Culture Shock - Finland

Cross-posted at the CHAFF Blog.

A Friendship Day Special Blog Entry

Last Saturday, Ildikó and Ilari were early visitors to Kampitie to pick up our trailer. They were moving to their new home in Tuira, just north of the Oulu River.

They brought, for us, a copy of their book "Culture Shock - Finland" which has been published in German.


Culture Shock, Authors, Inscription, Cover

My spoken German is rusty, not having used it for several years, but my ablity to read German has not deteriorated too much. I did find several words that are new to the language, but I was able to derive the meanings.

The book was a good quick read. It contained all the salient points to introduce both a tourist and someone who is planning to be in Finland for some time to the intricacies of life in Finland.

It is not in the more confrontational style adopted by Annikki and me in our book "Hanbook for Survival in Finland". Like us, the authors provide a degree of balance, as Ildikó is from Hungary and Ilari from Finland. There is a balance in the views of Finns and Foreigners in what they have seen and experienced in Finland. The index is not too long, so it is easy to quickly find essential references in the book. I did a series of quick checks and I was able to get answers to many common questions that face foreigners when they arrive in Finland.

Both the authors are well travelled and they bring out their observation powers in their commentary about this lovely country.

I would have preferred the beautiful pictures included in the book to have been in colour, as Finland is such a colourful country, from the radiancy of the weathered old wooden houses, to the green of the forests, the blue of the lakes, and the fashion scene. However, being priced at just Euro 14.90 (in Germany) I think the publishers had to curtail the costs and stuck to black and white!

Chaff participants, Gisela Tauriainen, Kamu Tembo and me, do get a mention in the acknowledgements. I must confess I do not know why I got mentioned!! As far as I know I just enjoyed the conversations I had with two vibrant people who are so full of life and represent the youth of today.

Thank you, Ildikó and Ilari, for such a wonderful book.

P.S.: Believe it or not, I received a young German girl from Oulu Airport on Monday afternoon, Kerstin, who has arrived in Finland to do research in Microbiology at Oulu University, and she was carrying a copy of this great book!

New Series - Optical Illusions 01:

I start a new series to test your mental agility.

If you like the idea, do email me!

Here is a drawing to start with!



Hint: Something I use frequently which accurately describes Bush and Blair!

5 years on his spirit lives on...

Today is 5 years since Annikki's father, Matti Reinikka, passed on.

Matti Reinikka, 1916 - 2001

He was a wonderful man, full of life and full of his faith. He lived his faith in every way. Even though with a weak heart, he physically worked himself to the bone, every single day of his life.

Just yesterday, there was an article on the BBC website Finns open playgrounds for adults

At the Santa Claus Sports Institute in Lapland, a group of elderly Finns leap around on climbing frames, swinging on the swings and bouncing on a see-saw that is more of a people launcher than anything I remember from my days on the playground.

It is the latest Finnish wheeze to get people more active......

Someone like Matti did not need any playgrounds. He was busy from morning to evening, all through his life, doing things, active things, meaningful things, like going to the rubbish dump to collect wood on his little mopo with a trailer attachment, stacking it neatly in the garden all through the year, and then putting the right amount into the cellar, where he used his own creation, his wood splitting machine, using a motor from an old washing machine, to make the wood just the right size to go into the furnace.

He had the house at the right temperature with running hot water, all through the year. No automatic system for him!

In summer he mixed pleasure with essentiality - he would go fishing in a small boat and bring home a sack full of a variety of fish, caught by him. He would sit in the garden and clean the fish. Then he would smoke it in his own designed smoking drum, and then bring some up to us, happy to share his catch with his family members.

He really knew the art of catching fish.


Matti holds his prize catch -
the massive Salmon he caught

He was so happy when this picture of him, holding his best prized catch of the years of fishing, graced the cover of the book written by Annikki and me "Handbook For Survival in Finland". His life was the ideal example of a true survivor! He fought on the front lines right through the wars of the 30s and the 40s, and came through to understand what it is to love your fellow human beings.

Annikki inherited her father's faith and his skills of recycling everything, big or small.

The entire Kampitie garden was created by her out of all the waste materials that lay around the garden. These included the wood, an old cast iron bath tub, and a greenhouse which was on the point of falling down. She took one beam of the construction and created an art piece out of it.


Beam from the old greenhouse
becomes an art centerpiece

Old electric bulbs, aluminium candle holders, old aluminium food trays, nothing gets thrown away, but stored as Annikki develops her ideas and then creates what are most unusual products.


Matti with the women in his life.
Annikki is the second from the right

In Annikki, her art and Matti's recycling genes she has inherited, have become entwined.

The calendar of cakes, which has now encircled the globe, and with appreciation of her "Edible Art" pouring in from all corners of the globe, is just a tiny fraction of an example Annikki's artistic talent.

And to think Annikki does all this while she cares with love and affection for her 85 year old mother on a gruelling 24 hour basis, makes Annikki, in my mind, the most outstanding woman that I have ever known and a tribute to the life of her father. I am proud to be her husband just as I am proud to be the son-in-law of the late Matti Reinikka, a humble carpenter, just like his Master that he followed, faithfully.

Please pray for Dr. Samuel

May I request all of you to say a special prayer for the father of Rana Jacob in Calgary.

Dr. J. Samuel, known to all of us as Sam, is 76, and is not keeping too well in Ernakulam.

Dr. Samuel is the second son of Maliyakal Kurian Jacob, the youngest brother of my grandfather Dewan Bahadur Kuriyan Matthan.

Rana is his eldest son and is married to Beena. They live in Calgary, Canada.

Their daughter Nidhi was recently married.

Dr. Samuel had his 3rd heart attack and was in a bad shape last week.

But, the Grace of God was on him and saved his life.

He was in the Amritamiya Hospital and has now been discharged.

Since Dr. Samuel suffers from high BP and is a diabetic, further invasive treatments have now been kept in suspense.

Please join Annikki and me in praying for our uncle to keep him safe, and also for his children, Rana and Reena, in this hour of their need for comfort.

A bit annoying...

I must thank an Indian, Abhay Bulsari from South West Finland, living in the city of Turku, who runs a company called AB Nonlinear Solutions Oy, for pointing out this news item from BBC World 'lukewarm to India's role'.

This is a study of how different countries view other countries.



What drew Abhay's attention was the views of Finns about India. Only 27% of Finns view India positively and 44% view the country negatively.

Luckily, the business community in Finalnd today does not hold this view as there is rapid expansion now of Finnish companies starting to use Indian expertise and also use it as an outsourcing point. Two recruitment centres are expected to be opened in India to bring competent Indian scientific and engineering staff to Finland.

14 years ago this would have been unthinkable. When I first pointed out in the first issue of Findians Briefings, way back in 1992, that Texas Instruments had opened a centre in Bangalore with a direct sattelite link to Houstan, Texas, in 1984, not many Finns thought this was a good idea!

But the history of this bad image goes back much further. In 1975, I had identified Finnish technologies ideally suited for India. I approached a company and also explained to them, as engineering costs in Finland were high, maybe they could work with one of the larger and well established Indian Engineering Consulting companies, to capture the huge Indian market.

I was laughed out of the room - competent Indian Engineering skill?

India got the same technology from a French company.

Another example was when I asked the largest Finnish Sauna manufacturer to quote for the large volume of saunas required by the expanding 5-star hotels opening all over India. I got a negative response. I alerted a Swedish company. For the next 10 years almost every sauna sold in India was from a Swedish manufacturer.

A short while after this happened the Finnish company came running after me as to whether it would be possible to reopen the opportunity as their Brazilian market had suddenly dried up.

Prof. Ajeet Mathur, in his treatise "Finland - India Economic Relations - A Twinning Study of Trade and Investment Potential" published in 1998, pointed out the enormous potential. But again, the Finns have been slow to act and have missed most of the action, thereby not getting much of the deal as other countries capitalised on.

With Amma, Deepak Chopra and a few other leading Indians making waves in Finland, a few films and songs getting shown on Finnish television, the huge advertising campaign of "Incredible India" of BBC World, some inroads of a better perception of India is very slowly taking root amongst the general public.

But the business community realised that they have been losing out. They are desperately trying to expand opportunities in India, as otherwise their international shareholders may start asking uncomfortable questions.

Abhay was of the view that we should alert the Indian Embassy about this.

In my opinion, Finns are the losers if they do not wake up.

So let us not rock the boat.

Oulu Rotary Team in Kottayam

The Rotary Team from the Oulu District met up with Satish Abraham, a cousin of mine, when they were hosted by the Rotary Club of Kottayam.

Here are some great pictures sent to me by Satish. Satish is the one standing on the left in the first picture.

Satish Abraham, Heino Holappa, Katja Kalamäki,
Sini Peltokorpi, Ville Suomi and Kaisu Lehtomaa being hosted
by the Rotary Club of Kottayam at the Sailing Club on the
banks of the Vembanad Lake, Kumarakom

Satish's family owns one of the largest producers of Rubber Latex in India which is used to make thousands of things from rubber balloons, to condoms, footwear, gloves, mattresses, etc. Their company, which carries his family name, Padinjarekara, is a household name all over India.

His late grandmother, Annammakochamma, a wonderful dear lady, was the youngest sister of my grandfather, K. C. Mammen Mappillai. I loved her dearly. Everytime we arrived in our hometown, Kottayam, for a holiday, she would be over in a jiffy to greet all of us. She would invite us over to have a great spread at her home during our stay.


The Oulu Rotary Team boating on the
Vembanad Lake, Kumarakom

Satish has been close with our family for many years. He used to visit our home in Madras when we lived there. His wife, Vimla, is a perfect lady. They make a wonderful couple.

It is wonderful that Vimla's cousin's wife, Smitha, will be coming to Oulu as part of the return visit team. I am sure we at CHAFF would love to have this group spend time at our Sunday Club meeting with us!

Hilja comes home

We brought Hilja home today.

We used the wheelchair and an Invalid Taxi, which is subsidized for her.

To bring Annikki and her home it cost just Euro 2.40, whereas a normal taxi trip would haver cost Euro 21!

Annikki & Hilja waiting for the Invalid Taxi

The taxi has a lift attachment at the back, so Hilja did not have to be taken off the chair. She could be wheeled into the taxi.

The driver, who is experienced in handling wheelchairs, took the wheelchair into the house, with me just giving him a small helping hand.

Hilja does not use the wheelchair in the house, as she can manage with the walker. But to get out of the house or to come in, the wheelchair is now essential.

Hilja is in good spirits and glad to be home again.

Anniki is reenergized by the short holiday and especially by the wonderful messages about her cake designs as the 2006 Calendars are just reaching people around the world.

A picture that Annikki thought exciting

There are many pictures that are captured during a normal winter. But the one below is one that Annikki wanted me to capture.



This is a picture of a sheet of snow sliding off a plastic roof.

It happened because the ambient temperature rose causing the snow to melt at the interface with the plastic and start to slide down, slowly.

But then the temperature obviously went down sharply, freezing the sheet of snow - half slid off the roof.

With the Christmas lights still in place, and untouchable because of the snow sheet, this looks really exciting during the evening sunset.

Great difficulty....

Yesterday evening, Annikki and I had a great deal of difficulty in choosing which restaurant to celebrate our wedding anniversary. With so many friends in the restuarant business, we love the food of the restaurants that we frequent. The Royal Garden, New Bombay, Goreme, Pailin, Flavour Palace, Suola Aito, etc., etc...

Finally, since it was the Chinese New Year eve, the year of the Dog, we decided on Chinese. Annikki chose Michelle and Willy's restaurant, the Royal Garden, as she had not been there for quite a while (see below).

We did not pre-reserve or inform them that we were coming.

We found te restaurant quite quiet. They had a new waitress whom we had not seen before - a Punjabi girl, Ami. Her husband had been looking for a job in Oulu as a bartender, but not finding one had gone to Helsinki. Extremely pleasant girl.

We ordered Peking Soup, frittered chicken, fried beef with extra garlic and ginger, and the frittered banana with ice cream. Having determined that the cook was the Calcutta boy, Francis, we asked him to ensure that the garlic and ginger were a bit more than usual.

Annikki after a very satisfying meal

As we sat waiting for our meal, I just turned my head and saw Philip, Michelle's brother, who lives in a town in mid-Finland, Jyväskylä. It was nice to talk to him not having seen him for quite a while. He had come to celebrate the Chinese New Year with his sister, Michelle, and see his kids, who live with their mother in Oulu.

He told us that Michelle and Willy would be in soon to have the Chinese New Year's meal, and asked whether we would like to join them.

We apologised as we had ordered already. As he is a superb cook, we asked him to supervise the meal we had ordered. (Also, as Annikki does not eat prawns, pork, crab and a few other foods which are traditionally part of a grand Chinese meal, I thought it wiser to stay with the food which we had ordered!)

He, in fact, took the trouble and prepared our meal. It was really good.

As we were eating, Michelle and Willy arrived and asked us to join the Chinese New Year meal with them. We had to cry off as we had a huge meal in front of us.

Michelle sat and talked with us through the meal and gave Annikki some great news. Her youngest daughter, who is presently with her mother and father in Calcutta, would be rejoining the family shortly.

Annikki was thrilled at the news as she was virtually not on talking terms with Michelle when she had left the little baby with the grandparents the last time she had gone to see her parents. She was actually conducting a small boycott - bring back the baby campaign!!

We enjoyed our meal. Michelle offered me some delicious crab which they had made for their own meal. She had also a great tofu/meat cutlet, which Annikki and I tasted - delicious.

It is surprising that such good tasty dishes are not on the regular menu. But they maybe would not be appreciated by the traditional Finnish customer which frequents their restaurant.
'
We had a great evening with great food. Thanks to Philip and Michelle, we had a very enjoyable 39th Wedding Anniversary.

Guess what, I woke up at 10 am

Most of my adult life I have been waking up at hours between 3:30 am and 6:00 am as there are so many things to do and only 24 hours to do it in!

But this morning, our 39th wedding anniversary, I woke up ONLY at 10 am!

Being a Saturday, with both Annikki's mother, Hilja, and son, Mika, away over this weekend, my mind just stayed in slumberland.

I woke up with a feeling of what a great life I have had.

For a moment I even did not care what pResident Bush is doing to his people and the world. I missed my favourite radio programme, Mike Malloy (I will listen to it from the archives).

There have been many ups and downs in our 39 years of marriage, but always on issues outside of the two of us.

We have always been there for each other.

That was the feeling I had when I opened my eyes.

I let Annikki sleep on - she sorely needs the rest.

When I went to bed she was busy looking after the goldfish.

Iitu's morning greeting stretch & roll

We still have not decided which cusine we will choose to celebrate this wedding anniversary.

39 - Lucky Numbers 3 & 9

28th January has been a landmark day for all the last 39 years. 3 and 9 are supposedly my lucky numbers according to many numerologists who have offered their advice to me.

I hold no quarter for palmistry or numerology since 28th January has been a great day from 1 to 38 and 39 is going to be the same.

Annikki and I were married at Shrewsbury St. Mary's Church in 1967, 39 years ago.

And we have a great marriage and we are looking forward to 39 more such great years.



Viewed from our flat, where the only furniture we had was a wine barrel and a bed, is the church where we were married.

My dear wife, 39 years ago.


Myself 39 years ago


Us, 39 years on

Life has been kind on us. We have four great children, two wonderful sons-in-law, and 3 absolutely wonderful grandchildren.

Nothing could make us happier than sharing this wonderful day with all of you.

Former Catholicos Mathews II passes away

KOTTAYAM: The former Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan Baselius Mar Thoma Mathews II passed away on Thursday at the Catholicate Palace here where he was leading a retired life since November last. The end came at 5.20 p.m.

He was 91.

Former Catholicos Baselius Mar Thoma Mathews II


The body of the former Catholicos will be moved to the Old Seminary here, where he was a student of theology, for the laity to pay their homage. Later, it will be moved to Mar Elia Cathedral in the heart of Kottayam town.

According to the official spokesman of the Church, the last journey from Mar Elia Cathedral will begin at 3.30 p.m. on Friday to his final resting place at the Horabe Diara in Sasthamkotta in Kollam district.

The body will be interred in a specially constructed crypt on Saturday morning.

The former head of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church stepped down from the high office on October 31 after handing over his crosier to Baselius Mar Thoma Didymus I, citing old age and ill health.

Ever since, he was staying at the Catholicate Palace in Devalokam near here.

He was the sixth Catholicos of the East after the reinstatement of the Catholicate in Malankara in 1912 and the 89th successor to the Holy Apostolic Throne of St. Thomas, one of the disciples of Jesus Christ.

Born to an agriculturist family as the son of Idikkula and Annamma of Puthusherazhikathu Puthenveedu at Perinad (Kollam district) on January 30, 1915, Mathew had his primary education at a local school and later had his early religious training at the Old Seminary in Kottayam and Basil Diara in Pathanamthitta.

He later joined the Bishop's College in Kolkata for his Bachelor of Divinity programme and had his post-graduation from the General Theological Seminary, New York.

He was ordained as sub-deacon in 1938 by the then Catholicos of the East Baselius Geevarghese II and three years later on May 25, 1941 as a priest of the Orthodox Church.

It was during his stay at the St. George's Diara in Othara, which he helped to build, that he earned a name as a devout and able priest and endeared himself to all who came into contact with him and earning himself the pet name `Angel Achan' (Father Angel).

Under the special interest of the then Catholicos Baselius Geevarghese II, Fr. Mathew, then only 38 years old, was consecrated as Bishop in 1953 with the name Mathews Mar Coorilose, making him one of the youngest bishops in the Christendom.

Mar Coorilose was elected Catholicos of the East and Malankara Metropolitan on April 29, 1991 when his predecessor Baselius Mar Thoma Mathews I stepped down.

A widely travelled man, the former Catholicos was respected as a voice of ecumenism and moderation.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy, Finance Minister Vakkom Purushothaman and the former Minister R. Balakrishna Pillai are among those who condoled the demise.

Mar Joseph Powathil, Metropolitan of the Changanassery Archdiocese and chairman of the Inter-Church Council for Education, said the demise of the spiritual leader was a personal loss to him. He had the opportunity to closely enjoy his affection, fraternal relationship and friendship.

His demise will greatly move many members and several non-members of the Church. This highly learned individual has guided many people on the right path to achieve their personal peace with their inner beliefs. I have, at several weddings and other occasions, right from my childhood days, had the chance to talk at length with him. I always found him to be so simple and open-minded on views of living life that one felt very humble in front of him.

Many thanks to Satish Abraham in Kottayam for sending me this information.

60th Birthday of a sister

Annikki and I went visiting today. It was Annikki's sister's 60th birthday.

Aino (pronounced as "I Know") and Annikki set out to see the world together as friends, 44 years ago. It was I that split up the team.

Aino returned to Finland and is now married to a childhood friend, Kauko Kujala.

Aino and husband Kauko

Today, on Aino's 60th birthday, Annikki and I went over in the evening and spent some quality time with her husband and her. They had been expecting us already from mid-afternoon.


Aino on her 60th birthday

The bond between the two sisters is great. They love each other dearly as they had only themselves to depend upon when they went out into the big bad world from a protected Finnish society.

We laughed together today when Annikki and Aino recalled their visit to the London Zoo. They took a photograph of a lion at the zoo, and to their surprise, the lion turned its back on them and peed back at them!

Aino claims she still has the photograph of that incident.

Aino was so happy to share her 60th birthday with the two of us.

My new blog - CHAFF

I have started a new blog - CHAFF, which stands for Chamber of Assistance for Finns and Foreigners.

CHAFF is still not an official body. We still have not finalised our logo.

With the explosive support we are getting, it looks possible that this may soon become a full-fledged Chamber, just as a Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

I am looking to get a dynamic youthful team of individuals from a broad spectrum of countries together to run this organisation.

Today, we were offered a place where we could have our regular Sunday Chamber Meetings.

This is a major breakthrough, much more than the founders thought when we started this informal group.

Cold days

By Thursday the temperature had dropped and it was sure we were going to have a cold weekend. With the ambient temperature of -31 C and a wind speed of 11 metres per second (light wind) the temperature, after adjusting the wind chill factor, was around -47 C.

Matti, the animation whizzzkid, sent me couple of great photos of a very cold view of the Finnish forest.





On my CHAFF blog I put out a warning about being exposed to this degree of cold. For the uninitiated it could be positively disastrous.

Our cat, Iitu, certainly decided it was better to watch her fish on her TV aquarium rather than venture out into the cold.



I went out on Saturday and grabbed us a few yummy Thai Sweet Chilli Wraps.





They are delicious, light and I devoured mine pronto.



And then I got an email from cousin Anand in Chennai, who saw a TV programme there where it was said that it is so cold in Finland that people are having cold water baths to improve their blood circulation.

What I was doing was nothing so sensational (or stupid!). I was trying to heat our home to get it warmer!! The Russians have lopped off part of the power supply to Finland. I was busy last evening adding more heat to the house using our wood furnace to complement the night storage heating system which heats the house and also provides us with running hot water all through the day. Good thing we saved that antique burner when the renovation was done a couple of years ago.

Wednesday and Thursday...

The cold weather is rapidly moving across Finland.

That we had to take Annikki's mother to the Old People's Home on Wednesday was a daunting thought, thinking of how we struggled for over an hour to bring her in the last time we brought her home.

I had been to the Disabled Person's Equipment Centre and reported our problem. They arrived yesterday morning with a wheelchair so that we could take her in and out of the house in a wheelchair rather than make her walk down the few stairs.

However, they discovered that using the wheelchair would not be so easy. They have organised for the building department experts to come in and evaluate how best to modify the stairs at the entrance into the house so that we can wheel her in and out comfortably.

Annikki had her mother ready by around 15:00 hours. We decided to try and walk her out as usual. The situation soon became one of great panic. We had to give up. We had her sit in the wheelchair and we sat down and thought. Annikki was sweating profusely and even had to change her shirt, which was something considering the ambient temperature was -20 C.

We decided we would call an Invalid Taxi to take Hilja to the Home. That sort of solved the problem as taxi drivers in Finland know exactly how to handle whheelchairs in difficult situations.

We were so tired that Annikki gave up her traditional visit to the Fleamarket after dropping her mother.

Today the temperature was around -27 C.

I posted a warning to our foreign friends in Oulu on my CHAFF blog.

In the evening today I took Annikki on her round of her favourite fleamarkets.

Usually I sit in the car and wait for her. This time it was far to cold to wait in the car. So I popped into the fleamarket and carried one of the 3 books by Alex Alexander that I had received today.

Waiting for Annikki in the Fleamarket
I read some of the short stories by Alex Alexander

I have read the first few short stories. Being Indian and knowing the context of our thinking in all sorts of situations, I really appreciate Alex's humour as well as his writing style.

I am looking forward at finishing all the three books over the weekend. Judging from what I have read so far, I feel they will all be good reads.

Someone help me...

George Chandy and C. Chandy are two children of Administrator K. Chandy, one of the two well-known Malayali families who served the Mysore Maharaja. The other was my grandfather, Dewan Bahadur Kuriyan Matthan, also known around Mysore and Kerala as Mysore Matthan.

I know quite a bit about the history of the Kuriyan Matthan family in Mysore (which became Karnataka), but someone has posed a question about the equally famous K. Chandy family of Mysore.

Both K. Chandy and Mysore Matthan graduated from Madras Christian College, K. Chandy being one year ahead of Mysore Matthan. Both sat the Indian Civil Service Examination. K. Chandy, in his year, came first and joined the Mysore Civil Service. A year later Mysore Matthan followed him into the Mysore Civil Service. Both of them excelled and set the seeds for the Malayalis to enter into various walks of like in the then Mysore State.

I received this email from someone in the US:

Hi,

I'm Yorjai Chandy.

My brother Yohann and I are sons of George Sagman Chandy.

G S Chandy and Mammen George Chandy [his brother] are sons of Mr Chandy [Mysore Electricity and Telephones] who had several siblings.

The only names I remember are Commisioner C Chandy, Johnny Chandy [Railways] and Aunty Susy Varghese.

Question: The names seem familiar. Is there somewhere that I fit in the family? Is this family connected with my family?

Thank you for the information,

Yorjai

Brothers Sagman and Dumbo are the sons of George Chandy and Dr. Mrs. Chandy. George Chandy was in the Mysore Electricity Department and was my dad's boss till my dad moved to Bombay. Dr. Chandy was our family doctor when we lived in Bangalore in the 50s.

Cousins of Sagman and Dumbo, Mohan and Jagan, are the sons of Police Commissioner C. Chandy. They had one sister. Mohan served in the Indian Navy and was Captain (Commander) of one of India's submarines, having been trained in Russia. When Mohan was in Bombay (he was also for a time on the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant) he used to be a frequent Sunday lunchtime visitor at our home. He spoke fluent Russian. Younger brother, Jagan's daughter, Mirai was the classmate of our daughter, Susanna, in Bishop Cotton Girl's School in Bangalore, finishing in 1983.

I have some parts of the history of these four cousins who were great family friends when I lived in Bangalore. But my memory is quite sketchy.

Can anyone out there fill me up on as much of the history of the great Mysore Chandy family so that I can help out the greatgrandson of this great personality?

Cold, Colder,....

The temperature in Oulu is dropping and dropping and ......

Yesterday, the thermometer itself was not that low - only around -15 to 17 C. But there was a strong wind which cut through even the warmest of clothing. The chill factor made the temperature feel around -22 C.

Today, the temperature is really -22 C. The temperature for tomorrow is expected to be -27 C.

Luckily, there are no important meetings scheduled in the next few days, so we do not have to go out into the harsh and bitter cold unnecessarily.

But, today we have to take Annikki's mother to the Old People's Home for her "interval care" so that Annikki and I can recharge our batteries! Both of us are dreading that trip later today.

Our new neighbours at Kampitie 6 A are in the spirit of Annikki. The young lady put up a snow rabbit in their garden.



Annikki is waiting for snowman making climate, when the snow is a bit wet and sticky, so that make her creations for this year!

The goldfish are thriving, the 2 remaining small ones born last year (out of 6) in the outside pond, now safely in their own smaller traditional aquarium. The larger ones have grown enormous as can be seen from this picture.

Kampitie Goldfish wintering in Annikki's unique Table Top Aquarium

At least they do not have to winter in the -27 C we have outside!

Annikki went out for the first time

in 3 weeks!

When Annikki's mother is at home, Annikki just does not have the opportunity to step out of the house.

But this Sunday was special.

Local Polling Station

It was election day to elect the Finnish President. Annikki is so emotional about this subject, she took 15 minutes off from her gruelling routine to go and cast her vote. It took just 15 minutes - and thank God it does not involve any fancy computer equipment. Just a piece of paper and a pen and all she had to do was write a number in a circle!!

The polls closed at 20:00 hours and the results, in this high tech country using low tech for safe voting, were out by 21:30.


Annikki leaving after casting her vote

Annikki has a particular vengance against the present Prime Minister of Finland, Matti Vanhanen, who engineered a coup to get rid of Finland's first elected woman Prime Minister, Anneli Jäteenmäki.

Working with the previous Prime Minister, Paavo Lipponen, who was bitter at having lost his post, Matti Vanhanen worked against his own party member to overthrow her.

Further, Annikki firmly believes that this unscrupulous man separated from his wife so that he could appear to the voters as an eligible bachelor!

Anneli Jäteenmäki and the present President, Tarja Halonen, have been firmly anti-war and anti-Bush, which made them at odds with the macho male power brokers of Finland who want to play games with their war toys.

Incumbent Tarja Halonen of the Social Democrat Party and Left Alliance took 46.3% of the vote; Sauli Niinistö of the Conservative National Coalition Party with 24.1% won the runner-up spot from Matti Vanhanen of the Centre Party, the present Prime Minister.

There will be a second round of voting to determine who becomes the next President of Finland, between incumbent Tarja Halonen (SDP, Left Alliance) and the former Finance Minister Sauli Niinistö (National Coalition Party).

Without doubt Tarja will walk away with the prize in the second round of voting - a well deserved victory.

Georgie celebrates his 74th

There are few people in Chennai that I look up to - and the onethat is at the top of the pack is Georgie (K. George), the former Technical Director of MRF Ltd.

Today he celebrates his 74th birthday after retiring from a glorious career in the company that he built alongside his brother-in-law, K. M. Mammen Mappillai (Kochappachen).

He appears to be a calm and sedate fellow, but he has always been a great fun and frolic maker.

After we left India we did not hear much of him.

Suddenly, out of the blue, after his retirement from MRF, he appeared in our email, and since then he has been the constant source of information as to what is happening around the scenes in India.

Georgie's association with me was from the 50's when he was studying in Bangalore and stayed at the St. Joseph's College Hostel on Lalbagh Road, just opposite where we lived. I had numerous friends in the hostel where I used to go to eat Masala Dosai in the college canteen.

When Kochappachen started to build the tyre factory, he brought in Georgie as the Plant Engineer, and with his quiet diplomacy and hard work he built the great team that allowed MRF to become the Nro. 1 tyre company in India and the 7th largest tyre company in the world.

In addition to seeing him regularly at MRF, I also used to meet up with him at the Rotary meetings - he was in another Madras Club to mine, so we used to meet at different clubs when trying to ensure our weekly attendance.

I wish I had a picture of him to put on the blog. He has avoided being in my camera frame as he has always been the quiet person in the background.

Please join me in wishing this wonderful person, a good friend, a VERY VERY HAPPY 74th Birthday.