A waspy story

Annikki was cleaning around the back entrance to the house when she noted two bags which Joanna had put stuff in to send to the charity recycling centres.

She lifted one and was confronted by wasps and a huge buzzing sound from inside of the bag.

She acted quickly in that she got a large rubbish bag, and after enveloping the other bag, she carried it outside of the Vesaisentie garden to a small forest area behind the house. There she left the wasps to settle down.

She came back to attend to the second bag and found the same situation, so she moved this also to the new location in the forest.

When she came back she found that a few wasps had be left behind and they were whizzing around.

She could do nothing about them and thought that they may just leave.

A few hours later, when she went to see the situation, she saw the wasps were very busy making a new nest. They were working very industriousally and slowly but surely they were making a regular nest.

 

 

The work is in progress. The above two photographs show how the wasps are bulding their new nest. I hope to document the stages of building of this.

Billy's spicey noodle

I had to be in town on Saturday. I stopped at Billy Lu's Chinese A-Wing Dragon fast food. I ordered my usual - chicken noodle, super spicey!

I was having my salad when there was a great howl from the kitchen.

Billy yelled that he had put in prawns in the dish by mistake. I assured him I was quite happy to have prawn noodle, spicey.

 

But Billy, being the kind soul that he is, added the chicken as well. I got a special dish from him, prawn and chicken noodle, super spicey.

It was just great.

Maybe he should add it too his repertoire!

Undoubtedly the best fast food in Oulu.

New Thai restaurant in Oulu

Omena is an old Thai friend. I was on my way to my accountant's office near the railway station when she ran out of a new Thai restaurant and asked me in.

 

Being in a hurry, I did not go in then, but on my way out I stopped there.

I ordered a "Chilli Fish" dish.

A supoerb spicy salad with a tang was starters. Really good.

There was plenty of fish, but very little chilli. The dish was too dry for the accompanying rice.

But the salad was well worth the stop.

I love Thai food, so I may give it another try.

But I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the restaurant. Luckily I know where it is!

Raantel OY IS a Best Buy!

One of the tenants, a lady software engineer, who stayed in our Raantel Oy apartments in Oulu returned to India last Sunday after almost 6 months here. Before she left, she sent me this touching email:

"This is just a small note of thanks to you for all the help you have provided in these 8-9 months. Even though I might not have spent hours talking to you but your presence has always made me feel homely. I have never faced any problems as such, but if any, you were always there! It would have been difficult to thrive in a foreign country with lots of insecurity and lack of proper information. With you around nothing was difficult and out of reach. Thanks a lot for everything !"

Raantel Oy Headquarters and Community Centre at Ahmatie 16 in Oulu.

Another lady, who came with her one year old son to be in Oulu where her husband was on an assignment told me at the airport that she so enjoyed her stay with us that even if her husband comes for just a month, she and their son will come with them as they felt so much at home in our apartments and in our company.


Sunita, Karthik and Rajesh leave back for India.

These appreciations shows that Raantel Oy has achieved its objective as THE BEST BUY if you stay with us in our apartments in Oulu, Helsinki or Tampere.


Carom game at the Family Afternoon
at the Raantel Community Centre.

Raantel Oy is not just about giving you an apartment to live in. You become part of our community. With this I think I have achieved what I set out to do!

Claustrophobia - A new definition?

(Posted on all my major blogs.)

Ever since the age of 12 or 13, when an uncle of mine taught me the art of relaxation using artificial stress inducement, I have never had a problem of going to sleep. Before my head is settled in the pillow, I am fast asleep. I do not wake up at night and toss and turn. I nod off as soon as the reason for waking up is attended to. I hardly ever dream. Sit in a car with a safe driver, and I can drop off into neverland within a couple of minutes.

I usually wake up fully relaxed, even if the sleep lasted only a few minutes.



I came back from the hospital on Thursday afternoon with my left hand in plaster from the forearm till the tips of my finger. The operation to repair the knuckle of my fourth finger in my left hand had been successful, but it meant that my arm would be in this plaster-cast for 5 weeks. Plenty of painkillers and a course of antibiotic for 5 days, so no real problem of pain.

When I went to bed on Thursday evening, I thought I was going to sleep in my usual fashion. However, when my head hit the pillow, and as recommended, I put my plastered arm in a suitable and comfortable position on a couple of raised pillows, I felt a tremendous and overpowering feeling of restlessness. Sleep was just not coming in the next few minutes. Each passing second was raising an anxiety within me. I was feeling claustrophobic, even though, bodily, I was not in any confined situation.

Then it dawned on me that my mind was reacting to the fact that my left hand had lost its freedom. It was caged, and the stress relaxation technique, which I have used for over 50 years to drop into my slumber, was blocked by an overpowering feeling of fear. My fingers and wrist had lost their freedom. They were confined and this feeling of confinement was causing my mind to say that I was totally confined. And the realisation that I would have to endure this confinement for 5 more weeks was mentally unbearable.

I jumped out of bed, feeling as if I could not stay put down. I walked into the kitchen and expressed my claustrophobic thoughts to Annikki.

She was cool and calm and told me that I should take each day as it came, and the 5 weeks would be over even before I knew it.

I went to the living room and plonked down in front of the tv, but my heart and soul were not into watching any of the programmes. I let tiredness possess me so much so that I allowed my body to react to a mentally created feeling of a body becoming tired. Then when I went to bed, it was not my relaxation that put me to sleep, but a feeling of great tiredness - quite different to my normal situation.

As soon as Annikki came to bed, I put my plastered arm around her, and that claustrophobic feeling suddenly lifted and I dropped quickly into my normal deep slumber.

When I woke up in the morning, although relaxed, I still had that feeling at the back of my mind that I was a caged person. My n degrees of freedom had been severely curtailed. I now understood how anyone who loses any degree of freedom, mental or physical, could suddenly feel claustrophobic.

In all my life I had never experienced this. It was indeed a major revelation to me about the sufferings of my fellow travellers on this earth who had lost their freedom, any part of it.

I will be glad when this hand is uncaged. I will value all the degrees of freedom that I enjoy much much more than I ever have! And I will appreciate the feelings of other men and women, and any animal, who are caged in any form.

Green Door has moved - Is the Secret the same?

Latest pictures of the Vesaisentie garden.

The Mysterious Green Door has moved to its new location.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The garden is wilting because of the intense sunshine, but Annikki is out there with the buckets and watering cans to ensure that all is not lost!

Indian families in Oulu relax

Thanks to Nisha and Sunil, a few of the Indian families in Oulu got together at the Raantel Community Centre to relax and enjoy a few precious quality moments.

Among those present were Rajesh, Sunita and Karthik, Srikanth, Renu and Dipankar, Narayanan, Padmavathy and Ambil, Sunil, Nisha and Hannah, Nagendra, Ashwini and Suhina, Kiran, Prasad and myself.

Raantel Community Centre

Nisha cooked the frozen ready made vegetarian samosas I had brought from Helsinki and offered crisps and cake. Padmavathi prepared some great carrot halwa, the likes of which I have not tasted since my days in Sundarnagar Market in New Delhi. She was so nice to share the compliments with me as she said I had given her the new deep non-stick frying pan!! (Mark of a truly great personality to share her fame and glory with someone who least deserved it.) Ashwini brought some delicious capsicum dish, a dish which I so far have not had the pleasure of tasting. Renu did her task in bring some of her delicacies.

Prasad dropped in after cricket practice.

The kids enjoyed themselves running around the house and the compound. After enjoying the food, the menfolk got down to some serious carrom playing, using probably the only carrom board in Oulu and possibly Finland! The board is badly warped because of the different climatic conditions between India and Finland, but our experts mastered the board configurations and played a dozen games, each one a cliff hanger!

On the whole a very delightful afternoon which extended to late in the evening.

A nice surprise

I went to meet my friend Billy, who runs the best Chinese Fast Food in Oulu. I noted a young lady sitting there waiting for her food. She looked familiar, but I did not immediately place her.

I sat with my back to her and asked her whether she came from the Phillipines. Without once looking at her we conversed about generalities.

When she finished her meal, she was leaving and she asked me whether my name was Jacob and my wife's name was Annikki!

Then she told me that she was a faithful reader of all my blogs but regretted that I had not been updating the Oulu Best Buy Blog regularly. I told her that I did that only when there was a Best Buy, like writing about the very restaurant we were sitting in!

Virpi and Elizabeth Wang (from Phillipines)

Then I recognised her.

She had attended a party hosted by my dear friend, Kannan, for his classmates where he had feted his lecturer, Hannu, and me. Elizaebth Wang was one of those who was there that evening.

You can read about it at this web blog page: Kannan Fetes Hannu and me

Thank you, Beth, for saying so many nice thngs about me and my blogs. It is something I really enjoy and to get such kind words instlls a great deal of satisfaction in doing it more regularly than I already do.

A couple who inspired me

I do not remember whether I have blogged about people who have inspired me. There have been a few in my 60+ years, but the couple who inspired me most were friends I made in Madras in the early 1970s.

Prem and Titi Sadanand become bosom friends in a very short space of time after he joined MRF as the Staff Assistant to the Managing Director.

Prem was given the task of driving the organisation into a shape fit as a professional company. He had to retain the family values and yet make it professional.

Prem was a real professional, having studied at Harvard. He came from a noble background as his father was the owner / editor of one of Bombay's best known newspapers, the Free Press Journal, and known for his courage to write the truth.

That certainly rubbed off on Prem, but he had immense diplomatic skills.

He and I hit it off from day one as we both smoked heavily and drank heavily (that was the time I did drink and smoke - I have not touched cigarettes and alcohol for the last 26 years!).

I was helping to put a plastic factory belonging to MM Group into some sort of shape as it was providing vital plastic film for the tyre production activity. But it was decided that the company should expand its role into avenues other than MRF.

Prem was asked to work with me.

Coming from a scientific research and production background, I had no idea of business principles, except from a classroom standpoint. With the short space of four weeks, Prem taught me the ins and outs of production management and control.

We used to sit the whole day in his office where he would learn about plastics technology from me while he taught me how to control factory output and production and implement cost control without moving an inch from the chair. It was amazing how much this man knew and how well he could teach.

After work we would retire to his home where his wife, an outstanding personality in her own right would have a glass of whiskey ready for each of us and we would continue our discussions where he would probe into family situations so that he could stay ahead of the rat race and deliver the results that the family expected from a top flight manager like him.

It is amazing how much I learnt from these two individuals - social skills, management skills, negotiation skills, family values, and above all the art of decision making. They helped me put my Consulting Company on track and it was Prem and Titis's handling of my life that made me understand how to leave when the going was good.

Prem had worked in the jute industry and the glass industry. He was a complete personality in that he knew his technology and his management. If it was not for him the plastics packaging fibre industry would never have caught on as he used his knowledge of the jute industry to develop the coating technolgy for high density polyethylene woven fabric to make it suitable for packaging fertilisers, sugar, and other mateials in direct competition with jute. He used my knowledge of plastics to be able to drive the new small scale rafia producers along a path that has taken them to the top of the world in economic packaging.

Very few people know this role of Prem which has affected the lives of millions of Indians. I do!

When I moved from Madras to Bangalore, what I missed most was my times with them.

Sadly Prem died of a massive heart attack when he was just in his mid forties. But he had set his wife up in a great furniture business that went alongside all her artistic skills and helped her survive his loss at that young age.

Today, I learnt that Titi had passed on. Titi was the daughter of the brilliant man (Sointi) who patented the Arsenic Pentoxide treatment for preservation of wood. He sold the patent to Bell Labs in the USA who kept it under wraps till the patent ran out and then made billions out of that technology.

Ascu Hickson Ltd., the Indian company which did this treatment of wood in India was run by Titi's brother, Teddy!

I have thought of both Titi and Prem often, as also their only daughter, Bobo's, who was the apple of their eyes and who was always there to greet me - Uncle Sushil.

Although I had not seen Titi for the last 10 years, the inspiration that the two of them gave me never left me through all my working life and now into my retirement.

May Titi rest in peace. She deserves it.

Present from Slovenia

Yesterday, I once again made the gruelling day drive trip to Helsinki - a round trip of 1200 km. This time it was to meet the Owner / CEO of the Slovenian group who have been working as electricians and staying in our apartments in Oulu, Helsinki and Tampere.

Mr. Darzen, the CEO of Elektro-k.a.a, the Slovenian company which is doing the electrical installation work at the new post office sorting centres around Finland, and whose staff stay in our apartments, arrived and wanted to see me.

So I did the round trip.



He gave me a present from Slovenia, which is the Kurent Mask.

Kurentovanje is a distinctive pre-Lenten Slovenian festival. The name comes from the festival's central figure, the Kurent, who in earlier times was believed to have the power to chase away winter and usher in spring.

Slovenians dress up in this costume in February and wander about to drive away winter. A tall order for the near Arctic, even with global warming, but one can hope!

Christian with a mission visits Oulu

Last Sunday, my friend Christian Thibault, came to Oulu to meet several people about spreading the word about the Liikkukaa Multicultural Sports Association.



It just happened that the club he is involved with in several ways, Atlantis FC, were playing a First Division match against our local club - AC Oulu.



I asked Hasim and Kasim, who through their company, Goreme Pizzeria & Kebab ry, are one of the largest shareholders of AC Oulu, to join us to see the game. Unfortunately, it was Hasim's daughter's confirmation, so he could not join us. But Kasim made it to the ground.

The game was reasonable and although Atlantis did not play as badly as they did against TP-47 in Haaparanta two weeks earlier, they lost 3 - 0 against AC Oulu, with Daniel Yobe scoring a hat trick for the local side.

On Tuesday, Christian had several meetings. I arranged for him to meet Jusse Kankare, the Chairman of the Oulu Cricket Club. They joined the Liikkukaa Association as a member.



On Wednesday / Thursday there was a tournament organised by Riku Kivimäki of the Oulu Refugee Centre of all the teams from Refugee Centres around Finland. There were 360 players from many countries taking part in a truly historic event. It was a grand success with the African drum beat resounding in all corners of the ground and sports hall.



It was wonderful to see the involvement of accomplished persons as Emmanuel Etchu with Nigerian roots, who, while still keeping to his love of football, has earned himself being an engineer in Nokia and also working on a programme to help the children of AIDS victims in Africa, the Finnish national basketball star with Antiguan roots, Maurizio Prates, who has now devoted a lot of his time to fighting racism in Finland, and Said Zahaf (with Moroccan roots) of the Restaurant Marrakech helping in bringing refreshment to these visitors from all parts of Finland while his wife Miriam Attias was busy acting on behalf of the Red Cross in helping this event.







See Kaleva for a detailed report about this sports event. (And what was another half of Christian's mission to Oulu - to get fit to celebrate his 25th wedding anniversary in Paris on Bastille Day, the 14th of July 2009. Happy Anniversary, Christian.)

Tragedy at Välivainio

Last week, three young people, one youngster born in 1984, one young lady and one young man born in 1988 (the driver) died tragically in an accident at Välivainio, about 200 metres from my office. The doctor's report later showed that the driver had 1.5 promil of alcohol in his blood, the legal limit being 1.2 promil.



The pictures tell the story of how the accident happened.

There is a gentle curve on Sirtolantie, requiring a driver to slow down a few kilometres per hour to take it safely. The driver of the accident vehicle probably came in too fast and was trying to reduce speed to navigate the curve. He missed the brake and slammed his foot on the accelerator, by mistake. This increased the speed and in a couple of seconds the car hit the high curb. This meant that the driver's hands were thrown off the wheel and his foot went harder on the accelerator, causing the car to jump and be thrown against the tree in front of them.



The end must have come instantly judging from the state of the car.

It is possible to pontificate on this and the effect of alcohol. But when I look back on my life, 27 years ago I used to kill a bottle of rum and still drive my car. The foolishness of my actions now stares me in my face as I had a wife and four children to look after.

Not having touched a drop of alcohol for the last 27 years (80 Charminar roasted tobacco cigarettes, 20 cups of coffee, half a dozen bottles of beer and a bottle of rum were my daily consumption), I can honestly say that I have had a great life since and not missed any of these pleasures.

Many have asked why I gave up.

It was not because I saw such a tragedy, as this acciedent, ahead of me, but because I realised my brain was being affected. My super memory was being steadily destroyed.

I have recovered almost 90% of the brain cells which were destroyed because of my heavy drinking. That has taken the best part of these 27 years and a lot of help from my friends who helped me fill in different damaged areas of my brain and its memory!

Do I miss any of these pleasures?
Not really, as a soft drink and a cup of tea are equally refreshing and socially acceptable.
Was it easy to give up all these pleasure?
Not really, as I knew the alternate outcome.
Am I glad that I am not history like these young kids at Välivainio?
You bet, as otherwise I would never have been able to enjoy my children and my grandchildren.
Do I begrudge anybody else drinking?
Not on your life, so long as it is their life and not mine that is at stake.

Oulu Cricket Club leaps out

(Also posted on the CHAFF Blog.)

From 090604 Cricket starts in Oulu

The Finnish Chaírman of the Oulu Cricket Club,
Joose Kankare, takes to the crease!

Yesterday saw the first practice session of the Oulu Cricket Club. I am not a player but ready to support this northernmost cricket club in any way possible. So I turned up to show my support. Only, due to other engagements, I was a hour behind schedule.

From 090604 Cricket starts in Oulu

No floodlights required here.
Plenty of Natural Lighting available till 11 pm!

I do not know what they did for the first hour, but when I arrived I saw two teams grouped together talking strategy. They were about to commence a game.



The background was idyllic, but that could not be said about the gravel pitch they chose to play on. A nasty wind was kicking up a lot of dust and playing conditions were not ideal.

From 090604 Cricket starts in Oulu

There are a couple of good cricketers in the midst of the 18 persons who turned up for this first practice. There was a Pakistani, a couple of Australians, a Brit, a Finn, while the rest were a spread of Indians from almost every part of my great country - India.

From 090604 Cricket starts in Oulu

With the strong wind, playing conditions were cold and quite difficult. But I saw some good bowling and also some interesting batting - which means that with this sort of talent available, Oulu may really be able to turn out a good team for the nationals in a year or so.

But that will mean serious practice - not just having fun hitting the ball around.

Besides physical fitness, to be generated by jogging and running a fair bit at the beginning and end of a practice session, there must be batting practice, bowling practice and fielding practice during each practice session.

From Cathedral School, Mumbai

My cricket team, Cathedral School, Bombay - 51 years ago!

I also remember my days at St. Stephen's College where we had a a stickler for fitness as our Captain. With the likes of Siddarth Singh, the wonder from Doon School whose fame preceeded him, Prem Bhatia, Ajit Singhji, Sunil Thakurdas in our midst, it was good to have someone like Vijay Singh as the Captain. He demanded and got respect.

I turned up a few times for cricket practice but as hockey practice was at the same time under an equally fastidious captain, none other than the journalist Arun Shourie, I had to choose between one and the other - and I chose hockey!

Remember 14:00 hours on Saturday at Alppila is the next Oulu Cricket Club practice session!

A tribute to my mother

On daughter Joanna's Facebook Photo Album there is a picture of our four kids with their grandmother, my mother. It bears the caption:

"I think this was taken just before or after my cousin's wedding, when we were already living in Finland and my elder bro in England. Ammachi was the loveliest grandmother u could ever hope for - much like my Dad is to his grandkids."

Joanna pays me a wonderful tribute by equating me and my attitude to our grandkids with that of my mother to hers.

This to me is one of the greatest compliments that could be paid to me, especially as Joanna knows very little about my personal relationship with my mother.

Not once, and I repeat, not once in my entire life did my mother raise her voice at me, threaten me, scold me, beat me, dishearten me because of bad school results. There was a time, in anger, that I slapped her in her face, figuratively, but yet she only continued to show me the greatest love and affection that a son can receive from his mother. I do not think any other son can say that of their mother.

And she gave her love equally to all her children.

She was there when we were sick, when we were depressed, when we were overjoyed, and always there when we needed some help.

I was only an average student, always coming in the middle ranks in school, being good in some subjects and not so good in others. She played up the good and encouraged me about those I was weak in. I was never afraid to show her my monthly or yearly report cards - and she only had nice things to say to me about them.

I remember, when my brother failed his final B.Sc. exams in Delhi University, (he never did get that Bachelor's degree) she was so concerned about how he felt, and not that he had failed. She tried to encourage him to succeed the next time, saying failures should only help one in future life.

He never did get that degree, but it did teach him never to fool around again when it came to studies. He had wasted three years of his life, and betrayed the trust his mother had put in him! Only he has had to live with that!

Ammachi was there to encourage me in my sports, my acting in school plays, my singing in the church choir, or any other endeavour I undertook. Above all, she trusted me implicitly. I never, and I can say that honestly, I never ever violated her trust in me.

When I was at her bedside 9 years ago, the night before she went into a coma, she was waiting for me to return from a trip to Bangalore. I had found out some rather unsavoury things there about my brother and sister and a nephew, who had done things behind my back to cheat me.

When I told her what I had found out, even as she was going into that coma, she gave me the best advice that I have ever received.

She told me to trust in God and that God would look after me and my family. She told me I should not ask anything from those she knew who had cheated me and my family. She hugged me and sent me to bed.

When I was woken up about 3 hours later, she was entering into a coma.

As I sat by her side for the next couple of days, I wondered whether she knew she was going away to her Lord and Saviour. I prayed with all my heart that she would come out of her coma before I left back for Finland.

God answered my prayers and she regained her full consciousness 48 hours later, on my birthday.

I was able to leave her bedside when she was back in her senses.

She bade me a farewell that I will never forget. She knew that I would never see her alive or dead again, but she told me once again to remember what she had told me that night before she went into her coma.

In the next few months when she was still alive, my brother and sister stopped me from even speaking to her on the phone. They knew that she and I knew the truth and to them that was their catastrophe.

Later events after her death showed me she knew all her children and her eldest grandson, whom she had brought up like one of her own four children, better than we knew ourselves.

What saddened her was that, despite her bringing them up, some of them had become greedy and avaricious, something she just could not understand, as she was just the opposite.

Thank you Joanna for paying me what is the richest compliment I can ever have received from anyone!

Worst channel on our TV

I do not watch much TV as I am hardly at home.

However, I now do have a worst channel selection.

When I first started watching this channel, I thought it was great as it had a lot of humour, detective mysteries and even a quiz show. I became rather dedicated to this channel, except that the love affair lasted about a week.

From then on for the next 3 or 4 months it has been constant repeats of what has been shown during the last 3 months, only that the frequency of the repeats has increased dramatically!

The TV channel is BBC Entertainment.

I am so put off by this channel, so much so that even my dementia is not strong enough to put aside from my mind the programmes I have watched, again and again, on this channel.

Is the BBC so bankrupt that it must resort to this level of repeats?

Voted by me as the worst TV Channel on my TV - BBC Entertainment!

Dancing fountain

I was looking out of the kitchen window when I saw Annikki standing in the middle of the garden seemingly to be in a hilarious mood. I thought she was talking to the neighbour's child.

But then she moved on to the end of the garden and was still laughing to herself.

I looked at the garden a little more carefully and I saw that from the little pond that there was a dancing fountain. I wondered how she had managed that.

So I went out to take a look and to my surprise I saw what she had done.

It was Annikki's comic design coming to the fore!