Unparalled beauty alongside tragedy

As I stepped out at midday today, to go an pick up Mika from his water immersion physiotherapy, I drove out of the gate, and was struck by the scenery in front of me.

I stopped the car, got out and clicked this photograph.

Scenery from gate of Vesaisentie, Oulu, Finland.

When one is surrounded by such beauty on a normal day, at one's door step, it is difficult to see much further than the tip of one's nose.

But inside the house, on TV, scenes of tragedy from Haiti were just unfolding.

One was forced to think how unfair life can be.

As I witnessed the scenes from Haiti, Pot-au-Prince was a city of 50,000 which now housed 10 million, I thought back to my visit to Bangalore, a city of 120,000 which now houses 8 million. The civic society there has collapsed. Building activity, authorised and unaithorised, matches the economic growth by many fold as people crowd into this city. The pumping of ground water, legally and illegally, goes on. The level of corruption is increasing every hour, as only money talks!

Those who have read Annikki's book "...for the hour of his judgement is come:..." (The Holy Bible, Revelations, 14:7) will know that Bangalore is in an earthquake prone. We lived through one in 1984. More than 5 on the Richter scale.

Such building and construction activity which goes on presently in Bangalore does so with a blind eye being turned to quality and safety. Even if the contractors want to do an honest job, the sheer chaos that prevails in the city means that they cannot!

What has hit Port-au-Prince could well hit Banaglore.

I sincerely hope not. But it is something all who live and work there must take seriously, and SOON! It is your life which is bering put at risk.

Integration Council members

I read today in the Indian Telegraph about the new "Minority boost to integration council".

Here are the names of people that may be on that council:

The Telegraph has learnt that the proposed names include those of Justice A.M. Ahmadi, Omar Abdullah, Salman Khurshid, Syed Shahabuddin, Asaduddin Owaisi, Shahid Lateef, Shabnam Hashmi, John Dayal, Ramdas M. Pai (president and chancellor, Manipal University), Valsan Thampu (St Stephen’s College principal), Roman Catholic Archbishop Vincent M.C. Concessao, Ratan Tata, Rahul Bajaj, N.R. Narayana Murthy and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw.

Recognise some names in that list?

Shahid Lateef is the wife of 62er Stephanian Sarwar Lateef. John Dayal is a Stephanian, as also present Principal of the College, Rev. Valsan Thampu. Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament, Rahul Bajaj, is both a 58er Stephanian and also a 54er Cathedralite. Ratan Tata was a Cathedralite for a part of his education. I have not had the good fortune to meet him personally, although his younger brother, Jimmy, was a close friend and my hockey mate.

During my recent visit to Delhi I did meet John, Valsan and Rahul.

John broke protocol and came to see me the day I was leaving. He had just got back from Orissa and he came over that morning just to spend a few minutes over breakfast. And I did say a short prayer, holding hands with him, for his devoted work for the people of India. Maybe this is where I show him the meaning for that prayer.

I met Thambu at the St. Stephen's Founder's Day celebration on Monday 7th December, where I took part in the Holy Communion Service in the College Chapel, and then at the proceedings in the College Assembly Hall where former Indian President Abdul Kalam was the Chief Guest.

Sadly I do not see Valsan as a man with much vision at this moment of time. Hopefully God will lead him in the right direction if he gives up his ways of playing politics for power!

And Rahul paid me the greatest tribute by staying on a extra day in Delhi to be present at an event organised by Delhi Cathedrtalite to meet with Annikki and me. Having led an industry to the zenith, he now has a wondeful opportunity to show his fellow men that he has the vision to lead minorities to the centre of Indian society as equals.

Sadly, I did not learn till later that Sarwar and Shahid were in Delhi, as otherwise I would certainly have met up with this very dear couple. Shahid has always been at the forefront of the women's movement as well as a powerful spokesperson for uplifting of Muslim women.

I do hope this Council will stop beating about the bush and get a move on, not on the antiquated model of reservation of seats for the minorities in schools, colleges and jobs, but by uplifting the hearts and minds of these people labelled as minorities, into them thinking that they can compete on equal terms with the best of the world. They are not second class citizens of the world, so let us stop treating them as such.

You treat people as weak and they will be weak. You treat them as human beings and they can outstrip the very best.

Look at the fantastic performance of the black community in sports in the USA and UK (and also Kenya, Ethiopia, Jamaica, Canada, France, etc., etc.). They do not need to be treated as weak and powerless minorities. Given the right role models, they will bring in performances that are better than the best of their more fortunate brothers and sisters.

That itself is the tonic for success, not reservations, which is the sure tonic for failure!

I remember the words of my friend, former Ambassador Niranjan Desai, while we were having lunch together at the International Centre just a few weeks ago. He said that by treating the minorities as we do presently, we will not achieve any improvement in their standards.

I fully agree with his reasoning. This Integration Council should start looking at other ways to uplift the ethnic minorities in India than stupid and unrealistic reservation policies!

Recognise inherent cultural and ethnic talents. Build on successes. Do not force people into streams where they are doomed to fail.

In short, I hope this council will bring forward a new vision to the way we handle the integration of minorities into mainstream society!

Irrational unhappiness?

During our recent vist to India, many things were very pleasing, but an equal number were displeasing.

One possibly irrational view was that I could never lay hands on a Telephone Directory in any Indian city!

Everyone told me I should ring "Just Dial" which has many access numbers, all particular for the city you are in.

I did just that. After the first call, when I dialed in the second time, I was addressed by my name, even before I said "Hello".

Just Dial was quite efficient in tracking information and sending it to me, either as a text message or to my internet email address. However, the appropriateness of such a response was far from satisfactory.

I asked for a colour photocopy service near to Tardeo In Mumbai. I was referred to one near Thane which also "serviced" the Tardeo region.

Aditionally, many of the requests got blank replies - no trace. Further, Just Dial is an Yellow Page Service and not able to locate private phone ummbers.

For that I was directed to 118, (I think).

This phone number was unable to locate even one of my enquiries, and being a Government service, the replies were rude and lethargic, and more than once, I was simply just cut off.

I still think the traditional Telephone Directory is something that cannot be replaced. I may want several pieces of interlinked information, as each subsequent request may be triggered by what I read in an entry. Just Dial would never be able to give me such a response except by multiple calls.

It is never a cut and dried piece of information that I would be looking for.

In short, dialing Just Dial, is a waste of my time and theirs, however nice, courteous and polite the operators may be. (And they were!)

Why am I irrational?

It is unnecessary to waste so much paper in printing Diectories as maybe 90% of every Directory is not required by any user.

However, even in the home of technology, Oulu, I get about 3 different Directories every year, and they are all used for a variety of purposes.

Every Directory has a Cty Map with index. I am able to locate places just before leaving from my home or office and not have to use my GPS system all the time.
Every Directory contains the Post Codes of locations. I am able to get information when writing a letter.
Every Directory has Emergency Numbers as well as numbers for priority services. This is vital when one needs to tackle the bureucracy.
Every Directory contains the names of all the lawyers and advocates, and similar services. The choice of a particular lawyer or service can be made based on one's personal preferences.

Maybe an interactive Reader on every phone with direct access to online directories would make sense. But these easily accessible directories must be complete and definitely better than the present day online Directories on the internet, which are slow and incomplete in many ways.

They do not work as per the demands of the customer. They work as envisaged by a few software designers!

There are many tens of reasons why I would like to carry a Directory, both in my briefcase as well as my car, and have one on my telephone table at home and at work.
Although I have been using the internet for over two decades and am familiar with all the services, and although I come from where the mobile phone revolution was born and do have access to many service numbers, as Just Dial, I still say, in my own irrational way: Do not discard the traditional Telephone Directory, Hard Copy.

Useless Terrorist profiling

This post should be under my JM Politics Blog, but I thought it important enough to get multiple exposure, so it is also posted on my main "Jacob's Blog".

I just read an excellent article in Think Progress, January 6, 2010, by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Zaid Jilani, and Alex Seitz-Wald: "TERRORISM: The Wrong Kind Of Profiling" (reproduced below, Copyright acknowledged) which highlighted how the right wing conservatives in the US and other countries are talking about ethnic and racial profiling, as they consider all Muslims as terrorists before they board an aircraft, etc.

TERRORISM
The Wrong Kind Of Profiling

Following the attempted Christmas Day terrorist attack by 23-year old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a public debate has erupted over the proper way to prevent terrorists and other criminals from endangering airline passengers in the future. While many politicians, pundits, and public policy leaders have engaged in responsible and rational discussions about the intelligence failures that allowed Abdulmutallab to bring bomb materials on an aircraft, a whole host of conservatives have endorsed racial and ethnic profiling that would seek out terror suspects simply on the basis of the color of their skin or religious identity. While many right wingers seem to be comfortable with succumbing to racist and nativist hysteria, the truth is that racial and ethnic profiling is tremendously ineffective. A more rational approach to profiling based on behavior -- rather than race or identity -- would help keep Americans safe while maintaining our civil rights and constitutional freedoms.

THE RIGHT'S EXTREMIST REACTION: It wasn't long after Abdulmutallab's failed attack that conservative pundits and politicians began to call for racial and ethnic profiling of people from Muslim backgrounds. Right-wing radio host Mike Gallagher argued for separate lines at airports to "scrutinize anybody with the name Abdul or Ahmed or Mohammed," which are some of the most common names in the world. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) said, "One hundred percent of the Islamic terrorists are Muslim, and that is our main enemy today. So why should we not be profiling people because of their religion?" Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wrote a column on Human Events titled "On Terrorism it's Time to Know, to Profile, and to Discriminate," in which he claimed that "cultural sensitivities" are preventing security officials from stopping terrorism; the next day, Gingrich clarified his comments by saying he thinks that profiling should be based "on behavior, not ethnic ... [or] racial profiling." Perhaps the most brazen call for ethnic profiling came from retired Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, who declared, "If you are an 18 to 28-year old Muslim man then you should be strip searched. And if we don't do that, there's a very high probability that we're going to lose an airliner."

WHY RACIAL PROFILING DOESN'T WORK: The fact is that racial and ethnic profiling doesn't work. It creates a false sense of security and causes law enforcement resources to be wasted in chasing the wrong targets. As the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights' reports, racial profiling "diverts precious law enforcement resources away from investigations of individuals...who have been linked to terrorist activity by specific and credible evidence...[and] ignores the possibility that someone who does not fit the profile may be engaged in terrorism." Indeed, On Dec. 28, two Middle Eastern men were pulled off a flight heading to Phoenix because passengers reported they were engaging in suspicious behavior; it ended up that the men were simply speaking a Middle Eastern language. The same day, a Nigerian businessman was taken off an airplane because passengers became suspicious that he was lingering in the bathroom for too long. The FBI confirmed that the individual's behavior was due to a legitimate illness. It's important to note that terrorists come in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and do not simply belong to one religion, ethnicity, or nationality. The "shoe bomber," Richard Reid, was Jamaican and British. Al Qaeda recruit Adam Pearlman was an American. Germaine Lindsay, one of London's 7/7 bombers, was Afro-Caribbean. Scott Roeder, who killed abortion-performing doctor George Tiller last year, was a white evangelical Christian. Racial profiling would, as Salam Al-Marayati of the Muslim Public Affairs Council notes, extend our police dragnet over "potentially hundreds of thousands of [innocent] people every year" and drain precious resources away from other, more important security measures. And as a recent study by the Proceedings of the National Academies of Science concludes, racial profiling has been no more effective than random screening in rooting out terrorists.

A BETTER WAY: While racial and ethnic profiling is a failed strategy that goes against our basic values, there are smarter profiling methods that police and other security officials can use to prevent acts of terrorism. A memo titled "Assessing Behaviors" circulated by law enforcement officials in October 2002 outlined such a strategy. One of the writers of the memo pointed out, "Fundamentally, believing that you can achieve safety by looking at characteristics instead of behaviors is silly. If your goal is preventing attacks...you want your eyes and ears looking for pre-attack behaviors, not characteristics." Former Bush counterterrorism officials have also objected to racial profiling and point out that looking for suspicious behavior is much more important. Former Bush CIA director Michael Hayden said that seeking out terrorists isn't "a question of ethnicity or religion." Rather, "it's what people do that we should be paying attention to." Former Bush Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff argued that "relying on preconceptions or stereotypes is actually kind of misleading and arguably dangerous" because terrorists intentionally recruit people "who don't fit the stereotype." Philip Baum, editor of Aviation Security International, suggests "effective profiling...is based on the analysis of the...behavior of a passenger and an inspection of the traveler's itinerary and passport; it does not and should not be based on race, religion, nationality or color of skin." As former Homeland Security press secretary Russ Knocke explained in 2006, security personnel are, and should be, trained "to look for abnormal human behavior. ... That is in no way racial profiling. That is behavioral profiling."

The article shows the stupidity of such an act as ethnic and racial profiling, as valuable resources are squandered.

It is my "contention of 1" that Al Qaida and other terrorist groups are flying out all sorts of schemes just to throw the entire security apparatus into a tizzy. The more failed attempts, the better for them, as the stupid security analysts start chasing shadows rather than real targets.

That pResident Bush went about wire tapping and searching his entire US population (just to stay ahead of his political opponents) shows how this sort of behaviour by a meglomaniac has squandered the valuable resources of an intelligence community.

Obama has fallen into the same trap. In his recent speech he talked about the failure to connect dots. The reason is that with one million or a billion dots to connect, even with super fast computers, this is impossible. It is easy to see this in hindsight!

During my recent trip to India I passed through so many security checks - Helsinki, London, Mumbai, Cochin, Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad, Delhi. Every single airport followed a different procedure. Every single airport failed to focus on the real problem - separating the real and honest traveller from the potential terrorist. Hence, 99.9% of the procedure was just a waste of valuable resources.

If I were a terrorist, one look at these illogical procedures would have given me 200 ways on how to beat the system. That is what Al Qaida and other terrorist organisations are focusing on.

The security analysts want to show us they are doing a great job (to get a greater allocation of financial resources and to show important they are), but all they are doing is following a set of useless procedures.

As one writer put it, soon we will be travelling on airplanes in the NUDE - but then they will need to do an internal body scan, so we will all be cut open before we get on the plane. Great news for surgeons!

Stupid? Well, that is how stupid the present procedures are, and everyone mutters, "Oh, this is to keep US safe!" (No pun intended!)


We are no safer now than we were 25 years ago. In fact, every new procedure the security analysts introduce makes us less safe as it cuts out one more method the terrorists would have considered. They will concentrate on other more effective methods while sending the security analysts barking up the billion wrong trees!.

Last day of Christmas

In Finland, we have had a holiday today, as it is the last official day of Christmas. But I noted that all the guys here from India were busy working from home, as their contacts in India were not on holiday.

The Christmas sales, etc., should technically have stopped yesterday, as today is a bank and commercial holiday. But many shops still have loads of stuff left over from the Christmas season, so you should find plenty of bargains in the shops during the next few days.

As the days get longer and brighter, do not be surprised if it also gets colder, right up till the middle of February, when, if we are lucky, it should get warmer.

The skiing season will then start on a rotation basis, with the students in South Finland, the first to get their winter skiing holidays. The next week it will be the turn of those in central Finland, followed, the folowing week by those in North Finland.

Many head up to the Arctic where skiing conditions should be just perfect, both for long distance as well as down-hill skiing. There is plenty of sunshine and plenty of snow.

The Tar Skiing Compettion in Oulu (Tervahiihto) is very famous. It is held at the end of the second week of March.

I brought together a lot of foreigners in 1999 and we took part in the race. A friend of mine who worked in the same project gave us all elementary lessons on how to ski, but it was mainly how to get up when you fall down with long unwieldy flat sticks attached to your legs!

It is the one ski race I attempted 11 years ago, when I put on skiis for the first time in my life at the age of 56 and completed a 20 km ski course. It started on the frozen Oulu River and ended at the Oulu Sports Dome.

I hobbled in at the end of 20 km and got a certificate to prove I had taken part (and probably proudly come in among the last 10).

However, it proved that even at that age you may be able to start skiing, although, I must say that I probably tore every muscle and ligament in my body attempting this feat!

The following year I supervised the entry by the foreigners, while I stayed well out of harm's way! :-)

Frozen banana

In all my 25 years in the Arctic, I have never forgotten any food in the back of the car, especially in winter.

Well, finally I did it. Two bags, one containing bananas and the other containing some nice seedless green grapes, dropped out of my shopping bag onto the back seat of the car. I left them there overnight.

When I reached office the next morning I saw a brown mass in a plastic bag, and wondered what it was.

When I took it ou,t I found the banana bunch, hard as rock and the colour had turned from a golden yellow to a brown.

I ciút one open with a knife.



After it thawed, I tried to eat it, but there was no taste. As it got up to room temperature, the banana was mushy and uneatable.

Not so with the grapes. They too turned to brown, nearing red, making them closer looking to red grapes. (Is this how red grapes originated?)

I did not try a hard grape, but as they thawed the flavour had not deteriorated and it was just a superficial colour change.

As they say, you live and learn.

Coldest winter in 7 years

I had one tenant arrive at 00:40. I dropped that person off at our apartment, got a couple of hours sleep, as the next one arrived by the 06:15 train from Helsinki.

As I glanced through the Kaleva, our local newspaper, before leaving for the station, the headline was that we are having our coldest prolonged winter in the last 7 years.

The year we came to Finland, 1984, was really cold. In end January and early February we had a long spell of -30 C and lower.

Then for a long period the winters were milder. Or, was it that they appeared milder because of that first hard one?

Now, on our return from India, we have had a really long and cold winter, not just that it seems cold because we have returned from India.

But one must remember that in mid-October, when we were driving down to Helsinki to catch our flight to India, we already went through blizzard like conditions almost all the way through our 600 km journey.

I can certainly say that we have had a really long winter in Finland. And if, what the Kaleva writes is correct, we are certainly having a really cold one!

The temperature last night on the Russian border, just 200 km away, was -36.5 C last night! (We really do live just 200 km away from our mighty neighbours!!!)

We are certainly obsessed with the weather!

Angry at Police incompetence

Although I have a bee in my bonnet, at this moment I am not still riling about the most incompetent bank in the world, the ICICI Bank in India, but the total incompetence of the Finnish Police.

I received information about the killings in Espoo from Facebook friends from far and wide. They were expressing their amazement at the killings in a peaceful country, Finland.

I was unaware of the developments till about noon. Then messages and emails started to pour in asking what was the reason for this tragic situation in a peaceful country.

(My first reaction, not knowing anything about the incident at that stage, was that it was probably the work of an Open Care Psychiatric patient, as in Finland they are closing psychiatric wards and letting these patients out to fend for themselves. A stupid policy with serious repercussions.)

These killings of today were totally unnecessary. The responsibility lies totally with the Finnish Police. They were incompetent, as for generations of a Police State, have been the masters of being behind the rich and powerful - in short corrupt.

I remember how, in 1975, they were trigger happy and killed an innocent fisherman in a boat on a lake in Helsinki, just because there was an international conference (European Security Conference) to be held at the Finlandia House a mile or so away! Consequences after whitewash - NONE!

Here was the case of a man who had been convicted twice of having used firearms violently. The Police, preoccupied with their own agenda, had left him in possession of a lethal weapon.

Recently, before our trip to India, Mika, Annikki and I had visited the Sello Shopping Complex for some last minute shopping. Anneli, Annikki's sister, had been with us and we had had lunch in the Complex. Mika in the meanwhile, while window shopping, had got lost, causing him (and me) to have a terrible fright.

Location Espoo, Finland
Built 2003/2005
Architect Helin & Co Archiects
Floor space 99 000 m²
Customers in 2006 17,3 milj. v. 2006
Sales in 2006 307,0 milj. v. 2006
Parking places 2 900
Number of floors 4
Web page Sello Shopping Complex

The Shopping Complex is so enormous and totally useless (in my opinion).

Both Annikki and I had been to the PRISMA market (where the shootings took place). We needed help to buy some stuff. During the half hour we were there, we could not find a single shop assistant to help us. (To be fair, the situation in the neighbouring CITYMARKET, was equally bad!) we bought nothing!

How this gunman found four shop assistants in a few minutes and killed them will remain a mystery to me!

The gunman, a 43 year old Kosovo Albanian refugee, had broken up with his ex-girl friend who had a job in the PRISMA shop.

My reasoning is that this was a crime of revenge against someone who had been a thorn in his ego. Probably at being dumped, something which is very common in Finnish society, but not obviously a very good experience for a new Finn, a person coming from a male chauvistic alien society. (This type of social mores should be one of the most important aspects to be taught when any refugee settles here, especially when coming from a male dominant society.)

The gunman went there early morning, probably looking for his ex-girl friend, and in the process shot four of her colleagues. Then he calmly walked out, went to his ex-girl friend's home and killed her. He returned to his home and then killed himself.

In all that time, the Police were twiddling their thumbs as they could not piece together the information and save lives. They knew exactly who the person was within minutes of the shooting, and yet they had no one posted at the man's residence soon after the event.

In Finland, the Population Register System is so efficient, that if one moves house, within a week, all agencies are aware of the move!

The Police were obviously relieved that the gunman shot himself, as they would be no nasty investigation about how they let him hold on to his gun when he had been twice convicted of using the firearm unreasonably, first by the Court of Espoo and then by the Court of Helsinki.

Espoo is a neighbouring city to Helsinki with an adjoining border, very much like the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad in India.

Sello Shopping Centre is situated in Leppävaara, a suburb of Espoo, where we have a number of furnished apartments for rent, as it is well connected by bus and train to Helsinki and is also a place where several IT companies and Nokia and NSN have major operational centres. Additionally, being on the Ring Road 1, it is well connected by road to all parts around Helsinki.

The first thing I did was ring our local representative in Espoo, Ganesan, to check whether he was OK. He lives and works just a few hundred metres from the Sello Shopping Complex. He assured me that he (and all our tenants) were OK as it was a working day and they would all probably have been at work.

I was worried about some of our tenants wives, who may have ventured into this large shopping complex, as it has everything under one roof. A sort of window shopping paradise for a housewife.

Then I heard that the first four victims were all members of staff of the PRISMA shop, which meant none of our tenants or their wives would be on the tragedy list.

I watched TV after that.

The Police Press Briefing was at 14:30, where they were still reporting that the gunman was on the loose, several hours after the shooting. This told me what I already knew, the incompetence of the Finnish Police force.

Call the Finnish Police for an incident, and if your opponent has "credentials", they will turn a blind eye to the situation and the law. Police Chiefs stand firm behind their corrupt underlings and their powerful friends. In our experience, there is no more corrupt force (in my humble opinion) than the Finnish!

This time they had turned a blind eye to 2 convictions.

No one but the Finnish Police must be held responsible for this tragedy, which never should have been.

Being hacked

No, not my computer, as I use a hack proof Apple Mac!

Just yesterday, I received a message from a very dear friend of mine in a language that I did not understand. I used Google translate and found it was in Portuguese.

The message had as the Subject Fotos. 15/12 and was

Cuidado com essas pessoas falsas.
Salvei essas fotos pra você ver
Olha só o que aconteçeu...

anexo.

219,5Kb Baixar

This translates as

Beware of these fake people.
I saved these pictures for you to see
Look what happened ...

Annex.

Download 219.5 Kb

.

If one clicked on the attachment, the hacker could get into a computer running Windows. On a Mac, as this is an .exe file, I got a warning about it and was able to stop the download. Although, even if I had saved it, the .exe file would not have been able to run on my Mac.

I immediately emailed my friend asking for an explanation.

He replied that the email had not been sent by him.

Exactly as he was sending me that message, I got another email from him with a repeat of the earlier message, which meant the hacker or his software was at that precise moment operating inside his account.

Also, the hacker managed to send 3 messages to our Seventh Heaven Google Group.

The minute I marked those messages as spam, my friend's email ID would have been banned from the Google Group.

I got his alternate email ID, subscribed him and then marked the messages as spam. Within seconds Google had banned the old email ID.

In the Google Gmail, at the bottom of the page you can see a note

Last account activity: 8 hours ago on this computer. Details

When you click on the word "Details" it gives the last 5 log ins along with the IP address from where you have logged in. If it is not from your computer, you know you have a hacker and from where.

I do not know whether other email providers have this facility.

As I use a Mac and have used one for the last 25 years, I do not even have to have virus protection software installed on my computer. It has saved me much hassle, time and money!!!

Now my friend has to change all his sensitive information as the hacker had access to all his emails, passwords, and probably credit card numbers, expiry dates, etc.

Fascination with weather

Annikki is passionate about the weather, whether it be the snow fall in Houston or the burning heat wave in the Antarctic causing the glaciers to melt!

I often wondered why, we, in Finland, and also in many parts of Europe, have this fascination with weather as we watch every possible weather bulletin, or even tune into it on the radio while driving.

As I was looking out of my kitchen window this morning I saw two snow ploughs working in tandem to clear the snow from a smallish side street. This is round the clock work in Finland as not a day of work is lost because of heavy snowfall, even if the temperature is down to -40 C.

It dawned on me that I will not venture out in winter without pausing to look at the thermometer outside my bedroom window. it is a sort of natural reflex action.

Based on what I see, i will pick up the correct outdoor gear, the shoes, the sweater, the overcoat, the gloves, the scarf.

It would be foolhardy to step out without the correct trappings.

Hence the fascination with weather reports is a sort of safety self preservation method if we are to survive in the freezing temperatures.

And does our fascination with the weather of other people sort of make us feel better or worse, happy or jealous, sad or joyful.

We certainly do not feel overjoyed at seeing the disastrous consequence of bad weather in different parts of the world, but we do feel confident and safe that the roads are being maintained properly here in Finland. It is a sort of comparison that we are automatically making. When we see something that is better than our system, off will go the letters to the authorities to take steps to improve our system.

In winter the speed limit on all our roads drops by 20 kmph automatically. it is a fool who does not follow this guideline as, not only is her or she risking his or her life, but the lives of several others.

Even at low speeds there can be havoc.

Just yesterday, I took a turning right in the centre of town. The car in front of me stopped in the middle of the road to make a left turn. I sort of automatically braked, as I have not yet got used to driving on the icy roads again. The car started to slither. There was no room on the right of the car, so I had no option but to let it slide to the left of the stepped car, right into the on-coming traffic. Luckily, the car stopped sliding as I shifted gear quickly, and the on-coming car, realising my predicament went to his extreme right, avoiding me.

The mistake was that of the driver of the car in front of me, as he should have moved to the centre of the road to make his left turn, leaving enough room for me to go through on his right.

But in an accident situation who is going to look at the right and wrong.

It was wrong of me to be so close to the car ahead. It was wrong of me to swing into the on-coming traffic. What I should have done is rammed the guy in the back. But any accident where you hit someone from the back will be counted as your fault!

I thank my lucky stars that I got out of that situation unharmed.

If I had watched the weather news in the morning before I left home, I would have seen the warning sign that driving conditions in our area were dangerous. My fault!

Drones again and more American stupidity

A few weeks ago, while we were in Ahmedabad I blogged a report about Drones

Guess what. The "terrorists" have acquired software called "Sky Grabber" which enables them to watch exactly what the Americans are doing with their drones.

This is a huge embarrassment to the American military.

It is only two steps from there to be able to grab control of the drones and use them the way they like.

The Americans's are furiously working to now encrypt the data being transmitted, but anyone who has the skill can break the encrypting.

The foolishness of the American's continues to astound me.

The Soviets fought long and hard in Afghanistan. Did they win?

The Americans and NATO forces are also doing the same there. Do you honestly think they will win? And win what?

First they were fighting Al Qaida. Now they are fighting the Taliban. And they support a corrupt regime in Kabul!

Anyone heard of the support for the Shah of Iran by the Americans.

It is said that only fools commit the same mistake twice!

Americans have been committing the same mistake, again and again. Need I remind you of North and South Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the cold war against the Soviets, Pakistan, Iraq, etc., etc.

When will that country learn that they are only a banana republic. They have been unable to oust the Cuban leader Fidel Castro for many decades. Do they think they will win over the Afghan warlords even in two or three decades! Unlikely, even if they commit their entire US forces to that country.

They can never win hearts and minds through conflict, and that is all there is today in Afghanistan!.

The most sensible policy available is to move out of Afghanistan, ensure that the opium trade is unable to flourish, control all the neighbouring borders through detente, and the Afghan people will soon come to their senses and control their own destiny.

If people are so worried about Afghan women, then take them over to their country as refugees.

What society can function if there are no women to breed the fighters.

Today, the American action is only helping to breed more and more fighters. Every Afghan killed results in 10 or 100 more "freedom fighters".

As was so eloquently said by the Egyptian leader before the Iraq war, the Americans have created 1000 bin Ladens by their stupidity.

Remember, it was a Nigerian who tried to blow up the plane yesterday in Detroit. Nigeria is a far away place to Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan.

And do you remember what I wrote about the stupid airport security measures just a few days ago?

Will the Americans even pause and think: WHY?

Splitting up blog entries from now

Holiday is now officially over. I am going back to splitting up my blog entries into the old system.

Just to remind you of the Blogs:

Jacob's Blog: This one is my daily routine blog for all general entries.
Seventh Heaven Blog: Specific entries related to Cathedral and John Connon School, Mumbai, India. All generations.
Kooler Talk Web Version Blog: Specific entries related to St. Stephen's College, Delhi, India. All generations.
Jacob's Politics Blog: My views on world and local politics.
Oulu Best (Worst) Buy Blog: Reports of good offers in Oulu and Finland and also reports on good and bad services in Finland, and occasionally, internationally. To be taken seriously.
Move The UN Blog: A movement to move the UN away from New York, USA to a place more conducive to justice.

There are some other blogs on special subjects, but these are the ones that get inputs as regularly as there is something of interest to report.

You are free to comment on all the blog entries, although my blogs are not really Comment Driven Blogs. But honest discussion is always welcome and I will change my mind if I can be persuaded. But I am a bit hard-headed, so don't expect me to just nod and accept anything that may be said.

Thank you for staying with Annikki and me on our journey through India. It was your emails, phone calls, text messages, Facebook comments, that helped keep this going through the last two months.

In short, I love all my readers, even if they hold diametrically opposite opinions to mine.

Christmas morning 2009

Is there any breakfast on par with Masala Dosai?



In Finland, the best breakfast, I can think of, is salted salmon on rieska.

Rieska is a round bread, like a chapati, made from wheat flour, corn flour and potato flour. You can buy it ready made, either as small round or square pieces or as larger ones about the size of a very large chapati.

This morning I was able to enjoy this breakfast as Annikki had prepared the salted salmon a couple of days ago (It takes a few days for the flavouring to permeate into the raw fish) and had kept it in the fridge under a weight.

Besides salt, the salmon was seasoned with freshly ground home grown pepper, which had been given to us by my cousin's wife, Annammakochamma (Mrs. Mammen Varghese) in Kottayam, Kerala, when we visted them a few weeks ago. It was also seasoned with fresh herbs. I used a little vegetable oil based margerine on top of the rieska.

Sitting, in the picture, at the back on the table is the delicious pulla (Finnish sweet bread), given to us yesterday, by Ani.

So has started a great Christmas Day, where I will do precisely nothing after making this blog entry, except have some tea with the pulla and then wait for the Christmas dinner (left overs from yesterday, along with the Christmas pudding we bought in London Airport two weeks ago! No lunch today, as I am still full from our last night's stuffing! :-)

The candles, which Annikki put out in the snow last evening, are still burning brightly.

Season's Greetings to all of you from wonderful Oulu.

Christmas dinner 2009

This year, as Annikki was not well, we did not call anyone over to share in our traditional Christmas dinner.

Annikki was busy in the garden putting up her candles in the snow and decorating the garden, in between her work in the kitchen.

A grand Christmas dinner for the three of us was prepared by Annikki. Actually, at 14:00 hours Annikki did not know it was Christmas Eve. I reminded her gently as the frozen turkey was sitting in our front room (temperature -10 C). She suggested we have it tomorrow, but at my insistence, she thawed it out by immersing it for a couple of hours in warm water.

Dinner consisted of roasted potatoes, carrots, Swede, Brussels sprouts, onions, garlic, sausage and a whole small turkey, all beautifully but very gently spiced with herbs and pepper and salt, and served with a fresh green salad, rossoli (a typical Finnish Christmas salad), gravy and mint jelly. We did not take out the Christmas pudding we had bought at London Airport, as earlier in the evening, Ani and her sister brought a freshly baked pulla (Finnish sweet bread loaf) which smelled, looked and tasted really delicious. Thanks Ani for that, we all really loved it. (Annikki and I have voted this girl is our eldest granddaughter!)

Lots of left overs for the next two days.

Tomorrow morning I will have the salted salmon (prepared by Annikki), which we did not even touch today, with Christmas bread (with molasses added). There was much too much for the three of us.

Spoke with Jaakko and Joy early in the evening. They will have Christmas lunch with Joy's father who will celebrate his 80th birthday tomorrow, Christmas Day.

Will try to speak with Joanna (in Newcastle) and Susanna (in Portugal) and their families later.

As you may have guessed, the garden and the kitchen are not my domains of activity, but I did baste the turkey when Annikki was not looking. :-)

Season's Greetings to all our Findians, Chaff, LinkedIn, Orkut, Plaxo, Twitter, Facebook, Cathedral and John Connon School, St. Stephen's College and Oulu University friends, relatives, professional colleagues and alumni.

A nice warm sauna and bath now and then I hit the sack. Annikki will watch the Christmas service from Rome.

Am I anti-Indian or anti-Finnish?

I had a conversation with a dear friend from Delhi, yesterday morning, after he had read my blog entry, who asked me not to give up hope about India.

He mentioned that, just yesterday, that someone had actually stopped to give him way to turn from the main road into his colony! Also he told me that he had been driving behind a DTU bus which was hogging the centre lane. He overtook it, stopped and asked the driver whether he knew what wrong was being done, to which the driver asked for an apology!

How many people have that much time to spare to correct the mistakes of others on an hour by hour basis. On the highway from Delhi to Jaipur, if one has to follow this principle, one would have to stop every minute as every truck and bus and slow moving vehicle uses the fast lane!

What people see on this blog is only mine or Annikki's personal expressions. It is a personal log - a blog! And we are in unison in almost 99.9% of the cases we talk about.

It is neither anti-Indian, anti-Finnish or anti-anything else.

Anyone who really knows Annikki or me, will know that we are the ONLY ONES in Finland who publicly stand up and criticise the Finnish Police, Judiciary, Bureaucrats, Lawyers, etc. in the OPEN on Free Speech Day as well as in our media of choice, the internet.

Anyone who has read either of our books "Handbook for Survival in Finland" or "Seven Years Hard Labour in a Finnish Holiday Camp - A Finnish University", know exactly how outspoken we have been about the ills of Finnish society and parts of the system which are broken. And such ills can only be measured against systems that are better! (And what is coming in our next book "Inheritance Nightmare" is probably the biggest shocker from our arsenal!)

Does that mean we are anti-Finnish?

One should be able to express one's opinion on any subject and not get rudely condemned for saying what one believes. If something is wrong in India or Finland, or the USA or England, one should be able to say it.

In the USA, I am probably on the FBI list as an undesirable alien. Anyone who has read my email CORRESPONDENCE WITH AN "EDUCATED" AMERICAN [CHRISTIAN(?) & WHITE] in 2001, well before BEFORE the Iraq Shock and Awe attack, will understand why my correspondent went to the extent of reporting me to the FBI!

Was I anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-White, or did I believe in what I stood for?

How many of you will put your money where your mouths are?

I had a lucrative contract to write the handbook of Extrusion Coating (a special process used in plastics manufacture to make continuous lengths materials of two or more film materials) with the largest English Research Association which is also a noted publisher. That contract was with me well before the Iraq War. When, Britain joined that war, I had already finished my manuscript. Rather than earn the money and pay taxes in the UK, part of which would be used to fund the illegal war, I withdrew from the contract, at a huge personal financial loss!

So when I criticise something, someone, somewhere - it is because I believe in what I stand for.

My criticism of India is because the country had the solutions well before the present crisis, but the politicians and industrialists chose to ignore the warnings.

May I remind you of that wonderful book I had referred to earlier in one of my blog entries, "The Affluence Machine" by Abraham Thomas the former Managing Director of Southern Investments which was published in 1975. It was ignored!

As Annikki noted, the problems in India are exactly where the IT boom has hit.

Is it a coincidence or is it because of the personal greed of those at the helm of the IT industry.

I think the latter! They may be knowledgeable about IT but have not the slightest concept about city planning and development, civic services, and a whole host of technologies required to set up and run a growth area. Hence the chaos!

Will I compare one society with another?

Yes, I will, as if one cannot learn from what is good and works, then one is blind. If as a chemical engineer i can scale from 5 litres to 5 oo litres, then an experienced planner can scale from 5 million to 50 million! And are there not successfully planned cities of 10 and 15 million around the world?

I am not driven by patriotism to any nation as I owe loyalty to only one person, the Lord God above me. If I stand condemned in His eyes, then I am guilty.

As I had mentioned on an earlier blog that someone had written to me that India is a democracy and it has a population of 1 billion people.

May I remind all of you that when I was a child the population of India was BELOW 350 million and we were a democracy. It the problem today better or worse than then?

As I had asked ten and ask again now: What is the reaction going to be when India is a democracy with 1.5 billion people?

As was pointed out by several during my visit to India, including the Home Secretary, Mr. G. K. Pillai at this year's The General K. S. Thimayya Memorial Lecture Series at Bishop Cotton School in Bangalore, the national security problem has three major issues to be considered:

(i) Externally sponsored threats,
(ii) Secessionist and ethnic identity issues,
(iii) Internal armed movements.

Anyone interested in the lecture by an old school colleague can visit this site, INDIA’S INTERNAL SECURITY :
CHALLENGES AND RESPONSES BY SHRI GOPAL K. PILLAI UNION HOME SECRETARY AND SECRETARY (JUSTICE) for the transcript.

Or you may recall my attending the lecture by the famed Norwegian Peace Negotiator and Activist, Professor John Galtung at the Ahmedabad Institute of Management who talked about the Gandhian way to approach the problem of terrorism.

The Naxalite problem is not so far away, and if, as at present, greed and lack of concern for one's fellow man continues to expand in India at the rate that I have witnessed, the effects will be rather sooner than later!

One small incident will show why I am concerned.

I walked to a nearby shop in Ahmedabad. After making the purchase, I was provided with a bill. I did not need the bill, so I crumpled it in my hand on my way back home, but I held on tightly to it, not wanting to litter the streets. Annikki laughed at me, as we were walking literally through muck and paper all around us, and there was I, reluctant to throw that little ball of paper in with the existing mess.

Am I a fool or am I a concerned human being?

1989 revisited

Annikki and I, along with my professor, visited India on a trip that took us to Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and then Delhi, where we took part in a conference on Physics of Semiconductor Devices.

As I told my friends in New Delhi this year, when we checked in at this conference, I entered our residential address in New Delhi as the MRF Guest House in Sunder Nagar. When the lady at the registration desk saw that, and asked my relationship to MRF, she quickly called a couple of the organisers. They refused to take our registration fees.

Reason: They were so proud of the way my late cousin Ravi Mammen, and his team of professionals, Ratnam, Krish Veerapan, Balan, and co., had organised the Cricket World Cup, which had brought great fame and fortune to India as a whole!

I sent my professor home after the conference while Annikki and I decided to visit the Kanha National Park in Madhya Pradesh. (After that, we had to spend Christmas Day at Nagpur airport, just reaching Mumbai for our 30th year class of 59 reunion at the Wilingdon Club.)

We started our holiday at Nagpur (Maharashtra), in the very centre of India, from where we hired a car and drove to Kanha, stopping at an interesting forest hotel on the way. It was December 19th when we arrived at Kanha. A freezing drive in the forest in an open jeep took the toll on Anniiki. So, we decided, in future, to use our covered car for the trips into the sanctuary.

On the very next day we saw two tigers, one walking straight along the road to our car. An unbelievable experience. The second encounter was a sort of put up job of a tiger and her cubs who were being held in place by a steady stream of visitors on elephant back.

We returned to our quite deserted hotel. I had my small portable radio on which I could pick up BBC World service.

The next morning we woke up to the news of the overthrow of the Romanian Preident Ceausescu.



That to me, as Polymerist (a word coined by me in 1988 describing a chemist/physicist and technologist specialising in Polymers) was quite a personal experience.

The Finnish establishment had been sycophantic supporters of the Ceausescu regime to the extent of even publishing a translation of a book "authored" by Elena Ceausescu: "Polymer Chemistry and Technology Developments".

Considering that Elena was a third grade chemist and she was named as the first author of all the 39 publications in this translation, showed how sick some people in Finland (and Romania) were.

They had a similar practice in some universities in Finland.

My explosive book "Seven Years Hard Labour in a Finnish Holiday Camp - A Finnish University" published in 1994 and the most pirated book in Finland that year, took the lid off the scam in my University. To a large extent, students in Oulu, as an indirect result of my writings and the subsequent investigation, got back their power of owning their research results and writings.

Yesterday, as the world celebrated the demise of the Ceausescu regime, to relive those days 20 years on, just as we return again from India to Finland, was quite a moving feeling for me!

I know I am back in Finland

Today is the shortest day in Oulu, the Winter Solstice.

Date: 21 Dec 2009
Sunrise: 10:17
Sunset: 13:51
Day length: 3h 34m 01s

Had to go our shopping.

Two incidents of today, in particular, stood out to remind me that I am back in a society that cares for its members. I am not talking about the government or the bureaucracy, but ordinary people.

Outside every large shop in Finland, during the 2 weeks before Christmas, the Salvation Army, a charitable organisation, places a tripod at which people can leave gifts of things they may no longer need to be handed over to the less fortunate in our society, especially at this time of the year when we are spending millions on new things.

As I was reversing my car, I saw a little girl of about 4 years, carrying a very heavy shopping bag, filled to the brim and running very determinedly towards the gift tripod outside the shop. She stopped in front of the tripod, and with a very lovely smile of satisfaction, put the bag at the foot of the tripod where a lot of other people had already left their parcels.

She was genuinely happy that she could give something to the less fortunate.

This sense of giving, which we call Christmas, instills in little children the sense of sharing. I watched her happily run back to her parents after her task had been completed.

As I was driving out of the large car park, there were a string of cars who had right of way streaming in front of me. It was dark, and I could not see the faces of the people in the cars that passed.

Suddenly, one car stopped. I could see a hand waving me to join in front of him.

The gesture showed me that there are people in this world who have concern for others, even on the roads, where everyone is always in a hurry.

Considering what we have been through in Indian traffic, where to gain an inch ahead of someone else is the primary objective, this incident gave me faith in the human being again.

Yes, I know I am back in a society and community which cares for its fellowmen.

Not only that, the first thing on Annikki's shopping list was sunflower seeds, not the type we humans eat, and bird seeds. Her intention is to keep it in the several bird houses in our garden, so that in this harsh winter, the birds that frequent our garden, will have their share of our Christmas.

Not only do people care for other people, but they show their love and affection even towards those little creatures that give us so much joy by just being there.

Flying back to Finland

Before I take you through to our last phase of our journey, I wanted to share with you the last breakfast I had in New Delhi. I was joined by someone I admire from the bottom of my heart, a man who has worked tirelessly for "Integration" in India, and has been appointed by the President of India on this Task Force. A few years younger than me, a man of such dedication and drive is hard to find. A Stephanian, he holds his principles above all.

I speak of none other than John Dayal.

Many love him, others hate him, all for what he stands for - equality of all men and women on this universe.

Unfortunately, during my entire stay in New Delhi, John had been working on the front line in Orissa. He returned the day before I was to leave. As I was driving back, late in the evening from Gurgaon, John called to say he was back. I offered to see him the next day, but he held age above seniority and said he would come to see me on Friday morning.

He arrived while I was just starting my breakfast. He joined me and we chatted about what was right and what was wrong in this universe. John has all the taps turned on the correct way and his analysis of where the church, the administrators, the bureaucracy are going was spot on. I felt sorry that I could not be there to help him in his endeavours to make India a truly just and secular society.

I asked him to say a prayer before he left, but he insisted that I do so. I prayed with all sincerity for John and his work, which to me is one of the most important jobs being done in India. Good luck, John, and thank you for seeing me before I left back to Finland. Each moment that we had together will be treasured.

Now to the joys of international travel! :-)

We arrived at Mumbai airport on Sunday night well over two hours before our plane was to depart. As we entered the airport, a guy came up asked whether I wanted our baggage plastic wrapped. I first thought that this was a requirement, but when he mentioned he wanted Rs. 200 (€ 3) per bag, I realised that this was just a money making step and not one legally required.

This draws me to the point that we found different rules in almost every airport we went through, both international or Indian domestic. This shows that the "security" community is disorganized and does not really know what they want to do. They have stupid rules about not taking a bottle of drinking water through a security checkpoint. They even tried to stop Annikki finishing her bottle of water before she went through. In another instance, when the security guard saw her drinking the water, she let her take the bottle through.

The ways the bags are checked at each airport showed, to me, at least, that these dedicated men and women are just pawns in a game. They really do not know what they are doing. All they are doing is trying to do things in the guidebook that they have been given and they remember at that point of time!

Any terrorist would break through this "so-called" security system with the simplest of ease after watching how the guards operate. In my opinion, with all the present systems they are following, as rigid as they may seem, we are less safe now than we were before 9/11!

One of the steps in the British Airways check-in process is to measure the size of the carry-on bag. One of ours was larger than permitted, but a BA staff member waved us through when the junior at the machine was just about to start a bureaucratic storm. The guy who waved us through knew that it was us that would suffer by taking this larger bag through, as he knew it would not fit in the overhead locker and we would have to sit with it under our legs for the next 9 hours. He simply taught us a lesson!

Next was the checking in of our baggage. I had bought a bigger bag and loaded all the light weight stuff in it till it was bulging at the seams. The other two bags were standard size and weighed 15 kg and 19 kg, a total of 34 kg. But the large bag weighed 32 kg, making us 6 kg overweight, but more importantly there is a rule that no bag must weigh more than 23 kg or else you have to pay a “heavy bag” surcharge of US Sterling 30.

The check-in officer offered me the option to reassign the stuff in the large bag. When I opened it, I found I had my laptop bag in this bag. As everyone is allowed one hand baggage plus a laptop bag, I took out my laptop and, lo and behold, my bag was well inside the limit! Saved £ 30 but had the headache to carry one more bag through all the security checkpoints and especially, being a laptop bag, it meant taking it out at every point!

Check-in finished we moved on with our hand baggage in trolleys to Immigration. Just before Immigration we were stopped by a rather officious looking slip of a girl who told us that we could not take our trolley past her desk! We had to fill up some Immigration Cards, so I promptly parked the trolley at her desk and started to fill up our forms just there. She tried to shoo us away, to which my retort was, either you allow us to proceed with our trolleys to where we find a place to sit and fill up the forms or she would have to suffer me filling up the forms on her desk! I filled out the forms, took our luggage and went through Immigration. Then it was Security, and although it was a hassle, we were not stopped or hindered, just giving us room to think that how stupid all this process was, even if it was for own safety. There are so many simpler ways to carry out this process, but a lot of people are making money following this routine, so why change it?

On board the plane one thing really annoyed me. When the announcements were made asking everyone to switch off their mobiles, the guy sitting in row behind us continued to speak on his mobile. When the steward came and told him to switch it off, he sort of started an argument with the steward. The steward told him that a video telling him to switch of the mobile had just been played - but this guy continued to be difficult. Finally, the steward, in the most polite and firm way told him to switch it off. He pretended to do so, but as soon as the steward was on his way, I heard his phone ring. I turned back in my seat and glared at him, which sort of made him switch it off. If he had not, I would have told him that even if he was not concerned about his safety, I was concerned with mine, and that the mobile had to be switched off.

How stupid can people be as they think that ONLY THEY are above the law!

The BA flight from Mumbai to London was uncomfortable and the morning snack was atrocious. I wonder why BA even offers such a tasteless serving on their flight.

At London the change from Terminal 5 to Terminal 3 was another process of security checks, another set of rules. In this case I was stopped because my LG monitor, with no batteries or attached power source, was a cause for their alarm. I had to take it out and they reran it through their X-Ray machine, wasting everyone's time!

Then it as a long wait in the BA lounge till our flight to Helsinki was called.

We had slightly more room on this flight. We arrived to a snow-bound Helsinki at 16:30. By the time we cleared Immigration and Customs, it was just past 17:00 hours.

Levi was at the airport with our car. As it had been parked in the open in one of our Raantel rental apartments, the boot was frozen solid as the temperature was near -17 C. Annikki was not clad properly, so I told her to wait in the airport with Mika while I found a solution to opening the boot.

My first thought was to find a heated parking place and wait for 15 minutes while the lock thawed through. Then I remembered that we would have to take Levi back to where his car was parked, about a 20 minute drive from the airport. So I told Levi that if we drove there and back, the boot would open. So we went through that process and sure enough, the boot was openable when we got back.

I parked in a parking place near to where Annikki and Mika were sitting. I called Levi on my mobile. It was so cold that, as I was speaking, the mobile jumped out of my hands and flew quite a distance, such that the battery compartment opened and the battery came out. I managed to put the battery in but when I tried to start the mobile it reported that the SIM card was missing - the SIM had flown off in another direction. Even after much searching by Levi and myself - we could not find it.

It was after 8 pm when me managed to drive to a nice warm apartment. I went and bought another SIM and some dinner from the nearest Mac outlet - the first Mac since we had left Finland 2 months ago. Then was the process of trying to find phone numbers, as I had not saved my phone numbers on the phone but on the SIM itself.

We managed to find Annikki's sister’s phone number and Levi sent my new number to a couple of people who called me.

Now I am in the process of building up my phone directory again, but that is going to take time.

So if you want me to put your phone number on my new phone, do email it to me or send a text to +358 41 720 2850!

And so ended our holiday to India - Helsinki and back. My last entry on this subject will be to pay our tributes to the wonderful people who made this holiday possible. So stay tuned for that before I split back my blogging into the different streams, as earlier.

Back in Oulu, and What! Oh! What!

The first picture is the absolutely delightful gift given to us by the Patni team in Bangalore after they hosted us for a great dinner.



Now, in its proper location in Oulu in our living room. The birds and the background lighting, in a special place chosen by Annikki for this work of art, makes it truly magnificent.

Thank you boys - Uncle Jacob cannot thank you enough for this stupendous gift which made it BACK in one piece back to Finland.

It was late on Wednesday evening when we hit Oulu. I drove the 600 km rather slowly and carefully as I was really tired. The roads were clear, and while the sun was up, it was brilliant and a beautiful clear blue sky. The temperature during the journey was hovering between -15 and - 18 C, but the car heating was perfect.

We saw the sun set at 14:30 when we were passing through Jyväskyla, about halfway through our journey from Helsinki to Oulu.

What a difference, when just 6 months ago I stopped at 02:30 am to see the sun rise at Jyväskylä!

Today afternoon, Annikki gave me a shopping list of urgent provisions to obtain so that we did not starve! I went to our local supermarket. As I was coming out I bumped into one of Joanna's friends, Terhi-Liisa. She stopped to say hello.

The first thing she said was that she had read most of our experiences I had blogged of our trip around India. She asked how Annikki's cough was faring! So she was really reading the blog. (Terhi-Liisa told me that just recently lost her dad, so I conveyed condolences from our family.)

I decided to check through my readership statistics. Normally I have about 60000 to 80000 readers for all my 10 active blogs put together. From what I was able to gather, I had a possible 130000 to 135000 readers from all over the world who were reading of our Indian exploits on Jacob's Blog.

Phenomenal as it may seem, considering that many of the readers sent me email (such as Shilpa from the Middle East) and one (Ebbi) actually took up the phone in California to ring and speak at length to me, shows how much the blogging was appreciated.

I was happy that several of the older members of my immediate family, who know nothing about computers and blogging, actually got people to print out my entries so that they could keep track of this journey through this Incredible India.

Cathedralites, Stephanians, Findians, Facebook friends, Twitterers, LinkedIn professional friends, Orkut friends, Plaxo companions, Oulu University staff and students, O-Indians, Chaff friends, Kandathil and Maliyakal relatives, and stray readers searching on Google for keywords - what a cosmopolitan mix of readers.

And what is wonderful is that I was able to hold them together for the last seven weeks!

Many thanks to the younger generation for activating a readership which I thought I would never reach!

Does Salegram look like my chauffeur or my dear friend?

But I am jumping the gun again. Let us go back to Delhi when we were leaving last Friday. It was a very emotional farewell for me to say goodbye to my friend from my adolescent days, Salegram. He looked after Annikki and me so well. He is such a lovely man who has given devoted service to our family and family companies, that it shows above all that some of my family members in India have retained the principles espoused by my grandfather, the late K. C. Mammen Mappillai.

My problems with the ICICI Bank went on till the very last minute of my stay in India. When I left Delhi, they had assured me that everything would be just perfect from then on. They gave me two debit cards saying that I could use them in Mumbai.

Boy, were they sadly mistaken.

They said that another debit card would be delivered to me on Saturday morning.

What, oh, what do you think happened?

I had a terrible amount of shopping to complete in Mumbai. I went to Akbaraly's in Flora Fountain and bought a lot of stuff! When I was about to pay using this brand new debit card provided that morning by the Delhi Regional Manager of the ICICI Bank, the cashier told me that I could not use that debit card for paying - all I could use it for was to draw money out of an ATM!!!

Luckily I had cash with me so I was saved another devastating embarrassment.

I went promptly to an ATM, only to find that the cards were not usable - I had not been provided with the PIN numbers!

What competence, what efficiency, what in-depth knowledge by a Regional Manager and his staff of smart goons!

The next morning at precisely 9 am, I rang the Customer Service Manager who had organised the debit cards I told her that I could not use the card and the reasons. She confirmed that the cards they had provided me were only ATM withdrawal cards.

She then said I could call Customer Care and generate my own PIN!

Of course, the Regional Manager was most apologetic and assured me that the PIN would be generated from the phone number they would give me.

About half an hour later, I received a Bombay phone number and went through the entire rigmarole of generating a PIN, only to be told by the human being at the end of this long winded process, that as I was an NRI, the PIN could only be sent to my communication address IN FINLAND!

I rang the Regional Manager and he assured me that the PIN would be delivered to me. That was at 10:42.

In the meantime, the other debit card which was to be delivered by 12 noon had not arrived. Then I got a call from the Mumbai Branch stating that the man had gone back to the office as he could not enter my building, or he had found some other address, or....!

It transpired that he had come to the gate of my building and instead of ringing me, as my phone number was on the delivery slip, he had just gone away as the Security Guard did not believe his story. He appeared at about 11:30 and gave me the so-called debit card. When I opened the packet I found there was no PIN to use that card and it was an International Debit Card, which was no use to access my Indian Rupees in my NRI account!

I was in a rage as all my money was locked out.

When the Customer Care phoned me, I threw my fit at him, telling him what a nin-com-poop bank he worked for. I slammed down the phone as I had had enough of this nonsense.

Promptly I got a call from the Delhi branch telling me that if I waited another hour or so, the PIN numbers would be delivered to me.

I had other plans and asked them to stuff the PIN where you think it should be stuffed. I had wasted half a day and was at a position worse than my starting state.

At least at that point I had hope.

I went to the largest ICICI Bank and drew out 80% of the money in my rupee account, leaving just enough to see what would happen and as I had no chance of stopping the dividend cheques that would be deposited this week!

With cash in my hands I was able to do some of what I had planned to do, but communicating with my suppliers in Kottayam and Cochin late on a Saturday afternoon just was impossible, leaving most critical parts of my tasks undone.

Of course, when I reached home, there appeared the messenger from the ICICI bank, bearing the PIN numbers.

Later that evening I decided to give a try to the PIN received - and do you know what was the result - The ATM spewed out a receipt which said

Transaction Declined
Unable to Process

Does this bank even understand the chaos that they caused in my life, the embarrassments that I had faced, the humiliation that I was forced to undergo?

I do not think so.

They are immune from the realities of the banking world.

When one looks at their online banking page, this is more than obvious. It is a confused presentation showing that they expect their customers to do everything out of one page, and that is why their online banking is doomed to be a complete and total failure.

I am so sorry to bore you with this experience, but we have almost 40000 to 50000 NRI readers of this blog, many trusting their money with this bank.

They could ask for no worse experience in their life than what I was forced to undergo in my 7 weeks with ICICI Bank!

Let us move on to more delightful things.



Dinner was to be with Malathi and her husband, the Dr. of Dharavi, Ashok, and also Malathi's brother from Bangalore, Chandu. Malathi and Ashok's younger son Dishan, joined us later in the evening.

Annikki was not well. heer cough having become chronic, that I advised her to stay at home. But she would have none of it and undertook the arduous long journey to the finest fish restaurant in Mumbai.



I had fried fish, crab, tandoori fish and finished with one of the best prawn biriyani that I have ever tasted. Annikki managed to eat a morsel or two, but she was very very poorly.

Despite the late hour we went to Malathi's beautiful home in Powai and they showered us with gifts.

We finally got home around midnight.

On Sunday morning I had an early lunch with my uncle Peelukuttychatan (97, Mr. K. M. Philip), my aunt Chinnammakochamma (91) and my cousin Suresh (Peter Philip) and his wife, Meera. (Fear of passing on whatever infection she may have to Peelukutychayan and Chinnammakochamma prevented her from joining us.

I rushed home to see Annikki was OK and then rushed to second appointment with a few of my 59ers, as we were celebrating Noel's birthday with a chocolate cake before he left for the USA. I was so happy to meet Ranju Lalwani (58er) and his wife, Anju. Piloo, Ooky, Rivca, Suchita and Vijay were there for the occasion to say farewell to us two 59ers. It was an emotional parting.

Annikki still had some urgent shopping to do, so we made an attempt to reach Phoenix High Street in the early evening. About 100 metres from our Guest House I realised that this was a foolhardy attempt - we would probably miss our flight at 2 in the morning if I decided to get this shopping done. The traffic was abominable.

So we returned home. As I was going to buy some medicines from the nearby pharmacy, Annikki, accompanying me, spotted a hole in the wall shop, maybe 1.5 metre wide and 5 metres deep. In it she found all that she had intended to buy! Cotton vests, nightdresses, etc., etc. Incredible Mumbai, where one even has a bookstore at every traffic light, in between the cars!

We set off for the airport by around 22:45.

I think I should leave the next part of our trip for my next blog entry.

Last day in Delhi

I set out at 07:30 to go to the diagnostics centre to do my blood test. I had to return home and go there again after two hours after my breakfast for the second part. I will get my results today, and hopefully the one month of medication and little stricter diet would have helped improve the situation than what it was a month ago.

I went to see the Regional Manager of ICICI Bank. He had no explanations for the chaos and no solution to my problem. They had even clobbered me for debit cards they claim to have issued, whereas all they had done was freeze the only debit card I had been issued with, completely shutting me out of the banking process. And there was no explanation for this fiasco!

I managed to get them to pay the binder in Bangalore and hopefully this morning I will get my transaction password and also my debit cards to try to get hold of some of my money! I later had a call that the debit card in Annikki's name would be delivered in Mumbai! What's your guess on that?

NRIs - My advice stays unchanged as of date. If you want to safeguard your hard-earned money and live sane - get out of the ICICI association as it will only lead to misery!

Lunch was with Ambassador K. P. Fabian at the Indian International Centre where I met some of the senior most retired IFS and IAS officers who were scattered around as grains of rice in a paddy field. Over lunch we touched on many topics and hopefully something will come out of this association as KP is a person with immense knowledge, a bowlful of sweet contacts of the most senior level and the capacity to get things done. Our association of 25 years can now take shape as we are in a position to help each other currently at a level which neither is interested in the material benefits of such an association.

After a quick cup of coffee and it was off to Gurgaon to meet a friend of 25 years past, Navin Bahl. And what a reunion. It was so wonderful to tie up with someone whoh I had holidayed with in 1964 in St. Tropez. we had lived in a tent together, gone through the hardship of driving through France in a run down Bedford van held together with underwear, and shared many experiences together, which we recalled with such gusto.

It was a shock to know that Navin is the Chairman of a company, Noorjehan, which supplies some of the most exquisite home furnishings to the topmost company in Finland - Stockman, which is the Harrods of Finland. I went around his two factory buildings and witnessed the dedication with which he and his son have built this enterprise. And now they are about to make a grand entry into the flagship of Finnish textiles and home furnishings, but more about that later. Suffice to say that his product may be on the lips of every Finn in a short while!

Before I realised it the time was already 6 pm and I wanted to visit my nephew in Gurgaon.



Ashwin Thomas is the son of my cousin Gita (née Matthan, daughter of my father's younger brother, the late Matthan Matthan). He lived in another sector in Gurgaon.

Driving there was a nightmare as the traffic and pollution is so intense that it makes one sick. But thanks to the excellence of Salegram, we reached there and I was able to spend a short time with Ashwini and his wonderful wife, Mac-fan Meghan (hope I got that right; the name, not the Mac-fan bit!) and their frisky Golden Retriever. A couple of bhajias, a cup of tea and I had to be off, although they were trying to persuade me to stay for dinner. But Salegram had had a long day. I knew the drive back was going to be rough. But Salegram knew the back roads and got me back in record time. I had to do my packing and be ready for a series of appointments in the morning as we had to leave for the airport by 10 am!

And my good internet and Stephanian friend, and one of the persons I most admire on this planet, John Dayal, is dropping in at 8 am! (Of course, I also do have an appointment at the ICICI bank, if it will do any good!)

Closing down

The stay at the Malayala Manorama Guest House has been perfect. The atmosphere inside and outside is serene.

The garden in front of the Golf Links Guest House.

Thank God I checked my flight plan yesterday. I was under the impression that we were leaving Delhi on Saturday morning. I thought I had my last crucial appointment in Mumbai on Saturday evening. When I checked my diary yesterday, I found that the appointment in Mumbai was on Friday evening and our flight booking was for noon on Friday.

I had lots of programmes scheduled in Delhi for Friday, which I had to cancel or rearrange. Navin Behl, my friend and travel mate from our 1964 trip from London to St. Tropez (before Brigette Bardot made it famous) and back in an old Bedford van, along with friends Ashok Kapur, Ajit Mehra, Noel Ezekiel and Viney Sethi, was scheduled for lunch on Friday at the Golf Club. That has been brought forward to a meeting at his office in Gurgaon on Thursday afternoon. I was to meet my nephew (Ashwin Thomas) and his wife in town on Friday evening, as they live far out of town in Gurgaon. I will also meet them on Thursday evening at Gurgaon, saving them a long hike into town.

Annikki and I had been invited to take part in the Philosophy session at St. Stephen's College to give our view of life in Finland vis-á-vis India - that programme had to be dropped. Also, I had planned to attend the Carol Service on Friday evening at the College - that had to be dropped.

With the sudden change of programme, I was worried that the glasses we had ordered for Mika would not be obtained. They were promised for delivery on Friday evening. Yesterday evening I took a chance to go there to ask them how we should proceed. I was very pleasantly surprised to find that the glasses had already been received. So that was one more headache not created! Thanks guys.

Many friends could not be met because of the lack of time, and not, as in Bangalore, the inability to move around. Delhi transportation, although bad, is much superior to Bangalore. I was able to keep all my appointments within a couple of minutes of the scheduled time!

Annikki has been unwell for a few days, so our trips to Agra and Chandigarh were also dropped. She would not have been able to stand the strain of a drive there and back.

I am not reporting on my meeting with my cousins, as much water has to flow under the bridge before I can comment on the discussions, if at all. We had a wonderful get together and laughed our guts out over lunch at the India International Centre. We joked and pulled each others leg as only we can. It was a wonderful afternoon of three cousins and one nephew (but bracketed with us cousins) and Annikki. Before we realised it, it was time for them to take off to their respective destinations.

Annikki set off on her own to a couple of shops she had seen advertised in the newspaper. She had a traumatic time as nothing they offered in their ads was available and the shopkeepers, as they did not have her size in the clothes she wanted, kept trying to sell her men's clothing. She came back, traumatised, after a couple of hours. I was glad that Salegram, our driver, stayed at her side throughout! Oh for the wonders of dear friends.

Yesterday, I also managed to meet some of the Technical Team (Project Coordinator S. C. Jain and PCS/ Unit Manager V. D. Dubey) at the AFPRO (Action for Food Production) NGO programme and had a very valuable discussion about their work on Check Dams, Gobbar Gas Plants, as well as their entire rural development programme. Maybe there is still some hope for our Rural Urbanisation programme as such organisations know how to get the Government Funding mobilised, and when they have honest and competent people manning the different levels of their organisation, they can still be effective. I hope to be doing more with AFPRO, especially in some of the work we are planning in Zambia.

The trauma with ICICI Bank sees no end. They have goofed, big time, yet again and again. It is a tragi-comedy of enormous proportions and it grows bigger by the hour! Today I will meet the Regional Manager in New Delhi and see what explanations he can come up with, what worthwhile apologies can be obtained. I will explore whether it is at all worth looking at this bank as a partner, especially as there are several large investments to be made or realigned over the next few months. I doubt that it will turn out positive, knowing the mindset of such persons in authority.


Transformed. Do I keep this image on returning to Finland?

Those who know me, know that this is NOT me! I am the carefree type, not the suited, booted one. The real question is whether I should stay transformed on my return to Finland? :-)

I am also going for my check up this morning in a diagnostic clinic to see whether there has been any improvement since I have been on medication since Chennai. Hopefully, once I get back to Annikki's dietary control in Finland and my stricter daily schedules there, the blips that we are seeing will vanish. But today will tell me whether I should continue the medication that has been prescribed - which is a nuisance, taking 7 pills a day!! That is for a person who has never taken any pills in his adult life!

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?