Sunday meeting of fate

Every Sunday, Annikki and I go to Linnanmaa Prisma to do our weekly grocery shopping and also to spend a couple of hours with our son, Mika, who has his studio apartment just opposite the Prisma.

I order a taxi for 15:30 and we reach Prisma at 15:40 and we return home by 17:40.

Last Sunday the taxi was late. I called to remind them at 15:35 and again at 15:45. It only arrived at 15:50.

We usually walk down the small hill to wait for the taxi near the gate. If it is sunny we go a few minutes early. Annikki sits on my walker while I sit on the wooden railing. 

Last Sunday, as we were waiting for the taxi, an elderly lady pushing a walker came into the compound. She started asking us about our history.

She laughed as heartily as Annikk does and was fascinated by our love story!.

She then asked me where I had worked in Oulu. I told her that I had worked in Oulu University. 

She then said she used to run the small stationary shop in the centre of the main university building.

It all came back as a flash as I had spent countless hours in her shop to buy paper, files, urgent office supplies for the labortory and even use the copying machine she used to have just outside her shop. 

When I published Annikki’s book “Edible Art”, I had made the master copy using the colour photocopiershe had installed outside her shop. She had given me a huge discount to copy the hundred off pages of the book and slso for the high quality photo paper I had used.

It was a truly wonderful feeling to connect with this remarkable lady who had been so much a part of my life in the University.

When I mentioned the fascinating character of Oulu University, Arpo Heikkilä, we both were in raptures as he had shared many hours in her shop as he did in my Office Room. Arpo had graced the cover of my book about Oulu University which I had published in 1994 and the maximum number of copies I had sold was through her little shop.

I was hoping that the taxi would never come as we were  enjoying the company of her effervescent  character. 

We had both moved on 40 years but it was like just yesterday that we had been together in the University.

As she lives in the same compound,  I am sure that our paths will cross again and we will talk about our old times together. 

Although both of us have aged the delightful memories have lived on. 

Remembering one's dad

20th November is a day that I always feel deep in my heart as it is the birthday of my late dad.



After finishing his schooling in Bishop Cottons, Bangalore, (where later he was the Chairman of the Old Boys Association), he did his first degree in Mathematics at Madras Christian College, Tambaram, Madras, and then studied Electrical Engineering at Imperial College, London, in the early 1930s.



He worked as a student in Germany, before his return to India to marry my mother in 1936,

I do not know his earlier job positions although I know he served at the Sivasmudram Dam Hydro station, at the Jog Falls Hydro Station, as the Superintendent Engineer in Mysore City Electricity where amongst other jobs he was in charge of the lighting of the Maharaja's Palace, and then in Bangalore where he crossed swords with the Chief Minister Hannumanthaiya on principle so as to resign and move to his first assignment as Engineering Manager in Bombay in B.E.S.T.

From there he became the Chief Engineer of B.E.S.T, then served as Engineering Adviser in Killick Nixon (which included Bombay Suburban, and several electricity companies in Gujarat) and finally as Chief Executive of Tata Consulting Engineers (TCE) which he took from being a small engineering consulting company to be India's most prestigious engineering consultants.

Even after his retirement, he set up and guided the Bangalore Office of TCE, one of the finest engineering consulting centres, while at the same time sitting on the Board of Mysore Power Corporation supervising the design and construction of the Raichur Thermal Power Plant. He also was an Adviser to the Kerala Power Corporation.

Kuriyan Matthan, as was his name, was a fun guy all through his life till his sight was reduced through a series of problems which started after his 60th birthday which led to his retirement in 1972. With the reduced vision he lost his most favourite hobby, to solve, in writing, mathematical problems and to do crosswords.



I pay quiet tribute this day to my father on this his 96th birthday.



This was one of the last photographs of him taken by Annikki in 1992 when we visited India. He passed away in 1993, a few weeks after I paid him a visit to say my final goodbye.

Even at that age he was man enough to apologise to me for what problems had transpired between us and for him to tell me that he loved me. Tears were in his eyes when I left the front door to go to the airport. As I looked back out of the car window, although he could not see me, he was waving goodbye from the front steps, seated on a chair that he had insisted be brought out to see me leave.

He never showed the enormous power he wielded. However, what sticks out most in my mind is the way he had of dealing with people of all ages, as he gave them all equal respect and importance.

His best friends were the lowliest of those who worked with him, as the driver of his car, or a line electrician. All these "insignificant" people, in later life, were prepared to give their arm and their soul for him and his family!

I hope that this is the one most important characteristic that I have learnt from him!

I am proud he was my dad!

American stupidity or insanity?

There is this news item in the American media

7-year-old suspended over stick-figure drawing

Complaint about image depicting 'water pistol' leads to disciplinary action

about a 7 year old who had drawn a stick figure image of a person with a gun pointing at another stick figure.

He gave the drawing to a another child on a schoolbus who gave it to his parents. The parents complained about the image and the 7 year old was suspended from school for day.

The mother of the child who had drawn the image told the newspaper that the picture was a drawing of a water pistol.

I always knew that many Americans are downright stupid.

However, this episode shows that many of them are just insane.

When are they going to ban violent computer games?

Are they going to ban American movie and tv directors using weapons in their films?

Some school children playing cops and robbers were admonished because they were shooting at each other using their fingers as guns!

Wonder whether they will also ban the children from playing cowboys and Indians!

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To Hirosenkoti

Annikki's mother, Hilja, has been in very good health these last two weeks. She was very happy to have a bath today and she ate very well.

After almost a year of different health problems, which Annikki has tended with great care and devotion, Hilja is now in fine fettle and she is full of beans, mentally. A lot of her muscle strength has returned, although not yet enough for her to stand unattended.



She objected to being dressed to go to the Hirosenkoti Old People's Home as she does not like being transported from one place to another.

But if Annikki is to recoup her strength, these interval care times are very important for her, although not so good for Hilja.

Hilja will be back home on the 17th of the month. Hopefully the mild autumn weather will still be around. But that is just hoping! I have scheduled to put on my winter tyres on the car by the 15th of the month.