Our local newspaper, Kaleva, today published a picture of my hilarious Birthday Present created for me by Annikki.
In a few days it will be in the archives of the Reader's Pictures, but I have scanned in this from the newspaper. 
See the picture in my blog entry for 3rd April for a better quality picture.
I still have not stopped laughing at this!
I just had this from Anand Matthan, younger son of my late Godfather George Matthan. 
Dear Sushil,
Just thought that I should let you know about the impending 60th Wedding Anniversary of Kochupappen and Anniekochamma. It takes place on 6th May 2006.(Ed: Anniekochamma and Kochupappen
Picture of Anniekochamma, thanks to Shalu, Anand's wife)
I thought it appropriate all of us who have touched 65 to celebrate this happy event.
We plan to do so at Bangalore Club on that day and even I, in my present state, am planning to go to Bangalore.
I used to make that visit every month but now have done it only once since I was laid low.
This day we will also remember Lalith (Ed: Son of Geeta and Moni, 35 in January, no picture), Joanna (Ed: Daughter of Annikki and myself, presently studying medicine in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 35 in January), Rahul (Ed: Son of Anand and Shalu and a leading lawyer in Bangalore, 35 in January) and Yasmin (Ed: Daughter of Ajit and Omena presently living in Malaysia, 35 in May), who were all born in 1971 and are / will this year be 35.(Ed: Tony, Joanna), Daniel and
Samuel, June 2005 ©Nirupa)(Ed: Ajeet, who will be 65, and his family
which includes daughter, Yasmin)(Ed: No picture OF Rahul
Outstanding picture BY Rahul (Anand's son)
Nandi Hills)
And, of course, the 90th birthday of Chinchai.(Ed: Chinchaya, my ever young-at-heart Godmother in 1936)
Wish that all of you could be here.
That would have been the icing on the cake, but such is life.
In fact, only Lalith will be there to represent the other three - Joanna being in England, Rahul on a business trip to USA and Yasmin in Malaysia.
Affectionately
Anand
Last year, I made a couple of new friends here in Oulu. They had come here from different parts of India to do some language "localisation" for Nokia.
One of them lives in Bangalore with his family and is an Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Kannada Studies, at the University of Agricultural Studies in Hebbal. Balakrishna Jnardhana, known more commonly as Balu, is a specialist in languages. I have found of late that he is a great cartoonist and also a brilliant writer. 
I started yesterday in splits of laughter (see the earlier post), and all through the day I kept giggling to myself, thinking at the shock I got when I looked out of the kitchen window to see that snowman with the "Happy Birthday" sign!
Annikki made a delicious pineapple / peach cake, but we only got to eat it around 10 pm.
Pentti, Pailin and Unnop dropped in just at that time and got a piece of the cake.
They came to see Annikki's garden lights. The lights were truly magnificent.
Pailin got to sit in the snow wigwam!
Annikki showed them the main tools she used to create her snow garden. The shovel and a lot of shoulder power!
And it was way past my bedtime when our really wonderful guests left after having a heart-to-heart chat with Annikki.
It was a really great birthday with the snowman, the 200 or more emails, greeting cards, online greeting cards, telephone greetings with even Ildikó and Ilari singing in Tune greetings over the phone, and our very dear friend Eino Kaitera taking time to give me a call, Skype greetings from many many countries, and even personal visitors at this remote location.
And, the last two people that I got to talk to were grandchildren Asha and Samu - and that was what really made it such a wonderful day for me.
Thank you all for making it such unique occasion. I feel absolutely honoured to have such a wide range of loving family and friends in every corner of the world.
Cross-posted on the CHAFF Blog
Here is stomach-breaking news.
Annikki and i were privileged to taste the latest of the products to find their way into the Pailin menu.
You may be familiar with the Thai Sweet Chilli Kebab Wrap. It is a really convenient and delicious food.
However, the Sweet Chilli Sauce goes best with roast chicken.
This product really gets your juices going.
There are some secrets in this product which make it a new real and major addition to Thai cusine. I am not at liberty to divulge those details, but I understand why this product will really hit the headlines.
I raved over it. When I took one home for Annikki, she thought it was just great.
When I woke up this morning and came down for my first cup of tea, I glanced out of the kitchen window, and this is what I saw:
She toiled 6 hours yesterday to create the winter garden that I showed in my previous post. And all for me!
What a wonderful birthday greeting and present - much more than money can buy!
Annikki has been waiting for a long time this winter for a day like today. Plenty of fresh snow - it snowed yesterday, a warmish day, and a resulting sticky snow.
I went to see Nageshwari and Kiran, to pick up a computer donated by an Indian engineer, who has returned to India, for a needy student.
Nageshwari and Kiran are Mysoreans. Nageshwari had made some delicious masala dosais and coconut chutney for me! I scoffed four of them.
I took the computer to give to the student, did some important chores en route and when I returned home by 8 pm, I looked out of the kitchen window and found this staring object back at me!
I rushed out to see what had been happening outside. It was evident that I was not the only surprised individual.
Our cat, Iitu, was also surveying the new constructions that had sprung up in our absence!
I tried various combinations on our terrible digital camera to get the true spirit of Annikki's handiwork. Unfortunately it was not possible to do justice to her superb creativity!
Annikki and our neighbour, who also enjoys garden lights and creations, were exchanging notes!
I managed to get this rather strange shot.
And this shot captured the true beauty of the corner of the Kampitie pond corner with the underwater lighting of the pond, the Finnish "kota" (a Laplander's wigwam but made out of snow without any frame or mould) and the snowman who is waving to Annikki's mother, who sits above it looking out of the kitchen window!
With the gruelling schedule that Annikki keeps, looking after the house, looking after her mother, writing articles on social and political issues, changing the insides of the house every other day, I do not know how she has this boundless energy to create stuff out of her "snowman's snow".
Time for a sauna to warm the insides.
I do not want to start a typical Microsoft vs Apple battle here, but the focus of Microsoft disruption strategy seems to have shifted from Apple to its largest rival of today, Google.
Sadly, Google is fighting back with its hands tied behind its back, and the do-good goody shoes attitude could result in the downfall of this giant.
The latest was yesterday when the Google Mail programme "gmail" in most parts of the world and "googlemail" in the UK, suffered a major world outage which lasted several minutes.
Reason - the "inability" of the Microsoft "Windows" operating system to handle a simple delay in Australia of the change of the time change from Summer time to Winter time!
This article "Microsoft bug cripples Google quantum-based spam filtering" by Adam Turner appeared in the Australia "The Sydney Herald" on April 1, 2006.
Google's quantum-based spam filtering launch was thrown into chaos today due to Microsoft Windows's inability to cope with Australia's daylight savings changes.
Google's long-awaited quantum-based spam filtering project went online today, continuing the internet giant's tradition of launching new features, such as Gmail, on April 1.
Daylight savings was extended in Australia this year, ending this weekend, to allow for Melbourne's Commonwealth Games - but Windows lacks the flexibility to handle such changes. As such, the analysis of Australian inboxes from Windows users saw the system attempt to process 25 hours worth of data.
The resulting quantum fluctuations created a feedback loop which engulfed London's Supercomputing Methods Experimental Group (SMEG) research centre where the project is based.
(Cross-posted on the CHAFF Blog.)
I am not talking about skirt lengths!
The Thai Pailin Restaurant (Kenttätie 9, Kasarmi Area) have tested two new products on Annikki and me yesterday - the Midi Flap and the Mini Flap.
It is rather nice to be food tasting test pigs for a good restaurant!
The Midi Pizza Flap
The Mini Pizza Flap
After the success of their full size Pizza Flap, they have come up with these two products for the not so hungry and the fast-food Pizza addicts with not so much money in their pockets.
And, it is not an unhealthy fast food!
Fast food giant, Macdonald's could take some lessons from this enterprising small restaurant.
It is possible to choose the fillings in these Flaps to your personal taste.
The Mini Flap is ideal for parties. Keep them warm in a hot case and serve them up with an accompanying salad bowl.
Great work - Unnop and Pailin.
Last week's puzzle was very very easy - the Duck and the Rabbit were spotted by almost everyone. Susanna was the first to get back to me by email, and then we had over 200 who saw the two animals.
Many had complained that the cow of the previous week was not very clear. Once they saw the marked picture, it became obvious that the eye can be very deceiving. Most retracted their complaint!
This week's is very very simple. Asha already got it - 10 seconds.
What two animals can be seen in this drawing.
Have fun.
(Just realised that Puzzle Time is 24 hours ahead of schedule!)
The other day, when I checked Hilja in the morning, I found her half off the bed as she had made every effort to get hold of a decorative hat hanging on the wall - which she was then clutching in her hands.
I put her back to bed.
When I told Annikki, she removed the hat from the room. Too dangerous as Hilja cannot stay on her feet, without support, for very long.
Today, Annikki was having some fun with her mother, Hilja.
Hilja loves hats so when Annikki put one on the table, Hilja had to have it on her head!
Hilja, Annikki's mother's 86th birthday was on the 14th of March. Daughter, Anneli, Annikki's younger sister, who lives just outside Helsinki could not come up on the day.
She had to attend a conference in Oulu University on Friday, so she arrived in Oulu on Thursday evening to spend the weekend at home with her mother.
On Saturday, she visited their sister, Aino, in their new home, which she with her persistence, was instrumental in organising.
Later in the evening Anneli and Annikki celebrated their mother's birthday by making a cake for her.
Anneli has taken up a very creative hobby of knitting colourful woollen socks. Here is a selection of some her designs.
The black and white striped one is mine to use when I work in the cellar. Thanks, Anneli.
(Cross-posted in the Best Buy and CHAFF Blogs.)
Many of you will remember how Vamsi got a real bargain of a 7.2 megapixel camera for jut Euro 199.
This one beat the one we got for Paneer, but as Paneer was time-bound, he got the Best Buy of that day!
Vamsi has been kind enough to share some of the absolutely great photographs he got when he went to Iso-Syöte, the downhill ski centre an hour and a half from Oulu, with his colleagues from the Technical Faculty at Oulu University.
I share below some of the great photography of a master photographer in the making.
I was looking fortward to the action photo taken while Vamsi was skiing down the slope with the camera strapped to his chest! :-)
Valde Tenhula was born in 1900 in a small village just south of Oulu, Kärsämänkylä in Temmes.
At the age of 22 he left for the US but returned in 1929 after 7 years in that country.
He has lived and worked in and around Oulu ever since. He had distinguished service in the Finnish Army, being a decorated war veteran.
We used to see him at the Hirosen Old People's Home almost every time we went to drop off or collect Annikki's mother.
But he was shifted to the Tuira Old People's Home some time ago.
His last moments of his 105 years in this world were spent at the Tuira Old People's Home, where Mika worked, when he was a teenager, looking after old people.
Valde Tenhula was the oldest registered resident of Oulu.
May his sould rest in peace.
Last week's puzzles. The first was very easy. The other, extremely difficult.
Every one got the first one correct - both the lines are of the same length.
Only Hashim of the Goreme Pizzeria, Oulu, got the second one right.
Nobody eles came even close!
Yes, it is a cow.
This week's puzzle is very very easy.
What all can you see in this drawing?
(Cross-posted in our CHAFF BLOG.)
Please visit our new Blog - BEST BUYS in OULU which presents you BEST BUYS in Food, Toietries, Cameras, Radios, TVs, Computers, and anything else we find.
Annikki & Jacob
I have been a bit lazy regarding the updating of the Maliyakal family web sites.
Thanks to a major input from Suresh (Rev. Chandy Kuruvilla) in Lucknow, India, and a simultaneous update from Sarasu (Sarasu Isaac) in the Virginia, USA, I did a major update of all the Maliyakal web pages. I still lack much data to be able to call this a comprehensive site of our family.
But that depends on the inputs that you can provide me - such as birthdates, family notes, etc.
I just sent an erroneous message to my dear cousin wishing him 75 - whereas the young lad is just 73!
This week's puzzles are Easy Peasy Ones, as demanded by the younger crowd.
Which line is longer, the top one or the bottom one?
And what do you see in this picture below.
Answers to last week's puzzles
Everyone got the answer to the first puzzle. The lines are ALL parallel.
This is an optical illusion created by the spacing between the dark and light squares that creates the impression of sloped lines.
The second puzzle had everyone but two people totally off the mark.
David Okele, our friend from Kenya, tried hard and did some good lateral thinking, but it was not good enough.
He suggested that the farmer's daughter quietly pick up a white pebble from the ground before putting her hand into the bag and then pull it out.
Good thinking, but she could be exposed as a cheat.
The answer which Shalu, in Chennai, India, came up with is the best example of lateral thinking.
The farmer's dsaughter puts her hand into the bag, picks a pebble. When she takes her hand out of the bag, she drops the pebble to mix it with the millions on the ground.
She apologises profusely and then asks the moneylender to pick out and show the colour of the one in the bag, which of course, will be black. This means, to the audience, that the one she picked out must have been WHITE, freeing her father of the debt and she does not have to marry the moneylender!
The moneylender cannot say otherwise, as if he does, he will be proved to have cheated.
Well done Shalu!
