Remember your first Fountain Pen?

Those were the days when we did not have ballpoint pens around.

I used to covet my mother's beautiful Shaeffer, a black and white striped shell bodied pen, very large and easy to hold. Pure gold nib and clip.

Whenever I had the opportuniy, I used to use it.

My mother noticed that I was getting quite good at writing with a pen. On my 10th birthday in 1953, she bought me a wonderful pen by the brand name of "Platinum". It was expensive with a lovely gold plated cover. The body was a wonderful purplish shade.

I loved it the minute I got it. I spent the next hour writing and writing.

I knew I would proudly show it off in school that day.

Bishop Cotton Boys' School was just ten minutes away, as we used to run to school in the morning and run back to have our evening tea. Then we would get into our sports uniform and run back as we had so many pitches that each year had its own pitch.

On morning of my birthday, after filling the pen full of ink, I proudly pushed the clip into my khaki shirt pocket and rushed to school.

Everyone in my class loved the pen. I could see many were envious, but I let lots of the boys use it. The teachers told me how lucky I was to get such a nice present.

I set of home at 15.30, when school lessons were over. I jumped over the school back gate next to the Bangalore Club, and ran down to the petrol station at Richmond Circle, where the manager was a good friend of mine. I showed him the pen, and he loved it. (He was a palmist and in 1953 read my palm and told me I would marry a girl with golden hair and have four children! Amazing fellow!)

I pushed the pen firmly back in my pocket and ran the 50 metres back to home down Lalbagh Road,

I rushed to tell my mom how everyone had loved my pen. As I was babling my story to her, I put my hand on the clip to show the pen to her. As I pulled the clip out, only the clip came out. There was no pen. I felt inside the pocket, but there was no pen body there.

I started to cry as I told my mom that it had been there just 2 minutes earlier.

She got the servants together and sent them to look for the pen on the road and pavement between the petrol station and home. I had crossed the road twice.

As we looked, we found no trace of the pen.

I was shattered.

I knew that if my dad got to hear of this he would scold my mom by saying I had been too young to be given such an expensive pen.

I clutched the beautiful gold top, my heart pounding with sorrow.

But my mom had an idea.

We quickly got into the car and went to the pen shop. There she asked the shopkeeper for a cheap pen but onto which my top was fitting. He gave a few pens. Out of them my mom chose one which was the best. She bought it, gave the cheap looking cover back to the shopkeeper and fixed my expensive platinum plated cover to this pen. She told me not to breathe a word to anyone, as it was our secret.

I scribbled with the pen, and it was just perfect. Although not quite the same purple, it was a lovely maroon colour. It looked almost identical. She had my name engraved on it in gold letters.

I had my new Platinum pen - a rather unique one, thanks to my mom.

Till this day no one knew the secret of my lost pen and how it was fixed!

Tips to catching a cat burglar

First advice to everyone reading this is "Don't try it!"

However, in 1960, the year after I left school, I had six months to spare before joining college. Along with a few friends, we used to go to the open gymnasium near the Bombay Gymkhanna and do an hour of really tough excercises. I did not do weights as my intention was to keep fit and remain speedy for hockey.

Those who went regularly were my 59er Cathedralite classmates, Arvind Thadani, Noel Ezekiel, Viney Sethi, late Ashok kapur and myself.

However, as a few of them went back to school to do the HSc, only three of us were left.

I used to pick up Arvind and drive to the gym. Then we would go back to his house, listen to records, have something light to eat, and then I would go home. Noel used to come home with me often and we would play some childish games to pass the time away!

In short, both Arving and I were physically very fit, both six footers, and we were quite a terrible fearsome sight!

I lived on the second floor of Meher Mansions. It was a beautiful apartment, large, with three bedrooms, and a fourth bedroom, which was a dressing room converted into a bedroom.

I lived in the back bedroom. When I went to sleep, I had my black labrador in the room. I used to bolt the door at night so that no one disturbed me in the morning, even though it was usually me that got up first!

One night, I had been reading quite late,and I swtiched off the bedlight around midnight. I was in a very light sleep, actually, half awake. As I lay in this stupor, I heard a faint sound from the attached bathroom.

I lay still and looked at the bathroom door, which was slightly ajar.

In the streetlight, which was coming through the window, I saw a small figure emerge from the bathroom. I held my breath.

The figure tried to gently open the Godrej steel cupboard. He found it locked. He turned to the large wooden clothes horse where I had hung my clothes. He started to go through the pockets of my trousers.

The initial shock of seeing the burglar in my room had passed. I was breathing very easily and in a flash of courage, I shouted at the top of my voice "Chor" which means "Thief".

The burglar reacted like lightning and jumped feet first to escape through the second floor window next to the Godrej cupboard. I did not think, but jumped, Flash Gordon style, feet first, and got my legs dead centre around his waist so that he came crashing down to the floor just a few inches away from the window.

My hands went round his throat and I got up very quickly, lifting him up along with me. I could feel his greasy body writhing against my sweaty chest, trying to get away from my firm elbow grip around his neck.

The burglar was really short, so that when I stood up, his feet were off the ground. As a result he had no propulsion place to use his energy and power.

People had woken up around the neighbourhood at hearing my cry of "Thief". My parents had come running down the corridor, wondering whether the commotion was coming from within our house.

My mom was almost in panic when I told her through the closed door that I had caught a thief! She was worried that the fellow had a knife or some other instrument to harm me.

I reassured her that I was safe and I would come out in a second. I called my "guard dog, Blitz, who had gone under the bed the minute she had heard me yell! :-)

I walked to the door and pulled down the latch which was at the top. The legs still dangling, I walked with this guy to the living room. The thief was begging for mercy to let him go.

In the light I saw I had seen this guy before. He belonged to the Churchgate street gangster Chotu's gang. I did not say anything to him but told my dad to call the Police. He rang the Police and then asked whether he should go the the garage, about 200 metres away to bring the car.

I assured him that I could manage this guy till the Police arrived.

By this time, many neighbours had come in to see the burglar. The burglar was acting most cunningly. In a desperate attempt to get out of my grip he told all of us that he wanted to go to toilet.

I knew that the minute I let him go, he would be off like a bullet. No one would be able to catch him.

So I told him to do his business on the spot.

Of course, he was bluffing!

It was a good 20 minutes before the Police arrived. Once they saw the guy, they told us that he had already robbed two houses not far from our house and he had got away.

It was third time unlucky.

They beat him on the head with a rubber truncheon asking where he had stashed the loot from the other houses. He was not ready to speak!

They asked me to come to the Police Station to register the complaint. My dad and I drove down to the Colaba Causeway Police Station and I gave my complaint.

The guy was sentenced to 6 nmonths for his attempted robbery.

I joined St. Stephen's College in Delhi in July 1960. When I came home for the autumn holidays in September, as I walked to Marine Drive to meet my friends, at the corner near Eros Theatre, I was accosted by this guy.

He smiled and greeted me. He told me that it was the first time he had been caught by a victim! He congratulated me, shook my hand and said no one would ever try to rob our house again!

Word was around that there was someone who was a professional cat burglar nabber. ME!

I thought I was unique and original...

A few days ago, I informed you of my laziness and my way of buttering my toast. I thought I was being clever, unique and absolutely original.

Today, I did a search for the words "Butter Slicer" on Google and it turned up literally thousands and thousands of hits with a price range from € 1 to € 650. Some sets made from sterling silver were priced as high as € 10000!

The butter slicers on the web fell into 3 categories.

From Jacob's Blog

The first is a series of wires are strung across a frame which could cut the butter into slices, not very thin, but manageable. Various designs have been developed. I am sure that quite a bit of force would be required to cut through a frozen block of butter. Not OK for a single Breakfast eater!

From Jacob's Blog

The second is a One Click butter slicer in which the butter block is loaded into the machine, and when a click is executed, a small square of butter is put onto your toast. About two slices for one toast. A nice neat idea and obviously patented and doing well as the company has its own web site with video, etc.

From Jacob's Blog

The third idea is to use a butter knife which had a sharp edged slot in the centre of the cutting edge. With it you could slice out a piece of butter from a block. Looks good, but I could see various pitfalls in using this type of device.

Of course, it is obvious there are several lazy people like me who have been using their cheese slicers as butter slicers.

Of all the ideas, my feeling is that the cheese slicer serves the purpose more uniquely than the other ideas!

Just goes to show that nothing is unique in this world!

Maybe I should share some of my other unique ideas with you which have not yet seen the light of day. And believe you me, Annikki came up with the rough potato scrubbing glove idea way way back (maybe 40 years ago!). It is now a common product on store shelves! I did not laugh at it when she told me the idea, but I could not believe that nobody had thought of it earlier!

But some of my unique ideas have now seen the light of day or are going to, in the very near future.  Of course, I can claim all sorts of inventions as mine, but the proof is whether I have the patent. I have not, so it is no use crying over split milk! But in my heart of hearts, I can say that I had plenty of great ideas over the years, as has Annikki!

How do I get topics for my blogs?

Many of you have emailed me as to how I can get such a constant flow of topics for my blogs, and at the same time retain the readers interest.

I can write on any subject. Unless I develop writer's block, when I cannot write even a sentence!

This skill was what my English teachers in school, especially the late Mr. R. G. Salmon, taught me. Besides showing me how to write, he also taught me how to keep the reader's interest. His correction of my essays fascinated my father, who was a keen reader from Wodehouse to Shakespeare. Our house was lined with books and books and they were open for us to read. Lots of my friends, like Ooky Elijah Elias and late Ashok Kapur, would come over and borrow books, which my dad encouraged. He did not believe that books should remain in bookshelves.

He was unlike his father, my paternal grandfather, who had an enormous collection of books but wanted us to sit and read it in his library. I could hardly finish 10 pages when we were visiting, and my interest changed by the time of my next visit, a week later!

I had already been given another lesson by my maternal grandfather, the late K. C. Mammen Mappillai, in Kottayam, as he made me write (even before I was 11 years old as he died at the turn of 1953 / 1954), whenever we went to see him on holiday (which was twice or three times a year). His encouragement was infectious, as he promised to publish my childish writing in the newspaper! What greater incentive than that?

As each day progresses, several incidents occur, or telephone conversations reveal some intersting aspects. I record these in my brain. When I sit at my computer, as soon as I feel bored doing whatever I am supposed to be doing, my mind wanders to one of those topics.

I write it as soon as it comes to mind. Then I leave it as I look around for the facts to ensure that the stroy is not just a figment of my imagination, although ocasionally, the figments are just as appealing! :-)

On my daesktop I usually have half a dozen or me small pieces waiting to be published. Before I relaese a story, I usually read it and put in more relevant information. I do not work as a journalist does in trying to give the entire background to a story. I express it the way I feel I would like reading a story.

It is far more difficult running the school and college blogs as for that I have to find the facts that create nostalgia. But over the last 14 years I must say that I have somehow managed to keep my readers interest in whatever I am writing. I try not to be fixated! that would be the death of my blogs.

But a bulk of my topics come from the literally hundreds of emails that arrive in my Inbox everyday. Someone responds to one of my writings and points me in another direction. Each lead puts me on the track of another title and then another story.

Just yesterday I had published my attempt at Sudoku. There, in the comments, today, was a fascinating piece about Security Codes for Banks based on Sudoku!

Present Security Codes for Indian banks are just a joke. I could probably break into any Indian bank internet account. In Finland, I have been using internet banking since 1989, being one of the first to try and test out the system when it was launched. Simple yet effective, this system has stood the test of time.

So herein lies another possible story!

And by popular demand, you will get the story of my encounter with a "cat burglar", soon!!!

Anyway, thanks for being there. Without you, dear readers, I would feel very lonely!

Robbery attempt at ATM

Last week, four youngsters tried to harrass our daughter, Joanna, in Newcastle. She turned on them and pinned them down so that they then fled, scared out of their wits.

I rang Samu yesterday. He told me that someone had attempted to rob Joanna at an ATM. I got to Joanna and she told me that right in the centre of Newcastle, a guy snatched the money as she was getting it from an ATM.

Joanna is extremely fast and has learnt all there is to know about self defence, including karate! She managed to grab this guy's marauding hand and swing him around so she had him firmly locked in her grip.

Not a single person came forward to help her!

She cried for assistance and finally someone came forward and took the money the guy was clutching in his hands. The grabber tried to say the money was his and he was going to call the Police - to which Joanna quickly told him to!

Once she got her money back she let the guy go and he scooted off.

The Police Station was just a couple of doors away. She reported it to the Police. Today she will try to do an ID of the guy at the Police Station. She is sure it has been caught on the CCTV.

Joanna, and her friend, Rita, were active karate enthusiasts when she was in school in Oulu. I remember her coming home with blue marks all over as she learnt it the hard way! (Her karate teacher later became our neighbour when we lived at Kampitie - an orthopaedics doctor!)

If I remember correctly, I did get her the karate clothing on one of my visits to England. (My memory is not so good, but I seem to remember going with our son, Jaakko, to buy the stuff in Birmingham.)

Well that has paid off. Joanna intends to get her son, Samu, to join a course in self defence as soon as possible. Very important. We learnt boxing at school, but in my opinion, that is not enough.

In Finland, at ATMs, they have an red line about a metre and a half away. No one is permitted to stand nearer than that when someone is using the ATM. I have seen people telling people off if they come closer than that.

In my opinion, there should be a mirror on the ATM so one can see if someone is approaching the ATM from behind the user, as when one is busy on the machine, one will tend to forget what is going on behind. Any movement in a mirror will alert the individual.

Like father, like daughter.

I remember how I caught a cat burglar in our 2nd floor apartment in Mumbai in 1960, the year I left school. I was fit as a fiddle and brought him down with a scissor grip feet first dive from my bed while he was diving out of the bedroom window! He was greased and almost slid through my scissor grip, but I grabbed him around the neck. As I was six foot+ and this guy was no more than 5 foot, when I stood up, his feet were dangling off the ground! But he was a wily tough character.

I think I may have recounted this story earlier on the blog, maybe a long long time ago! Will check and if not will tell you the humourous side of it after the event occurred!

Anyway we are grateful that Joanna is safe and did not lose her money!

A new Indian magazine

After our Bharat Darshan, where we increased our readership to our main blog and then to all our blogs, we have been getting letters from several editors worldwide to write for their magazines.

I chose one as it is a new magazine to be shortly launched from Delhi.

It is called SURYA INDIA. Here is the blurb (edited by me as the English was atrocious!) that was sent to me:

SURYA INDIA
‘India is changing rapidly’, is an open secret before the world and heading toward becoming a power in almost every sphere of the possible future world. The largest number of richest people from one single soil comes from India. At the same time, India is home for the largest number of hunger stricken people at one place. The education scenario is also astonishing and dreadful, while the nation is boasting of producing the best management gurus and medical doctors in the world.

Time to time, a good number of intellectuals have shown and expressed their concern about the matter. The Government and many NGOs are also working on the subject but that is being done just to justify the objections raised by the Indian and foreign media. It has been proved over the course of time that there is no political and social will to curb the monstrous situation, which is a subject of shame for the really proud Indians and the best human minds all over the world.

In the talk in America and Europe about the “war on terrorism,” little has been said about tackling root causes. Somewhere along the line, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon stemmed from tensions created by the widening gulf between rich and poor nations. International Herald Tribune, October 3, 2001

The role of Surya India is going to be crucial at this point of time and in the fresh decade especially when India is entering into a new orbit. The socioeconomic magazine will try its best to raise the voice of the strata standing at the lowest platform with its feet under the slush. Although Surya India is dedicated to encouraging the advancing troops to the new moon of success in various field, it will check as to what cost?

Readership – Urban Size - A4

Periodicity - Monthly Published from - New Delhi

Publisher - Jain Group

The article we chose to submit is a highly controversial one. It is called "Rural Urbanisation 2010". It it harks back to a paper of the same name that Abraham Thomas (then Managing Director of the building group Southern Investments) and I wrote based on his book "The Affluence Machine".

Surya India is talking about India becoming a super power!

If things go as they think, India will be the super power of  super chaos!

We do not know when the magazine is being launched.

Sitting in Finland, we are also probably never likely to know. So, if anyone in India does see our article (jointly by Annikki and me), please give us a shout.

2009 - 2010 Cold Cold Arctic Winter

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Last winter the oil for the oil heating system had lasted right through the winter until almost the end of autumn. The oil was refilled in July. When we got back in December from India, I found that the oil had been consumed and the tank was already empty. So we got it refilled in December, hoping that we be able to get the next refill in the middle of summer.

Yesterday, I went to check the oil storage level and found that we were almost down to zero, so we have to call in the tanker by next week. The oil price has hit a high, so I am holding off till the lastmoment hoping I see some small respite.

Annikki, in preparation, has cleared the path from the gate to where the tank is filled, as the amount of snow was so much that the tanker guy would have had to wade through waist deep snow to get to the pipe.

I have turned down the heating considerably, but the weather is still cold as the hard winter continues - so much so that I was looking for my fur cap yesterday, one I have used for almost 20 years. I could never have imagined that i would use a fur cap as late as mid March!

My guess is that the Arctic Circle has moved down 200 km because of "global warming". May be they will shift the Santa Village here, and save a lot of tourists going to the middle of nowhere.

From Jacob's Blog

After all, the real Santa lives here! :-)

I try my hand at Sudoku

I have not been very good at any sort of non-physical game (except Chess and Bridge), although I enjoy trying them.

I was extremely good at crosswords. It used to be a contant battle, when I lived in Bombay, as my dad and I would try to get to the Times of India newspaper before the other, so that we could finish the crossword before the other got his hands on the paper. I was particular good at anagrams, while he was good at quotations!

That was probably how I got into the habit of waking up at the unearthly hour of 4 am!

When I was studying and working in England I used to get The London Times, an expensive newspaper, just so I could do the crossword puzzle. My dad would have enjoyed that as there were far more quotations in them.

But I lost that crossword habit many years ago.

When we were in Mumbai for our holidays last December, my cousin's wife, Beena, was there for a couple of days. I saw her really enjoying doing something in the newspaper. I thought she was doing the crossword, but she told me she was doing something called the Sudoku.

I had never tried it although my grandson, Samu, had tried to explain the basics to me.

On returning to Finland, I found that the local newspaper, Kaleva, carried three Sudoku entries every day. They are labelled as EASY, MODERATE and DIFFICULT.

I started to attempt the EASY one. After a couple of days I was completing it within a span of about 35 minutes. Slowly the time decreased. I am now at a steady 15 minutes. Occasionally I have completed it in as little as 5 minutes.

So I started attempting the MODERATE puzzle. I have only completed it a couple of times. I think I was extremely lucky on those occasions. Most days I get about halfway and then other pressures call me away from the newspaper.

I also have been attempting the DIFFICULT version. In most cases I complete about 50% in about 5 minutes and them am completely stuck.

Can anyone explain whether there is some methodology to handle the MODERATE and DIFFICULT puzzles. Would greatly appreciate any advice as it is a bit frustrating to give up halfway!

And I don't want to cheat! :-)

Looks good in any outfit

Thanks for the nice comments regarding the photos of Annikki and me in my last blog entry. We have aged, but as we are both reasonably fit, we are able to go around without bending at the waist! :-)

Annikki used to carry her sari extremely well. She had a beautiful collection. She used the sari quite frequently while we lived in India.

After we came to Finland, she felt she got more mileage out of them as curtains. The curtains have decorated our house and have been greatly admired by our visitors. It is something quite unique and blends with how Annikki has decorated our rooms.

Also, her blouses became much too small.

One day we pulled out her old blouses from the trunks. They looked as if they were dolls blouses. We laughed our guts out thinking however did she mange to get into them!

Annikki was extremely slim all through her life in India.

In Finland, now, she wears convenient clothes and quite often, the salwar kameez, Finnish style. The jeans are the most common, but she uses the lovely kameezs with trousers on most occasions when going out.

What she loves are those beautiful scarves. She got a couple as presents a few months ago, and she wears them with everything.

She bought quite a few of them from the shop she did most of her shopping in while in India, some place called FabIndia. The prices were high, by Indian standards,  but the quality was really good.

I, too, got most of my kurta pyjamas from there. For my more traditional Kerala gold braided jubba and mundu (dhoti), I went to Mahim, where I found a Malayali shop and bought them there. Unfortunately, as it was a Mumbai holiday, I could not get the exactly correct shoulder throw scarf, so I took another one as a stopper as I had to have one for the wedding in Kottayam a couple of days later.

Maybe on my next visit I will get myself the correct one.

People have asked what is meant by the shoulder throw scarf.

In fact, in common day usage, this is just a towel. The farmer used to throw a towel over his shoulder when going out to work, so as to wipe the sweat from his brow. The more expensive throws have developed out of this very natural custom followed by most Malayalis.

The two photos show a traditional and a conventional ME in November 2009!

Some, however, expressed surprise when I was walking around with a thin towel as a shoulder throw on days when I was wearing trousers.

Is it only those in mundus who are allowed to wipe the sweat from their brow?

I do not know why people find it difficult to extrapolate the concepts!

An obsession?

My last few entries on this blog have focused on FOOD! (Sambar, Chicken Biriyani,...)

Is this becoming an obsession?

On Friday, my doctor rang to discuss my health.

I quckly handed the phone over to Annikki, who looks after all our dietary issues, as she controls the kitchen. I knew that the bulk of the discussion would centre around my eating, and I detest listening to such advice.

Sure enough, the doctor was emphatic, in that she said I would have to be largely vegetarian in future, and of course, control my intake of sugar (gulab jamuns, barfis, chocolates, Annikki's delicious cakes, etc.).

I promptly went out and bought all the fruits and vegeatbles that I like. Of course, I do like my protein intake as meat, but given a choice, I would certainly prefer to get it through a spicey Indian vegetarian diet.

All the more reason to speed up the process of starting the South Indian Vegetarian Restaurant in Oulu - but the masala dosais, the bondas, vadas, vegetarian samosas, will not be appreciated because of the amount of deep frying involved!

I do accept health is one's Number 1 concern, and I am willing to subject myself to a regimen of control, so long as my taste buds are kept fresh and alive. And that, to me, means plenty of spices!

Now that my diet is in the hands of my wife, let us see how it proceeds. My soon-to-be-doctor dear daughter, Joanna, will be here in a couple of weeks, and I am sure I will also be tropedoed by her once she sees my medical test results.

From Jacob's Blog

1967: Annikki & me

From Online Edits 1984: Annikki and me

From Jacob's Blog

2009: Annikki and me

Am expecting to be shell-shocked into submission soon, but I do hope the outcome is a leaner fitter old man! :-)

Biriyani, King of Indian Dishes, in Oulu?

Of late, I have been concentrating on Indian cuisine, as I am greatly missing the India delicacies I enjoyed while on our Bharat Darshan. (I ampaying the price for my indulgence, but, considering it is once in ten years, it was worth it!

At the recent wedding in Kottayam which Annikki and I had the good fortune to attend, biriyani was served to the 6000 guests by India's most renowned biriyani maker. We were seated in tables of 8, and the piping hot biriyani serving plates, reflecting exactly how biriyani shoud be prepared and served, turned up simultaneously at the 800 tables in the Malayala Manorama compound.

There was not a single complaint, as even the vegetarian biriyani served up was of a class that was unmatched.

Rajen, my cousin, son of the illustrious Kerala Cookery expert, the late Mrs. K. M. Mathew, told me that some weeks before the event they had a dry run so as to see the quality of the biriyani. It had been a disaster as everything was wrong. The poor expert was chided. So he made the biriyani for the wedding day with a vengence to overcome his poor showing earlier.

Biriyani is a very specific dish. Although it may vary a little based on the locality, the aroma and the presentation will always be similar.

Here is a typical recipe to produce a biriyani (modified from Mrs. K. M. Mathew's book Modern Kerala Dishes published in 19779 - First Edition):

Chicken Birityani

Ingredients:

1. Biriyani rice 6 cups level
   
2. 2 medium tender chicken 1 kg
   
3. Sultanas  1/ cup
   Carrots and beans diced into 5 cm cubes and half cooked
   Dalda and Ghee in equal proportion (or pure ghee) 1 and half cups
   
4. Onions sliced thin and long 1/4 kg (3 cups)'
5. Cloves 18
   Cinnamon 6 pieces
   Cardamoms 12
   
6. Dry chillis ground  3/4 tablespoon
   Coriander paste 1 tablespoon
   Garlic paste 1 dessertspoon
   Ginger paste 1 dessertspoon
   Tumeric paste 1/2 tablespoon
   
7. Tomatoes (medium) 3
   
8. Curd 1 cup
   
9. Salt to taste
   
10.  Coconut paste 3 dessertspoons
    Cashewnut paste 1 dessertspoon
    Green chillis 4
    Mint leaves 3/4 cup
    Coriander leaves 1/4 cup
    Lime juice 1 dessertspoon
    
11. Saffron Few strands
    Cashewnuts Handful
    Sultanas Handful
    Burnt onion strips

Method:

1. Kurma
   Lightly fry sultanas in 1 and a quarter cups of ghee and remove. Add sliced onion and when it turns brown saute the spices. Saute the masala pastes adding one by one and then the tomatoes. Add the chicken cut into pieces and fry for a few minutes. Mix in the curd and the salt. Cook the kurma with the pan covered. When the meat is nearly done add the coconut paste mixed in half a cup of water followed by the rest of the ingredients in the ninth item. The kurma is ready when the meat is well-cooked and the gravy is about 2 cups.
   
2. Rice
   Parboil the rice in salted boiling water, drain and spread in a flat tray. Mix the sultanas, carrots and beans in the rice.
   
3. Final preparation
   Spread the meat from the kurma in an aluminium pan. Spread a layer of rice over it and pour the gravy. Cover with the remaining rice. Sprinkle the saffron, the cashew nuts and the browned onions on the top. Spread a wet cloth over the rice. Cover the pan and bake for an hour at 250 degrees Centigrade or place hot coal over and under the pan and keep for half an hour. The rice should not get too dry while final cooking.

From Jacob's Blog

The picture depicts the importance of keeping the meat at the botton and putting a layer of rice, pouring the gravy and adding the rest of the rice is crucial. The result is a strata of beautiful colours of rice from aan almost white and beautiful gold at the top to a lovely golden brown at the bottom. Around the saffron you will see a lovely tinge of golden red. The garnishing with burnt onions and sultanas is usually accompanied by a hard boiled egg, whole or sliced.

When I lived in Bangalore, I used to attend the weddings of many of my Muslim friends. Always, the key of the wedding lunch or dinner was the biriyani, usually mutton, not chicken. The quality of this was outstanding. My dear friend and former partner, the late Mir Hafeez Hussain, son of the late Justice Mir Iqbal Hussan (famous when he headed the Devraj Urs Commission), used to take me to meet the special cooks who were called to make the biriyani. I used to enjoy watching them make such huge quantities, never sacrificing the quality. It was they that explained to me the secret of making an outstanding biriyani!

It is said the success of the marriage hinged on the quality of the biriyani served to the guests!

Recently, I ordered biriyani in an Indian Restaurant in Oulu. They served me a pot which was covered with fresh vegetables. I could not see what I thought would be the beautiful colours of the rice. There was no traditional smell of biriyani anywhere near my table! When I cut into the dish, what I got was a terrible mish mash of curry and rice hash. Certainly not a biriyani, but a goulash. Definitely not worth the € 14 they charged for the dish! Although they had obtained most of the spices, the preparation was certainly not a biriyani.

It would be better to take this off the menu if they are unable to prepare a genuine biriyani, as the colour layering of the rice from top to bottom and the wonderful aromatic smell of the saffron is the absolute essential of a biriyani.

Being the King of all Indian dishes, without the saffron and cashewnuts sprinkled on the top of the golden yellow rice, and visible, it cannot to be in one's faintest dreams, considered to be a biriyani.

Annikki is getting aggressive

No, no marital problems.

It is just that Annikki loves snow (but hates the cold), just like a little child and she is happily playing in the garden making all sorts of things with snow.

She is also taking pictures and blogging them in her own blog called "Mobile Snowman"

This year she started with two creations and it has now become three.

 She also created caves for lights and now she has bucket like snow receptacles on her Great Wall of Vesaisentie where she has her snow lights.

All she is hoping and praying for is that the snow weather lasts till the grandchildren arrive.

Can snow last till then?

Well it can. I remember one of her funniest and most endearing snowmen!

I went to bed on April 2nd 2006 at about 11 pm. The garden was full of snow.

I woke up at my usual time, of around 4 am. As I looked out of the kitchen window, I burst out laughing. There was an enormous snowman, holding a placard, wishing me a "Happy Birthday".

From Mobile Snowman / Liikkuva Lumiukko

 Can you wonder why we have been happily married for 43 years?

Snow can last well into April. And snowman snow is certainly available so late into year. Annikki is hoping the grandchildren can enjoy that part of the Finnish winter when they reach here at the end of this month!

My new lazy way to butter my toast

I love butter, but I am very very lazy. I do not get out the butter from the fridge well before my breakfast, so I am confronted with a lump of butter which does not spread on my toast.

And I like to spread the butter.

That was why I moved over to margerine, as that is the lazy man's way of spreading a layer on a piece of toast.

With my blood sugar and cholestrol high, my daughter screamed at me not to use margerin. That put me in a dieemma. (She did not forbid butter!)

As my breakfast, thanks to my good friend Naval, is four slices of toast with a layer of margerine (and now butter), topped with honey and sprinkled with cinammon, I was in a bind.

This morning as I went to the kitchen to have my breakfast, I spotted the cheese slicer lying in a corner.

I opened the butter dish and tried to cut a sssuch stulice of butter using the cheese slicer. I got a wonderful thin sliver of butter. I placed it on my toast, the top one, and then put it under the other three. I did the same with all the other pieces of toast, so that when my my first toast came back on top, I found the butter had beautifully melted into the toast! My new way of having buttered toast without having to keep the butter out for 15 minutes for it to melt!

Anyone have similar pid bright ideas? Do let me know!

Sambar without Sambar Powder

Ever got stuck without your trusted bottle of Sambar powder?

Ther late Mrs. K. M. Mathew has a preparation in her book Modern Kerala Dishes where she makes the Sambar using a masala paste.

INGREDIENTS

1. 1 Brinjals (long white variety cut into 35 cm lengths 24 pieces
   Green chillis split at one end 10 nos
   Tur dhal 1 cup
   
2. Dry chillis 10 nos
   Coriander 3 dessert spoons
   Fenugreek 1 table spoon
   Asafoetida to taste
   Curry leaves 2 or 3 stalks
   
3. Coconut oil 1 dessert spoon
   
4. Tamarind and Salt as sufficient

Mix these in 3 cups of water.

For tempering:

1. Gingelly oil 2 dessert spoons
   
2. Mustard 1/2 table spoon
   
3. Dry chillis 3 cut into 6 pieces
   
4. Curry leaves 1 stalk

METHOD

Cook the dhal and mash it. (If necessary the dhal can be mashed on the grinding stone.) There will be about 4 cups.

Heat 1 dessert spoon of coconut oil and fry the ingredients in the 2nd item and then grind them together. Mix the tamarind and salt in 3 cups of water. Boil and then add the brinjal and green chillis. When it is cooked, mix the ground masala paste. Bring to a boil and add the cooked dhal. When it boils, again add the curry leaves and remove from the stove.

Fry the mustard, dry chilli pieces and the curry leaves in gingelly oil and add to the curry to get a spicy sambar.

Note: Small peeled onions can be added with the brinjal. Tomatoes can be added with the tamarind, but the quantity of tamarind should be reduced. Coriander leaves can be added to improve the flavour.

This is a really spicy sambar and one I like a lot. expecially when the brinjals are replaced with drumsticks.

Adapted from the late Mrs. K. M. Mathew's book Modern Kerala Dishes published in 1979.

Pumpkin Sambar

This very simple sambar is the most common one prepared by Keralites. The vegetable used is usually one which is in season. It can be drumsticks, lady’s fingers or pumpkin. I prefer the drumsticks. I give Mrs. K. M. Mathew’s recipe which uses pumpkin and the sambar powder which I have described in my earlier entry in this series.

Pumpkin Sambar

INGREDIENTS:

1. Tur dhal 1 cup
   
2. Onions sliced thick 1/2 cup
   
3. Pumpkin cut into 2.5 cm squares 18 pieces
   Green chillis 3
   Curry leaves 1 stalk
   Salt to taste
   
4. Tamarind water to taste
   
5. Sambar powder 1 table spoon
   
6. Gingelly oil 1 desert spoon
   
7. Mustard 1/4 tablespoon

METHOD

Cook the tur dhal in 3 cups of water. Add onion pieces and the ingredients in Item 3 above. When the vegetables are cooked, add the tamarind water and the Sambar powder.

Fry the mustard in gingelly oil and add the sambar preparation. (A little asafoetida fried in oil and powdered can be added to the sambar powder. This brings out a better flavour.

Mix the sambar and keep it covered. Serve hot.

I will bring up a couple more interesting variations in subsequent posts.

Courtesy: Adapted from Modern Kerala Dishes, First Edition 1979.

Controversy about Sambar

Oulu has a number of Indians from the many south Indian States - Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Pondicherry and Tamilnadu. When sa discssion started in our local India House the other day, I was surprised to see the fervour of each State member defending the honour of his State with regard to the origin of a good Sambar!

I like a good Sambar, irrespective of which State of the Indian Union I eat it. But I was a bit taken aback by the accusations that were flowing and especially one which I knew was not true. The Keralites, who love their coconut milk, were accused of adding this into Sambar.

So I told my wife that I was going to do a treatise about Kerala Sambars from the works of the Queen of Kerala Cooking, the late Mrs. K. M. Mathew, known as Annammakochamma to us.

Without her cookery column in the Malayala Manorama, the readership of the newspaper would have been restricted to the male chauvanists of the State. :-)

Ever since my grandfather, K. C. Mammen Mappillai, persuaded Annammakochamma, who had attended various cookery classes when she was living in Bombay, to put her skills and knowledge to some use, this great lady did it with a fervour till the very last day of her life.

In a series of blog posts I am going to describe a few of her recipes for Sambar, starting with the making of the Sambar Powder, without which there can be no Sambar - or can there be one?

Wait and see to read all about this in my series!

Recipe for making genuine Kerala Sambar Powder:

Ingredients:

1. 1 bunch curry leaves
   A little gingelly oil
   
2. 1/2 cup Bengal gram dhal (besan)
   1/2 cup tur dhal
   2 desert spoons boiled rice grains
   
3. 1 cup coriander Hara dhania) seeds
   
4. 9 dry red chillis
   
5. 1 desert spoon Fenugreek (methi) seeds

METHOD
Smear some gingelly oil on a hot skillet and fry
the curry leaves, dhals and the rice. Afterwards
broil the coriander seeds, chillis and Fenugreek
seeds. Powder all the ingredients and keep it in
an airtight container.

It is interesting that after this recipe in her book "The Family Cook Book", the First Edition of which was published in December 1987, Mrs. Mathew added this little note:

NOTE: If a little coconut, roasted in ghee, is added to the Sambar, it will enhance the taste and aroma. It should only be added just before the Sambar is taken off the fire.

In the coming weeks, I will be putting up, one by one, all Mrs. Mathew's recipes for all the Kerala Sambars. Hope you enjoy it, so stay tuned.

Disappointing picture about BLOGS

With so many ways to connect with friends on the internet today, such as Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn, Plaxo, SiliconIndia, Twitter, Geni, as well as the Yahoo and Google Groups, and now the new Buzz, it appears that blogging has taken a toll.

(There are so many new invitations I am receiving from many relatives and friends to join new social networking sites, that unfortunately I am declining any more! I already am on too many for my comfort.)

Now, some of the social networking sites have also adopted the Group thrust (such as the Stephanian "The Rez" on Facebook devoted to those who lived in the college premises), so the playing field of Blogs, Groups and social networking sites is undergoing a rapid transformation.

It is like the personal web pages transformation in 2002.

I was looking through the links to blogs on my web pages of several people who used to write nice blogs.

I found some have vanished into thin air, others have not updated their blogs, some for a year, some for two, and some of the best bloggers, have not been active for a month or more.

Yesterday, I visited a good friend who has been posted to Oulu from Bangalore. Rajesh told me that although I could not meet him in Bangalore when we passed through, he understood my dilemma as he had been reading our blogs all the while we were traversing that great country.

In my opinion, blogging is the best way to keep in touch with a widespread audience. I have about a dozen blogs, and I update the most important ones either daily, biweekly, weekly, fortnightly or the less active ones, monthly or bimonthly. There are some which I hardly update.

As I recently wrote to a friend, our fortnightly Findians Briefings and our monthly Kooler Talk and Seventh Heaven, web pages which served their purpose from 1996 to 2003, just had to be converted to blogs in 2002 - 2003. The audience demanded it.

But my diverse readers are faithful in that they visit all the active blogs regularly and the readership has been either static or climbing. I did get a bollicking from one of my closest advisors, who did not like me mixing my blogs when I was on the Bharat Darshan, as he felt that he was not really interested in my personal diaries as he was interested only in his focus.

Although I appreciated his point of view, the mixing of blogs was purely for convenience as the link speeds in India to the internet were so slow, I would have been seated in front of the computer for hours on end, trying to upload all my blogs.

The readership blip which I got has also not faded after I reverted to my old model of focus only blogs. People do check whether I am around and about if their focus blog has not been updated!

Last week, the overall readership of all my blogs had shown another jump from 135000 to 142000, and the number who reverted back to reading only their focus blogs had hardly shown a decline - just about 10 to 15 readers!

So I have 142000 on my main blog, about 3500 on the Seventh Heaven Blog, about 2300 on my Kooler Talk blog, and a smattering of people to my other blogs.

A few of you have started to follow my blogs, very much like you follow people on Twitter. That is an interesting new development, but I do not know whether it will last. It is only good and varied content that will draw a reader back to visit a blog! If one puts a series of postings on one fad continuously on a blog, the readership whi are not interested in your own pet perversion, will quickly drop away.

Although social networking is exciting and keeps you in touch, a blog has much more to it than these quick-fix sites. I am not complaining as I do keep up with my family and friends through the social networking sites, but I prefer the art of writing.

I am glad that Facebook and some other social networking sites do display my blog entries, although I do not know where and when they come up. But I do get comments about my blog entries through some of the sites.

I wish my many good friends as Ville (Oulu, Finland), Ilari (Laos), Kasia (Poland), Balu (Bangalore, India), Abe (Chennai, India), Esa (Helsinki, Finland), will step back and think again about keeping their blog sites up and running.

(I especially like Abe's Blog, which is known as "Song of the Waves" as he has a great writing style, is a wonderful photographer and you come away educated after reading his blog!)

It is also very interesting that just one blog entry can get you a whole bunch of devoted readers, who continue to read the blog, even though it is not focused on that subject. An example would be my entry about wrestling and my coverage of Dara Singh, the wrestling giant of the 50s when I was a boy. That one entry has got me a huge readership who consider me to be a guru about wrestling, which I am not. I watched wrestling as a child from the best seats in Bangalore when Dara Singh and King Kong (and the Masked Angel, Flash Gordon and his drop kick, etc.) and a few others dominated the wrestling circuit.

A huge controversy has arisen as a result of my entry with many claiming that there had been two Dara Singhs, one even 7 foot tall! If there was, I never saw him, as the Dara Singh I saw was the one who was just 6' 2", but would have looked 7' because of his dominating stature in the ring.

As I realised, it is only perseverance which builds your readership. And my experience has been that a blog reader is far more interested and interesting than those that use only the social networking sites!

Welcome this new day, Holi 2010

When Annikki and I left for India in mid-October, we drove the 600 kms from Oulu to Helsinki. We had snow storms for much of the day, heralding the early, very early, advent of winter.

We do not know much about the time we were away in India, but when we got back we were right in what seemed to be mid-winter. (I lost my old SIM card in the snow in Helsinki airport! But I have got the uld mobile phone number back last week, so you can call me on that number again!)

But winter in Oulu has just continued and continued. We have had the longest spell ever where the temperature has remained well below zero. Some days have been exceptionally cold because of the strong winds. The snowfall right through winter has been heavy.

The Vesaisentie and Kampitie gardens are totally and completely snow covered, with only one small foot track, each, to the garages.

From 2010 Photos February

From 2010 Photos February

Our reindeer stands deeply immersed in thought and snow. Just like Annikki, who has been wondering when it will be "snowman snow" as I think she is contemplating another unusual creation, like her mobile snowman, before the grandkids arrrive by March end!

From 2010 Photos February

From 2010 Photos February

From 2010 Photos February

The snow formations on the ladders and fretwork are reallly beautiful. The aluminium door and frame are a grewat view from the kitchen window.

Today and tomorrow are celebrated as the festival of Holi. Holi is celebrated, in many countries around the world where we have a Hindu population, and also in Bangladesh, at the end of the winter season on the last full moon day of the lunar month Phalguna (February/March), (Phalgun Purnima), which usually falls in the later part of February or March.

We certainly hope that this long hard winter in Finland, and which seems to be an unusual phenomena around the northern hemisphere this year, will draw to a close and the milder, warmer spring weather will be on us. (Friends in Dallas, Texas, reported snowstorms even at that latitude!)

Annikki and I would like to wish you a colourful and happy year ahead on this auspicious day.

(All these above photographs are by Annikki.)

Earthquake in Chile

I watched with horror as news of he 8.8 Richter Scale earthquake of the coast of Chile was unfolding. As it was 35 km below the surface, the impact on land was not as devastating as one would have expected for an earthquake of this magnitude.

However, I was first astounded by the emergency, as even Barack Obama was forced to address the American nation. I was wondering why he took such a dramatic step.

As I studied the map of the impact of this earthquake, I noted that it was likely to affect an enormous area on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.

Then Annikki quipped in that the reason for the panic in the US was that a large part of its firepower (including nuclear powered vessels and missiles) was located in known and secret locations in this area. It would probably be that which would be most dramatically affected.

Was Barack Obama readying the American people for some bad news?

Unlikely we will never know!

Are we really happy?

My recent post about my being so happy in Oulu and why I would not change my base for anything, certainly brought in a lot of email.

Many asked me whether I was really happy as all my family, other than my wife and youngest son, are outside Finland!

Actually, Annikki's closest family members, two of her sisters, are all in Finland. Annikki would not like to move far from them. Even while in India, she talked to her sister, who lives outside Helsinki, almost daily.

So I thought to myself that, with so many family members and friends, classmates, settled all around the world, how many are really happy to be where they are?

Some have married and settled down. They make frequent trips back to their homeland to see their friends and relatives. But on a day-to-day basis, are they happy where they are?

I had the wonderful news that Joanna and the three kids, Samu (13), Daniel (6) and Maria (2) will join us this Easter. (Hope asha was also coming with them!)

We will get a chance to look after the kids while Joanna does her studies. her finals are not many weeks away.

But the sheer pleasure of having them back "home" as this is their home we are looking after, makes me shout with unbridled joy.

Is there anyone shouting with joy when Annikki and I visit India?

Yes, everybody is nice and hospitable, but we are still outsiders there, as 26 years away from "home" has meant that we have drifted apart. The old adage "Out of sight, out of mind" certainly rings true, although the second one "Absence makes the heart grow fonder" was also demonstrated very visibly during our 2 month Bharat Darshan.