Edible Art 2

Whatever Annikki says or does it has a touch of art.

Pencil sketch (Annikki 1964)

Crayon still life (Annikki 1987)

Annikki did  pencil sketches, crayon and chalk paintings, 

Annikki designed house interiors,

 Annikki designed gardens, 

Annikki  designed cakes, 

Annikki designed children's education courses.

One friend once said that coming to our house was like coming to a personal museum! Not mine, but Annikki’s!

Another facet of Annikki which I highlight today is how she designed the way she served  food to me with a great touch of artistic humour.

She had an eye for art. For instance, when she saw this piece of ginger, she came running to show it to me!

When she was preparing salted salmon, our very traditional daily breakfast, she made these types of creations showing her amazing artistic touch.

Salted  salmon as a "butterfly".

Salted salmon as a Christmas tree,

 

Salted salmon as a bush!

Breakfast was always fun as Annikki would create a fun shape breakfast plate of healthy tasty stuff.

Fried egg and bread as a butterfly.

 with a sausage body

Omlette and sliced turkey as a butterfly.

Eggs, tomatoes, toast, sausages as an art creation.

Paprika, eggs, toast as an art creation.

A white mouse for breakfast?

Fried eggs and toast wing their way to  the breakfast table.

A ladybird for breakfast?

Butterfly of sausage and omlette for breakfast?

Toast, turkey slices, sausages, scrambled eggs, tomatoes keeps us interested!

Fried egg buffalo?

Fried egg on toast tastes delicious when served like this!

And she mixed her art as with the crochet work she created.

Sweets are sweeter from a crocheted basket

Eggs arrive in a crocheted basket

Sharon fruit are tasty from a crocheted basket and it comes along with the turtle!

Tomatoes are stored in a crocheted basket!

Crocheted duck carries the eggs

This was delicious! Anyone guess what it was?

Annikki was always surprising the family with the art she turned up with literally everywhere. 

I have shown just a few examples, but she always had something interesting and new for the children and me, even if it was just a cup of tea!

Life with Annikki for 56 years has been one roller coaster of fun! Amazing personality.

"EDUCATION" - Learning the Finnish Language

The Finns believe that Finnish is the most difficult language to learn as it has a highly complex grammar structure. This is certainly true. 

If you go to a normal Finnish language class you will find yourself quite frustrated as the teacher focuses on teaching the students this complex grammar.

This is not the way children learn any language. Little children communicate with others. As they build a vocabulary they learn how to structure the language. 

In my own case, I was busy learning Finnish at evening classes twice a week in Pohjankartano. In the meantime, our 13 year old daughter was playing and speaking with her Finnish friends in the neighbourhood and none of them spoke any English.

So I asked my teacher why this was so? 

She had no logical answer. 

I decided to learn Finnish the way my daughter had learned it.

I studied the way Finnish was spoken. The first difference I noted was that the alphabet was different to the English language and the language was highly phonetic. Especially difficultb was the letter "y" as the Finnish "y" sound has no equivalent in any Indian language but because of my knowledge of French, I knew it was equivalent to the "eu" sound in French.

I first mastered the Finnish alphabet. 

I then decided that I would not use the English language to study it as English the least phonetic of languages! 

As my "Delhi" Hindi was reasonable, I decided to use the phonetic basis of my poor Hindi to learn Finnish.

The second aspect I noted was I understood how Finnish was spoken. The first syllable of every word is stressed, so it was easy to follow the spoken language, word by word.

Then I did a study the normal words used by a Finn. In my fields of Plastics, Rubber  and Microelectronics, I found that there was a paucity of words in the Finnish language. 

The Finns had added words from German, English and Swedish liberally to their dictionary, making them fit to the structure of the language. For instance, my title at Oulu University was "yli insinööri Mikroelektronikka Laboratorio". Leaving aside the first word "yli" the other three were derived from English "Engineer, Microelectronics Laboratory".

I picked up a workbook  produced by BBC “List of first degree derived words from the “Technology Tomorrow Workbook””. 

I found that over 90%  of the words in Microelectronics were derived from English.

We had an interesting public debate at that time when we were working on Gas Sensors.  There was strong views in some circles that we should not use the word sensor, as in Finnish it was supposed to relate to censoring a movie or document. The debate became quite heated as the Finns wanted us to use the word "antuuri".

I let the debate reach a climax and then I threw the grenade.

I pointed out the word "antuuri" was derived from the English word “antenna", which was a sensing device.

A hush fell over those in the debate! :-)

Some language experts say that between 3000 to 5000 words is sufficient to consider oneself well on the way to understanding a language. When I did an analysis, because of my knowledge of Gerrman, French and English, my Finnish "derived" vocabulary was well over 10000 words. Of course, the bulk of the words were in the technical field.

However, I quickly started to apply these rules to my grocery shopping. Sugar was "sokeri", coffee was  "kahvi" and tea was "tee". I worked out my shopping list and started to use these first as single words and then started to create short sentences.

When I joined Oulu University, which was six months after coming to Finland, I had mastered enough of the language but I did not divulge my methodology. When I went  to take part in a business meeting between our laboratory and the Finnish Oil giant, Neste Oy, a month after my joining, my professor was quite surprised as I was busy making notes at the meeting.

I knew that if they knew I was following their spoken Finnish , the more prudent ones would have dropped into good Finnish, leaving me in the dark. 

I kept quiet about my method all through my life in University. I only revealerd it when Annikki and I wrote our book "Handbook For Survival in Finland" in 1994.

However, in my daily life I was able to carry on a normal life in Finland.

I did not, and still have not mastered written Finnish. I did not bother as Annikki was always there to help me out in difficult situations.

My sincere advice to all foreigners in Finland is that they should not fall into the trap that says the Finnish is a difficult language. This is especially true for those who have children. 

Send your children to Finnish schools rather than International Schools as the children will make great friends in their locality and these friendships can be valuable in life, even if they move out from Finland. 

Our children are now scattered around the world and yet they value their Indian and Finnish roots and traditions and are comfortable wherever they go.

In the fifties, Finland was recovering from the war . Poverty was widespread. There was no free food for children in schools, for instance. 

Annikki left Finland when she was just 17 and went to work in a Hospiz caring for old people in the more prosperous Sweden which had not been ravaged by war.

She learnt Swedish quickly. Then a colleague said there were more prospects in England to learn nursing. So off she went to England, but before she got into the system, she met me and she decided that she would concentrate on her inborn skills, language and art. She mastered English quickly as she had a devoted teacher! :-)

She then thought to broaden her horizons and moved to Germany and quickly mastered the German language as she was working with children.

She returned to Finland but love was in the air so she moved back to England. Soon after I graduated and got a job, the Findian culture was born. We were just 23 and 24 years old at that time!

We moved to Madras in India in 1969. She had to manage a huge house with four children. English speaking home help was expensive. She started to learn Sanskrit. I soon convinced her it would be bettter to learn Tamil as the children were already speaking it fluently. With a cook, maid, cleaner, gardener, two watchmen, a driver, and the shopkeepers in Panagal Park Market to communicate with, she quickly learnt Tamil and also learnt to understand Malayalam, as my mother mainly spoke that at home. She could not master spoken Malayalam as we Mallus have a horrible habit of rolling our tongues!

Life was great and when we left India she was heartbroken and kept her bags packed for 5 years to go back to the land she loved so dearly, India.

In our mind this is "education".

Regards, Findians

Proud Parents

Today we received some wonderful news. 

Last week we were also proud to watch our older daughter, Susanna, graduate with her Master’s Degree in Education from the Bishop Grosseteste University in Lincoln, England. 

One year ago our younger daughter, Joanna, got the Newcastle University Vice Chancellor’s Education Excellence Award 2022. 

And today we got a write up that Joanna had been named National Teaching Fellow (NTF).

“Winners of prestigious teaching excellence in higher education awards

Published on: 3 August 2023

Leading educators at Newcastle University have received prestigious accolades for making an outstanding impact on student outcomes and the teaching profession.

Innovative teaching approaches

Dr Joanna Matthan, Dean of Academic Affairs, Newcastle University, received her NTF for excellence in teaching within her subject area, anatomy, and her innovative teaching approaches.

She has also had significant impact in the development of a range of anatomy courses during the pandemic; her work on EDI and widening participation; and for her outstanding pastoral support for all her students.

Dr Matthan’s dedication to equality, diversity and inclusion, in particular, has been recognised, both at Newcastle University and wider across the higher education sector.

She said: “I am thrilled and honoured beyond measure to be recognised as a NTF and to represent my beloved Newcastle University in a forum that shares excellent practice across institutional boundaries.

“My ethos has always been to offer positive learning experiences and compassionate encounters for students, staff, patients, and healthcare professionals – and anyone I encounter – on this journey through academia.

“It has, however, only been possible for me to even begin to put theory into practice through having been nurtured and guided by numerous wonderful educational enablers inhouse and externally – and through collaborations with the Anatomical Society and other external organisations who have so graciously given me opportunities to thrive.”

Both of our daughters have been outstanding in whatever they have done. 

They take after their mother,Annikki, who is a person extraordinaire in her life work as wife, mother, grandmother, artist in several modes from sketching and painting, photography, cake design, garden design, crochet creativity, educationist, activist, author, researcher - and a role model for everyone around her!

Our hearts are filled with thanks to our dear Lord who has blessed us so fully in our years. 

Both our daughters have inherited the very best characteristics from their great grandparents, Dewan Bahadur Kuriyan “Mysore” Matthan and his wife and the Doyen of Kerala K. C. Mammen Mappillai and  his wife. 

We are honoured to call these two daughters our own as they prove their excellence in different parts of the world. 

They are the shining light of our worldwide Findians Community.

Indian Engineers pouring into Finland

The last two days has been busy looking at the issues facing Indian Engineers who are pouring into Finland, especially north Finland.

Yesterday, I had a talk with Vikas in Mumbai as he plans to come to Finland with his wife and 5 year old daughter. That is a problem as in Finland 5 year olds do not go to school, they go to Play School. This would be a problem when the child goes back to the fierce competitive life of little children there who work to a strict syllabus already from the age of 3.

I went to a school near where Vikas could find suitable accommodation, only to find it closed as the school is being renovated. I went to the International School to meet the Principal to discuss the problem, but she was away in Helsinki. I have to wait till Monday to try to find a solution.

In the meantime. I talked to my daughter, Joanna, who did her Master's thesis on Immersion learning. She suggested that the little girl be home-schooled so that she does not lose out on her status on Indian Education.

I spoke with one engineer, Raghu, who has been sent to a small town of Kajaani. He is another Keralite and hopefully I can get some locals to help him settle in.

Today I met up with 4 engineers now staying in a hotel in Oulu - Srinivasa from Vishakapatnam, Generous from Meghalaya, Seshukumar from Hyderabad and Mandar from Mumbai.

The guys are not equipped for the fast approaching winter and they did not know that if they shop in places like Stockman, their money won't go very far.

I will try to help them out next week by taking them to a few shops where they can get their necessities at reasonable prices.

(Seems there is an immediate demand to update the book "Handbook for Survival in Finland". Ilari mentioned that the book by Ildikó and him "Culture Shock Finland" is also being updated, but unfortunately they will only print that in German.)

I took my new friends to the City Goreme and introduced them to Mehmet. We had coffee and some freshly baked bread with garlic butter. As they had just had lunch, we split a vegetarian pizza amongst the four of them.

I also introduced them to Tapon of the New Bombay restaurant who is setting up a second restaurant adjacent to his present one. I am trying to convince Tapon to make it a South Indian Vegetarian restaurant as the number of vegetarians from India in Oulu is spiralling upwards.

The necessity is to find two houses for these engineers next to each other as soon as possible so that they can use a single kitchen while enjoying the luxury of two toilets. In Oulu it is quite difficult to find flats with more than just a single toilet. With all of the engineers having to set out to work at the same time, one toilet would be impractical.

One more friend will join them on Tuesday and we should have another 14 arriving later in the month.

How I wish they had an intensive orientation session BEFORE landing in Oulu. That way they could be more productive as soon as they land without going through the hardship of finding their legs in a strange environment.

Open letter to the Indian President

Posted on my Jacob's Blog, the Delhi Stephanian Kooler Talk Blog and the Mumbai Cathedralite Seventh Heaven Blog.

This just reached me. It is an is an open letter to the President of India submitted through the Governor of Karnataka. It is from Dr. Sajan George, who is the President of the Global Council of Indian Christians.

There are three major reasons that I am publishing this letter on my blogs.

First and foremost is that my grandfather held the post of First Member of the Privy Council of the Mysore Maharajah, a post given to a Christian by a Hindu who valued the individual and his capabilities rather than which ethnic minority the person hailed from.

My grandfather was a person from what is now known as Kerala and was not a Mysorean. But all through the State of Mysore, this Keralite and Christian was known as Mysore Matthan. Even 30 years after his death respect, when I was living in Maddur in Mandya District, was shown to me just because I was his grandson!

Many Matthan's have served the State, Mysore and Karnataka, selflessly and have yet practiced their faith without fear. After retirement they have considered Karnataka as their home. They are sons of the soil of Karnataka.

The second reason I am publishing this letter is that around the middle it draws attention to the controversial action by the Officiating Principal of my alma mater, St, Stephen's College, Delhi, about the admission policy that was introduced this year.

The third reason is that Prof. Ajeet Mathur, a fellow Cathedralite and Stephanian, was in Oulu a couple of weeks ago and gave an interesting talk. He holds the position of Director of the Institute of Applied Manpower Research of the Planning Commission of India. His Research Group is working on the 9% growth that is presently being seen in India and the rapid expansion of educational facilities to meet this need. 30 new Universities, 7 new Indian Institute of Technologies and many hundreds of thousands of educational institutions of every level requires a huge input of highly skilled and talented people of every level.

What message will such actions, as are described in the letter below, become knowledge of people who intend to come to work in India?

Here I am entertaining requests from many tens of Finns wanting to go and work in India and from Finnish companies wanting to find opportunities to establish their operations all over the Indian sub-continent.

What answer will I give them when they ask me about conditions prevailing in India for them to work safely in their jobs or to run their companies?

I shudder to think of the consequences to our National Policy if those who play for short term political gain are allowed to carry on regardless.

To Her Excellency The President of India,
Rashtrapathi Bhavan,
New Delhi

Through the Governor of Karnataka,
Raj Bhavan,
Bangalore

Your Excellency:

We offer our respectful greetings and humble salutations, on behalf of the Christians of India, especially those who have suffered greatly on account of their religious faith. In this regard, we submit the following for your kind and benevolent attention:

We are gravely concerned about the escalating violence being perpetrated against Christians in the state of Karnataka for the past 20 months, and we have evidence to clearly link the same to the change in the government at the state level. In other words, after the BJP came into the coalition, there has been a climate of impunity for any acts of violence that are committed in the name of Hindutva. To place the facts and relevant documentation on record, we herewith submit a detailed report on attacks against Christians in Karnataka between Jan 28th and July 29th 2007 wherein it is clear from the facts that unprovoked attacks by communal elements have occurred inside homes and the places of worship of Christians, as people are praying and worshipping within the privacy of their homes and churches. Later, the police are pressurized to file cases against the victims. The hardest blow to the victims however is the inaction and neglect of our just grievances by the law-and -order machinery and the State. In fact, the police officials in several cases have said that they have received orders from the Dy. Chief Minister and the local (usually BJP MLA)on how to act. Therefore, the widespread attitude (though not universal) is that of treating Christians as second class citizens. We have failed in numerous peaceful efforts to get justice, namely redressal of the violation of our Constitutional and Fundamental freedom of Religion and Conscience. We now approach your kind self in the hope that you who are well known for your secular outlook, will certainly take steps to ensure that justice and the right to constitutional remedies, hitherto denied to the majority of the Christian victims of persecution, will be made available to them in a speedy and time-bound manner.
.
The Christian Rights Rally in Bangalore held on 22nd June 07' was the largest gathering so far of victims of religious persecution by the communal forces in India, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, Gujarat to Orissa. Christians in Karnataka are observing Awareness Day on 22nd September 2007 to raise the awareness of the public against Christians in general and in Karnataka in particular and are converging on Bangalore to make their voice heard against the injustice meted out to them and share their experiences and agony and express solidarity with other victims of the extreme distress faced by the Christian community in India. They are joined by a number of persons from all walks of life, various Christian churches and groups including those from other faiths who came together to express solidarity and share their grief and sorrow.

Your Excellency, the Christian community - which continues to be a tiny 2.04% of this nation's population according to the 2001 Census data - has been at the forefront of service to the massive numbers of poor and needy in our country. Our patriotism and commitment to the nation has been tangibly expressed in the form of committed service to the deprived and disadvantaged sections of society in the fields of education, healthcare, and training in vocational services far in excess to our share in the population. A large section of the Christian community, including the cream of our young men and women have dedicated their lives to socially productive activities full-time. Even though they can easily choose to migrate to any country and enjoy a very good quality of life due to their qualifications, they choose to work in Indian running schools, hospitals, orphanages, leprosy rehabilitation centres, nursing schools, counselling centres, colleges which are known for their excellence, etc. Christians are among the largest groups intervening with people living with HIV/AIDS. They work among the poorest of the poor in remotest regions of the country, facing life-threats from the so-called "patriotic" Indians for their work, starting schools, spreading literacy and offering primary health care where state interventions are totally neglected or absent. Their inspiration is the life of Jesus Christ, known for spending his brief and youthful life on this earth in healing the sick, and reaching out to the disabled, the untouchables and the downtrodden those rejected by mainstream society, in preaching the "good news to the poor". His personal example continues to inspire people all over the world and down the ages to express their faith through service to fellow-human beings through a life dedicated to God's will.

Despite this track record of committed service to the Indian people, Christians are constantly referred to by their detractors as foreigners and as people having allegiance to forces outside the country. How long do we need to keep on proving our credentials as full citizens, peace-loving, law-abiding and committed to the advancement of the nation? When India was a nascent state, Christians showed their confidence in the Constitution and their trust in the mainstream by declining reservation in the seats in Parliament. This shows how well the Christian community consider themselves integrated into society. It is sad that the degeneration of the political climate has caused Christians in India to be isolated from the
mainstream by small, noisy, violent groups of communally divisive elements who attempt to damage the pluralism that has been the most abiding characteristic of Indian society for centuries, by bringing pressure on the police and the judicial system. These communal forces raise their voices and weapons against this tiny, dedicated, service-oriented and peace-loving community. They engineer increasingly violent and murderous attacks against not only the Christians themselves but also those whose hope for a better future is kindled by the compassionate service and love shown by these dedicated citizens of India: there are allegations that Christians "convert" those who they serve.

There are attempts to demonise the Christian community through allegations of force, fraud and inducement to convert - through offering services such as education or jobs. Laws aimed at "preventing conversion through force, fraud and inducement" have been passed in several states. But despite several decades of these laws existence, not a single case has ever been successfully prosecuted under these laws. What then is the reason for their existence except to serve as a threat to those who serve the poor? Some of the Christian service institutions in the country have been functioning for over a hundred years, but has the population in the surrounding areas converted enmasse? To the contrary, every year, 8 million students come out of the portals of Christian institutions. Can anyone prove that even 0.001 % of this group has "converted" as a result of indoctrination? Then what is the motivation for these false claims?

We assert that the real reason is that these vested interests and their children, community and class actually welcome and enjoy the services provided by the well-established and older Christian educational and health institutions located in cities and towns. But they do not want availability of these facilities to the poor and disadvantaged in rural and tribal areas. As long as some welfare and charity work is done there is no problem, but when hitherto voiceless and powerless sections of Indian society begin to get education and a socially empowered self-image there is a huge reaction. Witness the outcry against the management of St. Stephen's College, Delhi, for announcing reservations in seats to some of the disadvantaged sections of society, something well within their constitutional rights. The progress of the subaltern groups is not tolerated by those who have enjoyed the fruits of the economic, social and political marginalization of the subaltern groups in India. There is fear that if these groups, hitherto marginalised, become educated and aware, the access of the elites to power, their social and economic status will be eroded. Therefore, they mislead young and gullible sections from the subaltern groups to attack the defenceless Christians, while keeping themselves free of the taint of violence.

In the wake of the recent exposure of these manipulations a violence in the electronic media, who gave publicity to violence against Christian workers, these groups are attempting a damage control exercise. But the nation has now woken up to the grim reality of the extreme, brutal and widespread violence against the Christian community all over the country which has so far been successfully kept from the public by a mostly (though not entirely) complaisant media. Several Christian groups have attempted to highlight these attacks with very little response. However, we must mention that in some cases the National Human Rights Commission and the National Commission for Minorities have responded positively and taken steps to ensure that the matters were enquired into. Justice delivery, however has been slow if not totally absent in most cases.

Also complicit in the "invisibilisation" of these outrages are some lower-level functionaries in the police and judiciary who have often abused their positions to harass and deny Christians their constitutional rights, and support the anti-social and unconstitutional excesses of the Sangh Parivar activists. Even cases of murder of Christian pastors and workers have not been investigated. Due to their own ideological learning towards the communalists most cases the police refuses to file an FIR or take up the matter with any enthusiasm. It goes without saying that these officials would not get away with these actions if it were not for the patronage of politicians allied with the BJP and Sangh organizations.

In view of the above facts, we therefore humbly request your Excellency

1. to call for an independent investigation into the atrocities against the Christian minorities in India, and especially in Karnataka in the recent past, by a specially empowered group in a speedy and time-bound manner. GCIC pledges its support to such an enquiry.


2. To enquire into the reason for the blatant discrimination by the State law-and-order machinery and the judiciary in the matter of incidents against Christians, and their support to the unconstitutional activities and antisocial behavior of persons against the Christians.


3. In cases where undue delay in investigations are established, to fix responsibility at the appropriate level and take punitive administrative and criminal action against those responsible.


4. Baseless reports against the Christians and Christian institutions in the vernacular media have fuelled hate crimes against the Christians in several states, notably Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Maharashtra, and Gujarat.


5. Specifically, we want to bring to your notice that there has been a rape of an 8-year old girl, a daughter of an impoverished Dalit worker in Bidar for her religious identity. F.I.R 100/07 in Nenyara Police station Bidar District, Karnataka state, has been registered and we have brought the matter to the notice of the National Human Rights Commission and National Commission for Women.


6. Finally, Your Excellency, we humbly call upon your kind self to exercise your Constitutional Authority and repeal the 1950 Presidential Ordinance which has denied the Constitutional Rights of Christians of Dalit Descent.
   
   Through this one action, you will create history by righting the historical wrongs against a deprived and oppressed section of Indian Society and earn the immense gratitude of millions.

We remain,

Yours faithfully,

Dr. Sajan George, President, Global Council Of Indian Christians

Let us be clear, it is not the common folk of Karnataka who are following this route, but, as usual, those who are lobbying for power.

I am grateful to John Dayal for drawing my attention to this letter and the issues that it highlights.