I finally got it

(Also posted on the Kooler Talk Blog!)

I have been waiting almost three years to get my hands on this. I had asked several friends passing through Delhi to try and pick it up. with no success.

The very day I arrived in Delhi, I went to the nearby store and asked if it was available.

First they said it was, but after a search, they said it wasn't.

They promised that they would order it for me. They did it straight away. They told me it would come immediately.

That was on the Monday the 30th of November. I have been going almost every day to check whether it had arrived.

Imagine my joy when I went in this evening and found it had come.



I quickly thumbed through it and found where my Kooler Talk Web Version was mentioned. On page 85.

Sadly, probably the only spelling mistake in the book is the name of the town where I live - it has been spelt as Ouli whereas it should be Oulu!



Not that it matters. Unfortunately the URL

http://koolertalk.blogspot.com

has not been given, so many will not know how to reach the longest surviving version of Kooler Talk!

The book "St. Stephen's College : A History" was written by Ashok (Tony) Jaitly. Tony was three years ahead of me in school in Mumbai and also the same in college. He was a great sportsman, much like his brother, Ravi. He is also a wonderful friend as are all the Jaitly family.

As I went through this book, I found it very readable.

I think I am going to enjoy my flight to London from Mumbai on Sunday night as I get through this book. It will provide me much material for the blog as I recall many of the incidents recounted therein!

Unfortunately, things are getting worse as far as the College is concerned.

Such immature childishness is hard to understand. It was reported in today's newspaper that the Bishop has now filed a show cause notice against the College Chaplain for being outside his house with some protesters.

Does it not as if he is behaving like the Pharisees and Sadducee's when the went after Jesus Christ?

Delhi hosts us

It was so great that the Delhi Cathedralites Alumni organised a special event so that Annikki and I could meet with them yesterday.

Two of us present were wearing the new Alumni tie - 49er Yezad and myself. Deepak has one, but he thought the event was informal, so did not wear it. After all, he organised it, so his strict definition of "smart casual" was tieless! :-)

The Cathedralite Delhi Chapter had so thoughtfully brought back a tie for his classmate, Jamshed, which was presented to him at the occasion by Yezad. I was so touched that Jamshed made it to the party.



Among those who attended included 49ers Jamshed Desai, Raj Bhandari and Yezad Kapadia (with wife Rati). 54er Rahul Bajaj, Savage House Captain and also a Stephanian, stayed back in New Delhi especially to be present at the occasion. Ravi Jaitly, another 54er attended with his wife Krishna. 55er Anil (Bobby) Bhalla was present. 56er Pradeep Anand was there. The 57ers present was Tony (Ashok) Jaitly, who is also a Stephanian, and Annelita (nee Uttamsingh) Thadani and her husband, Ravinder K Thadani (Baby). 58ers were represented by Maiti Sayal. 59ers included Harmo Rani Malik (née Uberoi) accompanied by her daughter, 82er Priya and Vijay Nayar, (and myself). 60ers were Dellinder Kohli and Jotsyna Singh (née Jaitly) accompanied by her husband, my Stephanian classmate, HE Ambassador Siddarth Singh, and the 64er present was Deepak Deshpande who organised the entire event with the help of his colleague, my fellow mallu from Alleppy, Joceylin. (Dellinder Kohli left early, so is missing from the photograph. Also missing in this picture is Deepak's lovely daughter, Pallavi, whom I got to talk to quite a bit about journalism. Pallavi took the group picture with our camera. Thanks!)

The food was simply superb and served scrumptiously. I had a bit too much of everything, especially the delicious sweeets.



The Delhi Alumni presented Annikki and me with a wonderful gift, "The Speaking Tree Collection" of the Times of India column in 4 Volumes plus an extra volume, entitled "Inspiration for the Soul".

It was so touching that they had chosen to honour us both in this fashion.

(I was also so happy that Deepak thoughtfully arranged it that all those who helped in running the event also got their share of the food.)

Surprise Party

In Finland, the 40th birthday is usually well celebrated. Tony will be 40 on the 23rd of April.

From Tony's 40th Birthday

Chief mischief maker! Joanna with Maria and Tony.

As Joanna had to return by today, 19th April, Tony's company, LudoCraft Oy and Joanna organised a surprise party for his work-mates and his family.

Tony objects to such events, so the secret had to be total.

From Tony's 40th Birthday

Birthday boy with Samu.

From Tony's 40th Birthday

Cutting the delicious cake.

How Joanna and his work colleagues managed this, I do not know. But they lured him to the party place on Friday evening. He was surely surprised to find all his colleagues and his family assembled there for a great event.

From Tony's 40th Birthday

Brother-in-law, Teemu, sister, Heidi, father, Seppo and mother, Maire.

An Indian meal (Chicken Biriyani, Vegetable Pulav, Rogan Josh, Dhal Makhani, Garlic Nan and Nan with Raita) was served up by The Royal Garden, Indian Cuisine Section. As they promised, the food never ran out although everyone ate more than enough.

The three cakes made by the Huovisen Leipomo (Bakery) with a toffee topping and especially meant for allergic eaters, was outstanding.

There was plenty of coke and orange fizzy drinks as well as fruit juices for everyone. Joanna had brought plenty of spicy Indian Bombay Mixes from Newcastle. Crisps were very popular! The alcohol flowed like water, with champagne, whiskey and beer topping the table.

There were plenty of computer games for the addicts - which is everyone in Tony's company.

From Tony's 40th Birthday

Annikki and Daniel.

From Tony's 40th Birthday

Daniel.

Annikki and I made a soft exit at around 10 pm along with the two younger grandchildren. With the help of Ani, Joanna's right and left hand, we managed to get the two little ones to sleep.

Joanna, Tony and Samu returned just after 3 am, and also just about 15 minutes before little Maria woke up. Daniel obviously ate too much at the party, mainly crisp. When he got home and had a couple of slices of pizza, he had stomach pain and cried in his sleep till he threw up the excess, without waking up!

From Tony's 40th Birthday

Ildikó and Alma.

Altogether a very exciting 40th birthday celebration, and we have to wait for the next one when Joanna turns this age, about a decade from now! :-)

Wow: 10 days.......

How time flies. It has been 10 days since my last posting. Annikki and I have been up to our necks doing all sorts of things.



Annikki’s mother went into her new Old Peopler’s Home for the first time on the 2nd. When we visited her we found that they were keeping her in bed and she was losing muscle strength. So we had to visit her everyday till we ensured that they were keeping her mobile.




Then Annikki was able to visit Joanna and her new granddaughter. We had a tough time as the little baby had no name. I started calling her Kochmol. But on Friday last, Joanna informed me that the baby is probably getting a name - the world’s most used name, but the Finnish version is not so common.

Maria is the choice of Tony, while Rebecca was the choice of Joanna. Maria (related from Mariam, Mary) seems to have won the day. Both Annikki and I think it is a lovely name.

Remember Tony and Maria in West Side Story? That was Tony’s rationale for choosing that.

We know a couple of Maria’s and they are wonderful people. First there is Shantakochamma’s and Mohanchayan’s (Dr. K. O. Mammen) daughter to whom I used to tell Noddy stories (not Enid Blyton’s but those made up by me) to in the 70s. And then there is Maria Tuominen who became a great friend of the family in the late 70s when she and her family were in India and their son, Kari, became part of our family.

I had a gruelling schedule, but a very enjoyable one. Take Samu to school every morning and bring him back in the afternoon, play hide-and-seek with Daniel, tell him two to three Jungle Boy stories (again those which are made up on the spur of the moment), look at a few nature books and then have tea and biscuits with him while Samu enjoy’s his late afternoon meal that Joanna has kept ready for him.

Besides this many of the new Indians in Oulu have been pushing me to help them in different ways. I have been doing that with some pleasure. It is so wonderful to have such a vibrant community of Indians here.

The combined CHAFF and O-India lunch meeting at the Crecian Restaurant (Sunday before last) was really wonderful as Cypriot Andreas and his Finnish wife gave us a great treat.

We have been busy designing the O-India web site and there have been many discussions in progress on the O-India Google Group. This has meant regular review meetings once or twice a week and a lot of reading the inputs and editing it to be suitable when put on site.

The routine was so hectic that last Monday I actually overslept and did not get up to get Samu to school. But Tony stepped in and took him. I really felt terrible at my lapse, but the body was speaking about my schedule.

Finally I had the eye check up at the Oulu University hospital. Cataract was ruled out. There is only mild “glittering”. However, I suffer from quite severe myopia and the doctor has prescribed that I do not use the multi-focal lenses but separate ones for reading and long distance vision. I do not know how I will get used to that after having used multifocals for over 15 years!

And since winter has been so mild, I have not been using the scooter as the roads have been quite treacherous. I used it yesterday as we had a cold spell for a couple of days so there was quite a lot of grit put on the cycle tracks where we are allowed to drive the scooter. It is still quite dangerous, but I enjoyed being on the scooter again. However, it will be good when spring arrives and I can be more mobile on the two wheeler.



And not to forget - we had the world first - Annikki and Samu's Mobile Snowman sliding down the snow-slide - and I have been trying to put together the movie about this historic event. The video was shot by one of our new Indian friends in Oulu, Vishwanath Mallabadi, who is a professional photographer.

Hopefully the next blog entry will not be in another 10 days!

Pleased as punch?

Posted on my Jacob's Blog, the Oulu CHAFF Blog, the Mumbai Cathedralites Seventh Heaven Blog and the Delhi Stephanians Kooler Talk Blog.

Does the term "pleased as punch" refer to the condition after drinking an ample amount out of the Punch Bowl (remember Annikki and I are teetotallers) or is it some condition of Punch in the "Punch and Judy" Show?

However, Annikki and I were pleased as punch yesterday, whatever the origins of this phrase.

As was conveyed to most of you by "Manorama JM" yesterday, our younger daughter, Joanna and her husband, Tony, have produced their 3rd child, 3.49 kg in weight, 52 cm in length, at 15:35 on Sunday 20th January 2008.

Samuel and Daniel are very happy with their new baby sister, who is our second granddaughter, and just as beautiful as lovely Asha in England.

Our new granddaughter.

Daniel with his sister.

Samuel and Daniel with their sister.

Samuel with his sister.

Joanna watches her brood after the proceedings of the day.

I took these pictures (with my camera which is held together by sticky tape) at the hospital for Annikki, who cannot leave the house as she is looking after her mother. Grandmom was so pleased to be part of the event! And greatgrandmom was also quite thrilled to hear the news.

Annikki is the only one, who from the time she saw Joanna in mid-December, has been saying that the baby would be a girl!

Knowing Samuel and Daniel, this little girl is likely to grow up as a tomboy!