

The only difference is that they have chosen different fields in their career paths. Venkat is into engineering and Lakshman is into microbiology.

They both talk, look, walk, eat, travel..the same.

Their main hobbies are travelling....around the globe in their free time.

These three photos taken when they took the flag from Oulu at the northernmost land point in Norway (Svalbard) prove that these two boys are identical.







[Photos courtesy Venkat (copyright).]

Thank you boys for carrying the flag from Oulu to the North Pole. And a special thanks to Atul for his generosity!

Oulu Cricket Club leaps out

(Also posted on the CHAFF Blog.)

From 090604 Cricket starts in Oulu

The Finnish Chaírman of the Oulu Cricket Club,
Joose Kankare, takes to the crease!

Yesterday saw the first practice session of the Oulu Cricket Club. I am not a player but ready to support this northernmost cricket club in any way possible. So I turned up to show my support. Only, due to other engagements, I was a hour behind schedule.

From 090604 Cricket starts in Oulu

No floodlights required here.
Plenty of Natural Lighting available till 11 pm!

I do not know what they did for the first hour, but when I arrived I saw two teams grouped together talking strategy. They were about to commence a game.



The background was idyllic, but that could not be said about the gravel pitch they chose to play on. A nasty wind was kicking up a lot of dust and playing conditions were not ideal.

From 090604 Cricket starts in Oulu

There are a couple of good cricketers in the midst of the 18 persons who turned up for this first practice. There was a Pakistani, a couple of Australians, a Brit, a Finn, while the rest were a spread of Indians from almost every part of my great country - India.

From 090604 Cricket starts in Oulu

With the strong wind, playing conditions were cold and quite difficult. But I saw some good bowling and also some interesting batting - which means that with this sort of talent available, Oulu may really be able to turn out a good team for the nationals in a year or so.

But that will mean serious practice - not just having fun hitting the ball around.

Besides physical fitness, to be generated by jogging and running a fair bit at the beginning and end of a practice session, there must be batting practice, bowling practice and fielding practice during each practice session.

From Cathedral School, Mumbai

My cricket team, Cathedral School, Bombay - 51 years ago!

I also remember my days at St. Stephen's College where we had a a stickler for fitness as our Captain. With the likes of Siddarth Singh, the wonder from Doon School whose fame preceeded him, Prem Bhatia, Ajit Singhji, Sunil Thakurdas in our midst, it was good to have someone like Vijay Singh as the Captain. He demanded and got respect.

I turned up a few times for cricket practice but as hockey practice was at the same time under an equally fastidious captain, none other than the journalist Arun Shourie, I had to choose between one and the other - and I chose hockey!

Remember 14:00 hours on Saturday at Alppila is the next Oulu Cricket Club practice session!