Has O-India Ry been involved with Tax Fraud?

Annikki and I are not members of O-India Ry as we terminated our membership with immediate effect when we witnessed criminal behaviour towards us by Board Members of the Association. 

Just a few days ago, after the visit of our friend Shashank Subramanyam to Oulu, which we did not attend, we were sent a copy of the accounts of the performance by some friend as he wanted our comments. 

The accounts appear to have been circulated to the Association members.

These accounts make hilarious reading!

How can an Association give a grant to itself? 😂

If that was the extent of the problem, that could be passed off as just ignorance.

There is a more serious problem with these accounts.

Tickets were sold for this performance, directly and through the ticket sales service.  

When any tickets are sold in Finland for a public performance, there is an important aspect that value added tax (ALV) has to be collected and remitted to the tax authorities. 

Withholding of such tax is tax fraud.

Where is this liability shown in these accounts?

Additionally, when an entertainer performs in Finland and is paid a remuneration, income tax has to be deducted and remitted to the tax authorities. 

Why is this liability not shown in the accounts?

This can also be a case of  tax  fraud!

Recently, one prominent O-India Ry member posted a Facebook post which is very interesting!

Certainly, we too would wish this, but luckily being pensioners, we have paid our taxes while working and are thus enjoying the benefits of having paid our taxes in full, and quite in excess of what we paid!

In May 1988, the Indian Ambassador HE  K. P. Fabian called me and said that a well known Kathak dancer would be visiting Finland. He asked whether would I be interested in organising a performance in Oulu. 

As we already had a performance by Daksha Seth organised by Martti Antila,  a well known photographer in Oulu, the previous year and the Oulu City Hall was packed to the brim with an appreciative audience, I said I would take on the challenge.

The first problem was to get a suitable auditorium. As the City programme for the year had already been finalised, no regular auditorium was available. 

I looked around and found that if we did some adjustments, the main lecture hall L1 in Oulu University could be used. It had a capacity of around 500 - 600 seats.

Annikki and I set about the task of meeting all the right people and organising the budget. 

With the cooperation of all the appropriate people we decided that we would not charge any entrance fee, because of the tax implications, and as we felt we could underwrite the expenses as the lecture room was free for me and I could get the appropriate sound system from my local friends in the business. Also I got three furnished guest room apartments in the University for them to stay.

Shovana Narayan and her troupe of 5, including her singer sister, Ranjana Narayan, a Supreme Court Advocate, arrived in Oulu. I made sure they met all the important people of Oulu when they arrived.

Shovana Narayan

Shovana Narayan is one of the outstanding classical dancers of India. For her incomparable contribution to the Kathak style of classical dance, she has been decorated with several awards, including Government of India's coveted Padmashri and Sangeet Natak Akademi awards. She has bestowed Kathak with dignity and enriched it with a deeper and wider canvas of expression and dimensions. She is at once, an explorer, a performer, a choreographer and an artiste par excellence, with values and a cause. The explorer and researcher within her have seen her author six books on Indian dance, which bespeak of intensity, depth and gravity. She has also worked closely with nationally and internationally acclaimed Indian and western dancers and musicians from various streams of art. Shovana's palette contains other media, including films and operas as well as being a dedicated guru whose disciples are creating their niche in the world of Kathak that once again bears testimony to the intensive training being imparted by her. She is also a senior serving civil servant belonging to the Indian Audits and Accounts Service (1976 batch). Married to Dr. Herbert Traxl, Austrian Ambassador, the two have a son, Erwin Ishan Traxl. Her younger sister, Ranjana Narayan, is a lawyer and a classical singer. Other books by the author: ˜Kathak: Rhythmics Echoes and Reflectioin- (Roly Publication); ˜Dance Legacy of Patliputra' (Publications Division, govt. of India); ˜Indian Theatre and Dance Traditions" (Harman Publications); ˜Performing Arts: A Policy Perspective" (Kanishka Publications); "Kathak" "A Handbook (Wisdom Tree Publication); "Indian Classical Dance" "A Handbook (Sterling Publication).

That paid dividends as the auditorium was full, as Finns turned up for the performance. 

We were even able to have the University restaurant open during the intermission. We had a children’s play area for those who came with small children. We had a Red Cross facility on hand for any emergency.

Shovana performing with Rev. Patrick Dickson 

during the performance.

Shovana’s troupe.

Shovana’s accompanists

(All above photographs by Jacob Matthan.)

Picture from Kaleva newspaper reporting on 

Shovana Narayan’s performance.

Report from Kaleva which covered 

Shovana Narayan’s performance.

The whole event was a success. It was duly reported by Kaleva. 

Although the costs were minimal, we had important sponsorships in kind for the group, as we were not an official organisation, but whomsoever we asked put their hands out, generously, to help us. 

Our Finnish friends took care of all the formalities so we stayed within Finnish law!

Four years of groundwork by Annikki and me amongst the community had paid off. 

From there onwards, whatever we arranged were successful events, always involving the whole of Oulu, which at that time covered just under 100000 people. 

Every ethnic community joined us in making this and all other events successful, fostering the multicultural  attitude we were promoting. 

And remember, at that time the only Indians in Oulu were my two children, aged 17 and 15, and myself!

That comfortable situation prevailed for many years as no one was seeking glory. We were all working for our communities to be integrated into Oulu society.

The performance of our friend and international superstar, Shashank Subramanyam, in August 2011 was to a packed audience in Valve in the Oulu City Centre, where the hall of 175 was filled with even people standing at the doorway to hear him play.

Shashank Subramanyam 

Shashank Subramanyam (born October 14, 1978) is an accomplished flutist from India, specializing in Indian classical music. Having displayed exceptional musical talent from a young age, Shashank began performing at the age of 6 in 1984 and has continued to showcase his artistry for over three decades.

In recognition of his contributions to the arts, the Government of France honored him with the prestigious title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for the year 2022.

Shashank is also noteworthy for being the youngest recipient of the Government of India's Sangeet Natak Akademi's senior award for the year 2017, and bestowed by the President of India at an investiture ceremony held at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi.

We had active participation from not only O-India Google Group (not O-India Ry, which did not exist then) participants and wonderful suggestions from the local Indians to make the event appeal to the Finnish audience.

Yrjö Mikkonen (from the Finnish music academy) and his wife, Shahnaz (Head of the organisation looking after migrants to Oulu), made sure that all the technical and organisational arrangements were perfect.

Oulu City officials cooperated with us fully as they realised an international superstar had agreed to come to Oulu. 

We even had the cooperation of the airline to ensure everything was perfect with no cost to our small community. 

And the cooperation of our Indian Embassy was of paramount importance, although we did not request any financial assistance as we were not a registered society at that time.

We were all working for one goal to ensure that we had a perfect performance in Oulu. 

No one was working to further himself or herself. 

We had an Organising Committee headed by a Finn and composed primarily of Finns, those mainly in the Oulu music business. We had the cooperation of all the media, print and radio,.

The success of the event was evident.

After that, the series of problems with my health from 2014 onwards caused Annikki and me to quietly withdraw from the organisational  scene, but we continued to take part and help  the organisers to conduct successful events.

But things changed!

In our post “Why we terminated our membership to O-India Ry" speaks for itself.

 

The doom we predicted has hit the Indian Community of Oulu faster than we thought, and it has been brought on by itself. 

It was decided to bring Shashank Subramanyam again to perform in Oulu. 

As we did not want to associate with O-India Ry, we opted out of taking part in the event and informed Shashank the reasons, so our absence would not be misunderstood by our friend!

After pressurising every Indian in Oulu, night and day, less than 100 Indians (out of 500) turned up for the Shashank performance. The auditorium was less than a quarter full.

And out of 180000 Finns in the Oulu region, not even 30 turned out for this show!

There was utter confusion in ticket pricing (Euro 21, 23 and 28?), and also who could or could not attend. 

Finns are cost conscious and not fools. They know when one is being cheated! 

And advertising in Flea Markets and in Oulu University showed total absence of sanity in the organisers. 

People who go to Flea Markets go to save money! 

Two Indian Oulu University students who visited us told us that they could eat pizzas for three days for that amount of money!

The poster they produced for the event was fine but how many Finns know the meaning of Raaga Murali? 

Is it a common term as Classical, Hip Hop, Jazz, Pop, Rap or Rock?

This was a true case of the blind leading the blind!

Such an event flop may have destroyed all the good work that has been put in for 40 years to get our Indian Community appreciated in Oulu. 

Did Kaleva or any media even cover this event, (pre- or post) of an international artist.

Shashank, an international superstar,  performed to an empty hall. 

I was told that the sound equipment was sub-standard or the people handling it were not able to understand the demands of this type of music.

Who takes the blame for such shambles?

Anyone of O-India Ry willing to stand up?

We noted that some were patting their own backs on social media trying to avoid telling the world the truth and what a mess they had made of this event!

These people have been ready to take glory for someone else's work but when it came to failure, everyone is running the 100 metres backwards at twice Usain Bolt's record.

In our case the behaviour of O-India Ry was criminal by the Board Members of O-India Ry. That made Annikki and me to take the drastic step of terminating our membership with immediate effect.

In the case of the Shashank performance, 

O-India Ry appears to have gone a step further in possibly committing tax fraud in Oulu.

Is worse still to come?

Was it prudent on Annikki and my part 

to distance ourself from O-India Ry?

We are welcomed...

The North East monsoon is here in Madras, a steady and welcome rain. Our driver, Thirumeni, who is store of history at every street corner and at every politicians house, said the Gods had welcomed our visit to Chennai with wonderful rains which had considerably cooled Chennai for our visit. He has a great sense of humour and although my Tamil is virtually non-existent, he speaks in a dialect that my Malayalam makes it easy to follow. He works for a company called Ganesh Travels and as he is not the regular driver for my other family members, does not know the addresses and locations of my numerous relatives in the city. But he is resourceful enough to find out fast!

On Friday morning I devoted myself to meet my two cousins and their husbands who were my guardians when I was studying at St. Stephen’s College, Delhi.

Mammikochamma and and husband, Kuttachayan, (Mrs. and Wing Commander (rtd.) A. G. Mathews) live in the Defence Officers Colony in Nandambakkam.

I first visited the house where Annikki and I had stayed in 1970-1971 in that colony. It was still lush and beautiful but the grass that Annikki had laid in the midday sun was no longer there.

My cousins were as sprightly as ever, even though they are late 70s and mid eighties. Mammikochamma produced her old albums of photographs, so much so that I vowed to return on my next visit with an efficient scanner and to scan her glorious collection. It is a goldmine of history and something to be treasured. Unfortunately, due to damp, many pictures have been damaged.

Their house is magnificent and designed very cleverly to accommodate children and grandchildren when they come. We laughed over many of our past memories together and they remain so dear to me.

On to my other Delhi guardians. This time I did see Chennai traffic in rush hour. With the rain having cut away almost two lanes on the major roads due to water logging, the traffic still moved, albeit slowly. There was no massive tangle we had witnessed in Bangalore.

We reached Ashwathykochamma and Thambichayan’s (Mrs. & Mr. K. M. Jacob) new house on the Thirvanmuyur outskirts of Chennai to be greeted by them and their daughter-in-law, Mich. Ranjeet and Mich are building a house nearby.

We laughed about how when Annikki had insisted on living on the city outskirts when we lived in Madras, we were scolded by everyone about living away from the city. At that time we were no more than 7 minutes from the city centre! Now the same journey takes between 15 to 30 minutes and no one complains!

We relived our wonderful times in Delhi, where my cousins Suresh and Rajen and myself would go and spend wonderful weekends in their home. It was so tiny but there was space for everyone and the food was glorious. Those were the days, but what is important none of us have forgotten the bond that was created during our childhood years.

When I reached home I got the news that Sashank’s father, Dr. Subramanyam, had invited us as his guest to a concert at the Bharat Sangeet Utsav 2009 to be given by Sashank. Could anything be more wonderful than that. Sashank has been invited many times in the last 25 years when he was a child prodigy, to this festival, the best in Carnatic music, but his international tour schedules never gave him the opportunity to take part. And we were given pride of place to be invited by him to witness his poweress.

Lunch at the Kabul where we tasted some authentic Afghani food, and while Annikki rushed to the shopping Mall City Centre to do some financial mischief, I caught up on my email. She was back in time for us to join Sashank and his father to go to the auditorium.

The performance was spell binding. Sashank and his friends were simply outstanding, and the music was electric. I have never been to a concert of Indian Classic Music, but it was worth every minute. The audience cheered as Sashank asked them what they wanted to hear and rendered each item with a gusto and precision that becomes only a maestro. His young years are not a hindrance. Later in the evening when I asked him how he managed to retain the compositions in his brain, he quickly responded that he had performed with ferocious regularity over the last 25 years, the music was imprinted in his brain.

There was no sheet music in front of any of the artists, but they blended so beautifully that I was amazed at the skill of these artists!

We rushed back home to get dressed and go off to our Kanadthil family dinner at the home of Kunjukochamma (Mrs. K. M. Mammen Mappillai) wife of the late K. M. Mappillai, the founder of MRF Ltd. over 70 years ago. He was my mother’s youngest brother and they were so close that much of his strength was derived from the brother-sister relationship. She had held the family together when it went through many of the major crisis which would have split the family.

Mika, Annikki and I were the first to arrive (Finnish style - on time) and only my aunt was there. It was good to renew our association after 10 long years which had seen the demise of my mother and her husband. She is still the wonderful personality she has been since I attended her wedding in the late 1940s when this home had been our family home. Although modernised it was still a home that generated most pleasant me mores of our past. A fitting place for a family reunion.

Almost everyone of the family of my generation and the one after and their children attended. The only major omissions were my siblings and their spouses. They did not have the courage to show their faces as the hypocrisy and their behaviour as criminals would have not have been missed by all those present. They would have to answer just one question “My father died in 1993 and my mother in 2000. Where are their wills and assets?”

The only inheritance that I received was the magnificent zebra cloth hand-stitched art piece that Annikki had made for my mother and which had hung as a centrepiece in her home for all her life in both Bangalore and Madras. It now hangs in our home.

All the assets of my parents as well as the personal possessions Annikki and myself, and my personal assets which we had had left behind in India, had been carved up between my brother, my sister and my nephew in Australia. I cared a damn as these ill-gotten gains would haunt them through eternity!

The evening, thanks to their absence, was something which I can never forget. The love and affection showed by my cousins, their children and grandchildren who attended, was a tribute to my grandfather and grandmother, whose memory lived in all of those of my generation.

From the Oommen family we had three sisters, Accakuttykochamma, Mammikochamma and Ashwathykochamma and many from the generations after. From the Eapen family we had Kunjumonchayan and also many from the generations after. From the Varghese family, no members from my generation but a grand attendance from the generations after. The Philip family was represented by Senchayan. And from the Mammen Mappillai family, besides our hostess, Vinoo and Arunm and late Ravi’s wife, Meera, and many of the subsequent generations including one who will next August become a member of the family, attended. Two Stephanians in the lot. There was no one from the Cherian, Jacob and Mathew families in Chennai to attend.

The dinner was typical Kerala and was catered by one of the leading restaurant groups in Chennai. The food was superb and the atmosphere was so beautiful. And Vinoo (K. M. Mammen who is presently the Chairman and Managing Director of MRF Ltd.), Meera (wife of Ravi, Mrs. Meera Mammen, who looks after the real Human relations of MRF Ltd. staff and workers), and Arun (Arun Mammen, who is the Joint Managing Director of MRF Ltd.), who were the organisers of this event should be proud that, if they want they can bring together the family in a spirit of their grandfather. Although Annikki and I will not be here to partake in such events, as was expressed by Vinoo’s wife, Ambika, they need such events where family can be family.

I remember my family home in Mumbai and Bangalore, and finally in Chennai, was the meeting point of many generations, spurred by my mother. I hoped that a lesson was learned and understood that without family unity, no one would have been where they are today.