Edible Art 1

 

When we published Annikki’s book "Edible Art" about her history of cake designing, the cakes were designed by her, most of the photos were taken by her, the text was written by me, but the maximum hard work of making these photos ready for publication was done by our dear friend SRK, Sriradhakrishnan Polsetti, who was working in Oulu on deputation from Nokia in Bengaluru. 

Annikki’s coffee table book covers her 40 years of making all sorts of cakes from cakes for children, gingerbread houses, birthday cakes for me and herself, wedding cakes for family members, unusual mosaic cakes, cakes with ponds and fishes in them, mountains and many art cakes.

All her cakes were original and showed her talent as an artist. 

Before getting married, she worked in a small Italian cake shop in Shrewsbury near Birmingham in England. Today Sidoli is a huge enterprise.

The first designer cake, a train cake, she made for us a family was for a joint birthday party in 1970 for our two children, Susanna and Jaakko, in our small house in Defence Officer’s  Colony in St. Thomas’s Mount on the outskirts of Madras.

Her first gingerbread house was created in 1974 at our Velacheri Road house in Madras. She worked on it for seven hours. We stayed out of her way. When she was ready, she ran upstairs to call us down to see her creation. When we reached the living room all we could see was our golden retriever, Ruby, licking her lips as she had devoured the entire house.

Then I understood the meaning of Finnish ‘sisu’ as Annikki rolled up her sleeves and made another more beautiful gingerbread house and had  powder sugar floating down to cover the house and make it exactly as  snow covered!

We moved  to Bangalore in 1976 and she won the prize in the cake competition where she displayed her first vegetarian cake made using yoghurt.

Gingerbread house making is an art. Every piece has to be made on cardboard, and the gingerbread baked using these cutout shapes. They then have to be painstakingly stuck together and then decorated.

Annikki always was way above the competition, first to introduce interior lighting and then even fitting doors and windows which could open and shut.

When she was looking after her mother, she first designed the garden so that her mother could sit at the dining table and enjoy her garden. Then she designed a gingerbread construction replicating the garden.

From then it was one new dimension after another and she was winning every gingerbread house competition in Oulu till they finally stopped the competition.

She diversified from traditional gingerbread houses to make Finnish constructions as Lappish kotas and the straw store houses.

Annikki never lost her sense of humour. When she reached the tender age of 60, she created a gingerbread house which she called "ruins". The lighting was entirely the streaming of natural sunlight.

When our grandson, Samu, returned from India before his first birthday, he had learnt one Malayalam word for crow - Kakay.  For his first birthday Annikki made him a cake of a crow sitting on her nest with a lot of eggs, all on a cake pine stump base. Samu looked at the cake pointed and said “Kakay”!

When four young ladies from Aricent, India, asked Annikki to make them a cake, she deswignede one of a typical farm scene!

Annikki’s adventure in cake designing is truly one which was exciting as she tailored each cake to suit the individual she was making it for, especially me, our children, other family members and close friends. It was never a business - just art for the sake of art!

The Finnish vocational school from Espoo did an entire video of Annikki and her cake designing to motivate the elderly in Finland to show them life does not end at 70! (In Finnish)

The book Edible Art” represents all the talents of an unique personality, an artist, a cake designer, a wife, a mother and grandmother, a sister, a great friend of many, a daughter, and a daughter-in-law!

Above all the unrivalled talent of a Findian!

The Finnish Health Care System

This picture shows me at the worst phase of my health life in Finland when I suffered heart failure, underwent triple by pass surgery and changed my lifestyle, some for the better and some for the worse.

Maybe this short introduction will help some of you when health crisis looms!

Those of you who are relatively new to Finland should understand the good and the bad of the Finnish health care system. Those who work with companies, such as Nokia, or have private insurance, should also take care to understand the pros and cons of the Finnish system.

If you have come from India, when you walk into a good clinic there, an experienced doctor can literally diagnose you as you walk into the room. An Indian doctor handles about 60 times more patients in the same time span as a Finnish doctor. The Indian doctor is also not hampered by taboos associated with accepting traditional medicines.

When our younger daughter was studying medicine in Newcastle, she went to do her internship in a hospital on the outskirts of Chennai. Her experience was so enlightening, at the young age of 50 she is Dean of a hospital today,  not only because she is brilliant but because of the practical experience she obtained during her internship. 

We have outlined her history in our blog entry "Proud Parents".

She did her Master's in English Philology from Oulu University, had a great job in Nokia, taught in the Open University in Oulu and then decided she wanted to take up her calling as a doctor. 

She joined Newcastle University in UK, and while raising three small children as a single mother, qualified as a doctor, headed the anatomy department in the hospital and is now the Dean of the Newcastle University associated teaching hospital in Malaysia in Johor, about 20 km from Singapore.

Coming back to the subject of medical treatment in Finland, if you walk into a Finnish hospital you are first greeted at an information counter, given a token to see a nurse, which sometimes may take half an hour or more.  The nurse will want to know sympyoms you have and she will decide what tests need to be done. That may take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour.  Only after the results are obtained will she refer you the doctor. That process may take from half an hour to four or more hours!

Annikki and I once took Annikki’s 82 year old mother one evening to the outpatient department in the Oulu University Hospital. The poor lady had to sit there for eight hours, with no nourishment, before she was seen by the  doctor to get a prescription of a painkiller!

In another instance, I developed a rash and I decided to consult a doctior at the Oulu City Hospital. Annikki told me not to waste my time as she knew what it was. I persisted and went to the hospital to go through this long procedure before the tests were done. The doctor studied the results before he proclaimed that I had a version of chicken pox. Annikki had seen this through bringing up our four kids, so her diagnosis was 100% correct. Did she laugh!!!

I remember two cases of Indian IT engineers who stayed in our Oulu  apartments, I took them to the hospital suffering severe intestinal symptoms. After hours of waiting, experiencing excruciating pain, with me holding their hands, they were sent home with a prescription of painkillers. 

In one case I had to rush the engineer (as Rakesh Rawat will confirm from Apple Inc. in Cupertino)  to hospital  the next day, and his wife, Dipti and their daughter had to come home to be looked after by Annikki. Poor Rakesh had severe complications and had needed immediate urgent care.

Another case was of Nainala Srinivas who called me to lunch at his apartment in India House and while making pudina chutney for me sliced off part of his finger. I had to rush him to hospital and undergo the same lengthy process  while he was in sheer agony! Poor fellow was crying on my shoulder.'

So do not be fobbed off by any doctor in an outpatient Department. Question the diagnosis as otherwise it may be too late as "Uncle (now Grandpa) Jacob" now with his one leg will not be around to take you back to be attended to! :-) 

This is not to say that quality of the senior doctors is not the best. My life was saved because of the rapid response to do the bypass surgery. 

But that is another story. 

Annikki and I, because of our lifestyle never had occasion to visit the hospitals in Finland for over 30 years except for mandatory tests. 

On every visit to India we used to do the Executive Health check up at one of the good hospitals as Apollo. This prevention is better than cure philosophy was great. Also on our regular visits to India  Annikki would bring back essential health aids, such as Electral, pain plasters and simple important non prescription medicines, so that we did not even have to visit a local pharmacy.  

Annikki was also a great one for reading books on health which made our life style a healthy one. I knew I had a high sugar problem, but exercise and good food kept it in check.

In 2016 I developed a small fat lump on my back. The doctor suggested lancing it. The minor operation was done. I was given an antibiotic as a post operative treatment. 

By evening I developed a intensive body rash requiring me to go the hospital. I was taken off the antibiotic immediately, but the damage had been done. 

My entire immune system was thrown out of gear. I soon suffered heart failure and had to be taken to hospital for bypass surgery. Water had collected in my lungs virtually drowning me and I was unable to breathe. That had to be syringed out. I was minutes from death but God knew I had a purpose still on this earth and he gave me the best medical treatment possible in Oulu University Hospital. The doctors and nurses were simply superb.

My underlying Type 2 diabetes surfaced and my eyesight started to fail. I was officially declared a diabetic.

I developed gangarine in one toe of my left foot and that was cured by great care by the wound department of the Oulu City Hospital.

While that was happening they decided to do angioplasty on my legs. On my left leg they did it to the foot but on the other, from where they had removed the vein for my bypass surgery, they stopped at the knee.

I developed gangarine on my right big toe, which then required amputation. Then other toes started to show signs of gangarine.

I lost all of them, and then half my right foot. The situation got worse till last June, 2022, when the decided they would amputate my right leg. I asked them to discuss with my daughter, who studied the results and told them to only amputate to below the knee. And that is the situation today. I may still try to climb Everest as my mentor is that Nepali who climbed it with both his legs amputated.

In the process I went through great hospital care and some pathetic nursing as well. The lack of attention in one instance resulted in 4 litres of urine collecting in my system. If I had not been a heavy drinker in my early life (I have been a teatotaller for 44 years now), I would have exploded. I survived but my kidneys were severely affected. The urologists gave uo one me but I followed the old wives tale remedies of my mother and regenerated all the functions again and got back control.

Again, when I went for my major amputation, they gave me a spinal anaesthetic which again threw my kidneys to the winds. Again the urologists gave up on me, but excellent ayurvedic care from Dehra Dun and the old wives remedies have put me back again to normalcy.

Recently, when Annikki had a burst appendix, the rapid respose was so quick, that her life was saved by the doctors and care in Oulu University Hospital.

Annikki because of the severe stress she went through has developed dementia, something which is heridetary. Today with one leg, an electric wheelchair, a walker, and excellent support from the Finnish health care system, at the tender ages of 79 and 80, we are even looking after young Indian students who arrive in Oulu, teaching them how to orient to life in Finland till they get acclimatisation and accommodation from PSOAS.

Our advice to all of those who come from abroad to Finland, please consult those who have experience with the system in Finland. 

Let not the blind lead the blind. 

Over our 40 years in Finland, we have helped many Indians through their difficulties.

One more word of warning. It is a punishable offence to bring in medicines to Finland from outside the EU. Only a limited amount for self use with a doctor’s prescription is permitted. Not only will the drugs be confiscated but you will face prosecution. 

Many of you may laugh at that as many believe Finnish law will be flexible to your whims. I can assure you that it is not so and as I have found that they are severely harsh on foreigners. 

In Finland there is a need for responsibility. If you disregard the law, you are liable!

Many of you should take note of this advice as we point out in one our earlier blog entries!

Findians

Flea Markets. (Kirpputori)

Annikki’s best hobby as an artist was to visit the flea markets (Kirpputori)  in Oulu. 

In the 1980s this was frowned upon by Finns who thought it below their dignity to buy second hand stuff.

Only when the severe long recession hit Finland in the late 1980s and early 1990s did the flea market culture become accepted as the Finns suffered greatly and had less money in their pockets. A popukar TV discussion program was featured at one time in a flea market 

There are six different types of flea markets. 

The first are the “antique” shops which sold high priced secondhand stuff which they called as antiques. Annikki did get some really non-Finnish good items from them. 

The second flea market type are the public auctions which were held regularly at a couple of places in Oulu. We used to bid for foreign items as Tiffany lamps and fabulous Italian glassware. We had nobody bidding against us as the Finns were busy buying Finnish “antiques”.

Tiffany dragonfly lamp we bought for €10 (now €240) from an Oulu Auction. This item is featured in the book about Tiffany glass!

Recently I sold a beautiful large Italian green glass ”goblet” we bought for €10 for €300 on Annikki’s Etsy page "Collectbles by Annikki" (not a misspelling!).

The third type of flea markets are those run by charitable organisations as the Red Cross (Kontti), the Pentecostal church and the Salvation Army. I remember the excitement of Kannan Balaram, an Indian student in Oulu, when he picked up a perfectly good jacket from the Pentecostal flea market for a couple of Euro,

Recently, when Indian Ambassador His Excellency Raveesh Kumar visited Oulu, I had packed all my clothes and they were not accessible from  the container in Ruusko. We were shifting residence at that time. I visited Kontti and bought a pair of trousers, a jacket, a shirt, tie, a belt and even a pair of socks for €30 to wear for the occasion!

Togged up from the flea market to meet 

Ambassador HE Raveesh Kumar!

The fourth type of flea market is one which buys general stuff as furniture, vacuum cleaners, etc., on the market and the general public, ensures they are working and then sells them with their mark up. Good buys are possible here.

The fifth type of flea market are those who rent you a small table/

booth. You put your stuff there with a price tag and code and you settle accounts at regular intervals. I have one on permanent rent at one of these flea markets. It is a great business idea, although it is not so valuable for me now as I am hampered in movement with my amputated leg.

The final type of flea markets are those where they give you a table and you put your stuff there and interact directly with the buyer.

We have taken part with all these types of flea markets and have managed all successfully.

It is good fun and you get bargains and also make good money if you study each type of market carefully. We furnished 80 apartments for our furnished apartment business almost entirely out of flea markets. 

When the first Indian IT team from Patni and LnT Infotech arrived in Oulu, we took them to the flea markets to help them furnish their apartments. My little trailer was used to take the stuff home.

I remember when Sreekanth Kanjarla arrived with his family I took them to a flea market in Toppila. Just as we arrived there was someone who had come to get rid of their surplus stuff. We did not even enter the flea market as we transferred their stuff from their trailer directly to my trailer. That was fun and one of the "best buys" ever! :-)

Annikki has an eye for art and quality and was very thrifty. She soon discovered many valuable things in the second hand markets that were in Oulu. 

The flea market run by the Pentecostal church was especially good as she found good buys there, especially semi-disposable stuff as skis snd skates for the children, good plates, cutlery, blankets, and little curios. Skates and skis have a lifetime of just a year, so why waste good money buying new stuff?

Annikki was always proud of the stuff she found after spending just a few Finnish marks at a time. As they say in India “it was a good time pass”.

But when she bought something,  she knew exactly how they would fit in our home! Some people who visited our earlier homes would recognise they were in Annikki's personal museum!

She had Finnish “sisu” as when she saw a good buy she would buy it straight away. She knew good things would not last long in the flea market.

Once when we were living in a penthouse on Torikatu, one evening when I looked out of the window I saw her carting a huge living room real oak centre table on her bicycle! There was her small frame pushing the cycle home behind a table mounted over the handlebars. Even now she laughs heartily when I remind her of this incident!

The table and much of the stuff as the valuable crystal flower 

vase at the back were all bought at flea markets!

She knew that this table was just the thing she wanted. We have it today in our living room after almost 23 years later.

In an earlier post on this blog, many many years ago, you will find another report on Oulu flea markets. 

To find the ones functioning today just Google “Oulu kirpputori” and the results of at least 11 of the popular ones active now should pop up.

Don't be a snob and live like the regular Finns do! :-)

Hope you enjoy flea marketing!

Findians

Sunday meeting of fate

Every Sunday, Annikki and I go to Linnanmaa Prisma to do our weekly grocery shopping and also to spend a couple of hours with our son, Mika, who has his studio apartment just opposite the Prisma.

I order a taxi for 15:30 and we reach Prisma at 15:40 and we return home by 17:40.

Last Sunday the taxi was late. I called to remind them at 15:35 and again at 15:45. It only arrived at 15:50.

We usually walk down the small hill to wait for the taxi near the gate. If it is sunny we go a few minutes early. Annikki sits on my walker while I sit on the wooden railing. 

Last Sunday, as we were waiting for the taxi, an elderly lady pushing a walker came into the compound. She started asking us about our history.

She laughed as heartily as Annikk does and was fascinated by our love story!.

She then asked me where I had worked in Oulu. I told her that I had worked in Oulu University. 

She then said she used to run the small stationary shop in the centre of the main university building.

It all came back as a flash as I had spent countless hours in her shop to buy paper, files, urgent office supplies for the labortory and even use the copying machine she used to have just outside her shop. 

When I published Annikki’s book “Edible Art”, I had made the master copy using the colour photocopiershe had installed outside her shop. She had given me a huge discount to copy the hundred off pages of the book and slso for the high quality photo paper I had used.

It was a truly wonderful feeling to connect with this remarkable lady who had been so much a part of my life in the University.

When I mentioned the fascinating character of Oulu University, Arpo Heikkilä, we both were in raptures as he had shared many hours in her shop as he did in my Office Room. Arpo had graced the cover of my book about Oulu University which I had published in 1994 and the maximum number of copies I had sold was through her little shop.

I was hoping that the taxi would never come as we were  enjoying the company of her effervescent  character. 

We had both moved on 40 years but it was like just yesterday that we had been together in the University.

As she lives in the same compound,  I am sure that our paths will cross again and we will talk about our old times together. 

Although both of us have aged the delightful memories have lived on. 

"EDUCATION" - Learning the Finnish Language

The Finns believe that Finnish is the most difficult language to learn as it has a highly complex grammar structure. This is certainly true. 

If you go to a normal Finnish language class you will find yourself quite frustrated as the teacher focuses on teaching the students this complex grammar.

This is not the way children learn any language. Little children communicate with others. As they build a vocabulary they learn how to structure the language. 

In my own case, I was busy learning Finnish at evening classes twice a week in Pohjankartano. In the meantime, our 13 year old daughter was playing and speaking with her Finnish friends in the neighbourhood and none of them spoke any English.

So I asked my teacher why this was so? 

She had no logical answer. 

I decided to learn Finnish the way my daughter had learned it.

I studied the way Finnish was spoken. The first difference I noted was that the alphabet was different to the English language and the language was highly phonetic. Especially difficultb was the letter "y" as the Finnish "y" sound has no equivalent in any Indian language but because of my knowledge of French, I knew it was equivalent to the "eu" sound in French.

I first mastered the Finnish alphabet. 

I then decided that I would not use the English language to study it as English the least phonetic of languages! 

As my "Delhi" Hindi was reasonable, I decided to use the phonetic basis of my poor Hindi to learn Finnish.

The second aspect I noted was I understood how Finnish was spoken. The first syllable of every word is stressed, so it was easy to follow the spoken language, word by word.

Then I did a study the normal words used by a Finn. In my fields of Plastics, Rubber  and Microelectronics, I found that there was a paucity of words in the Finnish language. 

The Finns had added words from German, English and Swedish liberally to their dictionary, making them fit to the structure of the language. For instance, my title at Oulu University was "yli insinööri Mikroelektronikka Laboratorio". Leaving aside the first word "yli" the other three were derived from English "Engineer, Microelectronics Laboratory".

I picked up a workbook  produced by BBC “List of first degree derived words from the “Technology Tomorrow Workbook””. 

I found that over 90%  of the words in Microelectronics were derived from English.

We had an interesting public debate at that time when we were working on Gas Sensors.  There was strong views in some circles that we should not use the word sensor, as in Finnish it was supposed to relate to censoring a movie or document. The debate became quite heated as the Finns wanted us to use the word "antuuri".

I let the debate reach a climax and then I threw the grenade.

I pointed out the word "antuuri" was derived from the English word “antenna", which was a sensing device.

A hush fell over those in the debate! :-)

Some language experts say that between 3000 to 5000 words is sufficient to consider oneself well on the way to understanding a language. When I did an analysis, because of my knowledge of Gerrman, French and English, my Finnish "derived" vocabulary was well over 10000 words. Of course, the bulk of the words were in the technical field.

However, I quickly started to apply these rules to my grocery shopping. Sugar was "sokeri", coffee was  "kahvi" and tea was "tee". I worked out my shopping list and started to use these first as single words and then started to create short sentences.

When I joined Oulu University, which was six months after coming to Finland, I had mastered enough of the language but I did not divulge my methodology. When I went  to take part in a business meeting between our laboratory and the Finnish Oil giant, Neste Oy, a month after my joining, my professor was quite surprised as I was busy making notes at the meeting.

I knew that if they knew I was following their spoken Finnish , the more prudent ones would have dropped into good Finnish, leaving me in the dark. 

I kept quiet about my method all through my life in University. I only revealerd it when Annikki and I wrote our book "Handbook For Survival in Finland" in 1994.

However, in my daily life I was able to carry on a normal life in Finland.

I did not, and still have not mastered written Finnish. I did not bother as Annikki was always there to help me out in difficult situations.

My sincere advice to all foreigners in Finland is that they should not fall into the trap that says the Finnish is a difficult language. This is especially true for those who have children. 

Send your children to Finnish schools rather than International Schools as the children will make great friends in their locality and these friendships can be valuable in life, even if they move out from Finland. 

Our children are now scattered around the world and yet they value their Indian and Finnish roots and traditions and are comfortable wherever they go.

In the fifties, Finland was recovering from the war . Poverty was widespread. There was no free food for children in schools, for instance. 

Annikki left Finland when she was just 17 and went to work in a Hospiz caring for old people in the more prosperous Sweden which had not been ravaged by war.

She learnt Swedish quickly. Then a colleague said there were more prospects in England to learn nursing. So off she went to England, but before she got into the system, she met me and she decided that she would concentrate on her inborn skills, language and art. She mastered English quickly as she had a devoted teacher! :-)

She then thought to broaden her horizons and moved to Germany and quickly mastered the German language as she was working with children.

She returned to Finland but love was in the air so she moved back to England. Soon after I graduated and got a job, the Findian culture was born. We were just 23 and 24 years old at that time!

We moved to Madras in India in 1969. She had to manage a huge house with four children. English speaking home help was expensive. She started to learn Sanskrit. I soon convinced her it would be bettter to learn Tamil as the children were already speaking it fluently. With a cook, maid, cleaner, gardener, two watchmen, a driver, and the shopkeepers in Panagal Park Market to communicate with, she quickly learnt Tamil and also learnt to understand Malayalam, as my mother mainly spoke that at home. She could not master spoken Malayalam as we Mallus have a horrible habit of rolling our tongues!

Life was great and when we left India she was heartbroken and kept her bags packed for 5 years to go back to the land she loved so dearly, India.

In our mind this is "education".

Regards, Findians

Thank you readers

 I restarted blogging after the last visit to the rehabilitation centre put me in touch with an occupationalist therapist.

I told her my problem of using my laptopo was the distance of the screen from my eyes and my poor eysesight. 

During the day I can use a large screen but using the laptop on my lap at night was very unsteady.

She brought me a pillow type laptop stand which was quite effective. It was a model from IKEA.

I tried IKEA and found this model was obsolete. But I found a better one from Amazon.com which also had a wooden flat base to the pillow underside, a wrist support and a cut out for the mobile phone and one for a tablet

I ordered it and it was with me in just a week.

I found it comfortable and I could use it conveniently sitting up on the bed and it was of course especially comfortable to use it when I was in the wheelchair.

This has made my night computer usage a great possibility

So I started my blogging which had virtually come to a standstill for the last two years after the amputation of my foot and then the amputation of my right leg.

I may have had writer's block but the comfort of the position sort of removed my writer's block.

I have over 2000  blog entries created over the last 30 years and I did get about a hundred to a couple of hundred people who would find blog entries of interesst through the various search engines.

Yesterday I found that over 1200 visits to my blogs and by midday today I had over 600  visitors

This makes me feel great as it means that my writing style and the subjects I write about still haver relevance.

In three blog entries I put out our contribution to the Findian cilture over the last 60 years.

I blogged about Annikki's 79th birthday. I blogged about  a Killer Smart Watch on the loose. I blogged about my late sister who passed away 63 years ago. I blogged about the reason why we quit the Association of Indians in Oulu.

I bloggedd about leading personalities in my life as the late Ms. Anna Mani and Dr. M. V. Kurian and 

Tan Sri B. C. Shekhar. And I blogged about a humble management trainee who taught me more than most people and whom I considered as a great mentor.

These three blogs highlight our life as Findians:

https://jmatthan.blogspot.com/2023/08/findians-association-with-finland-1943.html 

https://jmatthan.blogspot.com/2023/08/findians-association-with-finland-1943_13.html 

https://jmatthan.blogspot.com/2023/08/findians-association-with-finland-1984.html

And our first in the series was how we are very proud parents.

Now I have a whole host of subjects lined up and the excitement of writing to satisfy my audience is a new thrill.

At the same time I am now getting more active in writing my memoirs. 

I am starting to write a new version of our book "Handbook for Survival in Finland".

There is excitement in the air.

The only sadness is that my partner for all these years has been Annikki. Now dementia has set in so I only tell her what I am doing. I

t excites her but her valuable contribution that I depended on all these years is no longer forthcoming.

My "Laughing Goddess" is still my inspiration.

Do let me know of any subjects you would be interested in. 

I am reasearching in depth the highly topical subject of the name of the country India or Bharat. 

Finland has two names Finland and Suomi. So this is not an unique situation for India.

I hope to study this subject from a historical, economical and political viewpoint and hope to tinge it with some degree of humour and sarcasam.

This subject was already started by us in 2015 when we wrote the book "The Titanic Called India”. So it is something that has not popped up yesterday.

Thank you reader readers for showing trust in us and keeping us in your  minds all these years. I hope I do not disappoint you.

Remembering my sister. Nalini

Nalini 1937

16th September 2023 would have been the 76 th birthday of my elder sister, Nalini. She passed away on October 29th 1960’from tetanus.

In my menoirs I have covered her life.

Nalini in London with Queen Mother Mary. 1960

Nalini was a beautiful person and I miss her dearly.

Jolly, Molly and ….

 If you have Jolly and Molly as husband and wife, the quiz is what is the daughter’s name?”

The answer will be revealed at the end of this blog entry!

Dr. M. V. Kurien was known as Jollychayan to us. His wife was called by us as Mollykochamma. 

The old Syrian Christian marriage rules stated that you should not marry anyone who was closer than your ninth cousin. When my mother’s brother, Mr. K. M. Philip (Peelukuttychayan and also known as Pappa) wanted to marry his fourth cousin in the 1930s, special dispensation was required from the head of our church. His wife Chinnammakochamma, was the elder sister of Mollykochamma. 

Jollychayan with his wife’s brother-in-law Pappa at the wedding of my niece.

They had one more sister, Thangammakochamma, who married my father’s younger brother, John Matthan (Johnnyappapen), an engineer who worked as General Manager in Indian Railways and later was CEO of BHEL in Ramachandrapuram  in Hyderabad and retired as the CEO of the Integral coach Factory at Perambur, Madras..

All this still maintained the fourth cousin rule as no one was related to anyone who was closer than the church dictum. 

When my sister married Babu, the rule still held as although Babu was the cousin of Jollychayan, and there was close interaction between the families, the church dictum still held.  

Complicated way of saying that Dr. M. V. Kurien was close to us and one of our extended family!

Verghese Kurien, Tribhuvandas Kishibhai Patel, and Harichand Megha Dalaya

Dr. Kurien was the person who, with a Gujarat politician, Tribhuvandas Patel and engineer Harichand Dalaya changed the face of milk production and distribution, first in Gujarat snd then around India with the Whose Revolution, also known as Operation Flood.

The way he did this is by reaching the farmers in Gujarat by testing the milk they brought to Anand and paying them in cash based on the quality of the milk. This put hard cash in the hands of the farmers. He then made sure the farmers got the best feed for their cattle ensuring the quality of the milk increased. He then took steps to raise the quality of the herd.

This led to the Gujarat Milk Cooperative becoming the best run in the country with the farmers getting their benefits directly with no middlemen.

His next stop was Bombay where we still got milk delivered at the doorstep. He set up the same model in an effort to move the cattle out of the city area and ensure the quality of the milk increased by setting up the diary in Worli. 

Those who were getting good quality milk and milk products from the Parsi Dairy situated in Marine Lines in Bombay, suddenly found milk booths at every other corner in Bombay where the sealed blue aluminium top striped bottles was available twice a day at a reasonable price with no adulteration.

I returned to India in September 1969 from my studies in England. My cousin’s wedding was in progress and as Mollykochamma was the aunt of my cousin getting married, 

I got to interact with Jollychayan almost immediately after landing in Bombay. 

I was fresh from seeing the milk distribution in Finlsnd using plastic bags. Bring a plastics technologist full of myself, I told Jollychayan of my experience and how it would be economically viable to distribute milk in these plastics satchels. He was at about the very start of his Operstion Flood program which started in 1970.

He was enthralled with the idea and asked me to give him a report on this as he was discussing alternate means of distributing milk as the recycling of glass bottles was very costjy and energy intensive.

Finland, however, discarded the plastics bags and moved to coated paper cartons which suited their paper industry base even though they were paying a royalty to an American company on every single carton produced. The Swedish company Tetrapak was also growing in this field.

Jollychayan was being bombarded with offers to set up these paper carton lines.

He however had other alternatives up his sleeve. He first choice went to setting up booths with refrigeration facilities manned by disabled veterans to dispense the milk. 

There were several problems as irregular electricity supply. Breakdown of refrigeration machines and insufficient qualified technicians to look after these units were other headaches to be considered.

By that time I had prepared my paper on Co-extruded plastics satchels for milk. As soon as that was ready he moved quickly to implement this in a couple of dairies including the Bangalore Dairy.

It was an enormous success and this became the approved means of milk distribution all overt urban India.

Jollychayan thanked me for this innovation. Although I may been the catalyst, it was the immense respect everyone in India held for Jollychayan that made this a success.

This biography by Dr. M. V. Kurien does not tell all this backstory as I had already left for Finland.

At the wedding if my sister’s daughter in Chennai in 2999, he drew me aside and talked at length to me about milk distribution and how he had had to face much opposition to implement the pladtics satchets as the lobby of paper cartons was very strong. He had held on for as long as possible but finally permitted that distribution mode to enter into India but only as a parallel to the plastics satchets.

Even in Finland, when I talked to the major milk distributor, Valio, they held Dr. Kurien (Jollychayan) in great awe.

I was fortunate to be there at the crucial time of the launch of Operation Flood.

No, you were all wrong. Jolly and Molly’s daughter was not named Dolly, but the beautiful name of Nirmala! :-)

Who can be your mentor?

Who can be your mentor?

1989:Vishnu, Veena, Saroopya, Sahitya and Vishnu's mother in 

Chennai with Annikki and me.

I have blogged about two  great people who were my mentors, Dr. Anna Mani and Tan Sri Dr. B. C. Shekhar.

But one of my greatest mentors was a young man who worked for me.

 When I tell him this today, he just cannot believe that he was my mentor as he had great admiration for me. 

He came to work for my consulting company from PSG College in Coimbatore to do a marketing research programme of three months.

Once he walked into my room and I asked him to sit down to give him his first assignment, I knew I had a person who was unique.

I used to do a test when I was interviewing people for a job. I would ask them to write me an essay about some well known human being.

99% of the people I interviewed would ask me a series of question about why it was relevant, or what should they write about, how long the essay should be or something which meant they needed guidance.

Only one in a haundred would leave the room and turn up with an essay about the topic.

I got this advice from a book about Col. Arthur Wagner, who told Col. Andrew Summers [sic] Rowan, that he had to deliver a message from US President McKinley to reach  information regarding the Spanish forces in Cuba and the condition of the insurgent Cuban forces. to General Gracia . He called in Col. Rowan to whom he handed a letter and asked him to reach this message to General Gracia. He gave no information about the   location or any other details relevant to the task.

There are many versions to this story but the best account is found at "How I got the message to General Gracia".

The officer picked up the message and went out and elivered the message to whom it was addressed.

Such people are doers, while others, whatever their good qualities, are followers. A doer is one hundred times more valuable than a follower.

This young man executed his first market research project within the alotted time, only coming to me when he needed some technical advice which he could not possibly know.

I hired this young man and he served me diligently for almost a decade.

When I then started a production company, I asked him to be my Chief Executive Officer. He and his family were my closest associates.

I never had to give him instructions. He knew my diary and he would always have the relevant papers ready for me without me having to ask him.

What I learnt from him was of immense value to me when I moved to Finland and started working for an organisation. I followed what he taught me as I was then 10 steps ahead of everyone else.

Being one of the earliest foreigners to work in the University, I started at the bottom of the ladder in the Microelectronics Laboratory in the University of Oulu. Within three years, because of my performance, I became the Acting Laboratory Manager and within five ýears I became the Chief Engineer. 

My work output was so high, and for a person who had no experience in the field of Microelectronics, I achieved what no one had done before me. My salary was the highest of any non-professorial staff.

When I left the University to start my own small company in the Technology Village behind Oulu University, I was innudated with work from all the laboratories of the Electrical Engineerting Department, from the Physics and Theoretical Physics Departments and also the Biology, Botany and Zoology departments. 

I had earned the trust of the colleaqgues who had worked with me and their friends around the University. 

They knew that when I promised something, I would deliver the results.

This young man, his wife in India and his children in the USA are lifelong friends. After I left India he was the CEO of another organisations in India. He is retired but his employer still has not let him go.

 I have been priviledged to be mentored by this young man. His name is Vishnu Varadhan, his wife, who makes the best rasam that I know, is Veena. And his two children Saroopya and Sahitya are fine examples of good upbringing.

It is my honour to call him my mentor.

Tan Sri B. C. Shekhar - Grandfather of the Rubber Industry

 

Tan Sri B. C. Shekhar (Unni) was one of the most influential people in my life, as we shared the same professional interests - Polymers.

His path crossed mine in 1968 when I was working as a researcher at the Rubber and Plastics Research Association of Great Britain (RAPRA). He visited the institute to meet with his colleague, Dr. Bill Watson who was the Director. 

Dr. Watson was the guardian of Unni’s son who had been admitted to a school in the UK. I was invited to an exclusive lunch with my Director and Unni.

We hit it off from the very first minute as we had many common interests, besides polymers. I had no idea how famous he was when we discussed his family roots in Trichur in Kerala and mine. 

The next year he made another visit and after the official engagements we dined together. He took a liking to Annikki and treated her like his daughter.

I returned to Chennai and started a consulting company, Polymer Consultancy Services with my brother who was also a rubber technologist. He was the introvert while I was the extrovert and the front face of our consulting company.

Unni came to Chennai and my brother organised a meeting of the local rubber institute to meet Unni.

Unni was travelling with his family so he asked my brother to organise an evening with me. I took them to the beautiful Madras beach and organised a delicious spread from the local Buhari restaurant.

There was a purpose in his asking for the meeting as he made me a proposal as he wanted our consulting company to act as the representatives of the Malaysian Rubber Research Board in India to promote the work of the Malaysian Rubber Industry in India and finally ensure that India imported natural rubber from Malaysia. He had a small office in Bombay from where they would feed information to the Indian rubber industry. He had an information officer who did all the work and he wanted me to take over managing that work.

I told Unni that I was concentrating on plastics and my brother was handling all matters with rubber. He told me Dr. Watson had spoken so highly of my work in England and that was why he was approaching me. Also he knew of our close family association with MRF Ltd. which was doing well as a tyre producer in India, giving a tough fight to the foreign companies Dunlop, Firestone snd Goodyear, who were producing tyres in India.

My brother is a pessimist, but as I had programmed our consulting company as the source of information on polymers in India, as I had obtained the rights to produce the world’s largest information source, RAPRA Abstracts, to be published and distributed in India, this was a logical extension of our work.

We moved the operation from Bombay to Madras and C. R. Das, the information officer, became a good addition to my local consulting team. His wife was a library scientist and she helped to organise our great library of Polymer books and information which I had transported back from England.

My brother also became more active as he had something constructive to do with the India rubber industry in India.

Unni interacted with both of us and he wanted to do more. 

When his elder brother, B. C. Chandran, retired from the Shell Borneo Club and settled in Coimbatore, Unni asked my brother to set up a company to do soil and leaf testing for the rubber plantations to give vital fertiliser input information to the Indian planters. He wanted his brother to be the Managing Director of the new company. They started the new company but there was no motivator and it was just limping along.

 (Chandran's two daughter married two brothers, sons of he Menon family who owned the Leela Lace Group.)

On one visit to India, Unni held a Board Meeting and he called me in as an observer. There he proposed that I eould be brought in as the Business Development Director of the company. The other Board members acceded to this demand, so I took over the job.

I revamped the company and not only did I expand the soil and leaf testing activities but having the best agronomists available to me I started a business of looking after farms. The first of those was the one belonging to the Raman Research Institute which had been created by the Nobel Laureate late Sir C. V. Raman out of some of the money he won when he got for his Nobel Prize. That work was a huge success and I got other local farms to manage.

However, I had to get back to my primary job, so I asked to be relieved of this responsibility of Agropolymers and it reverted to the original path of setting up standardised rubber production plants in Kerala.

The work of the information Centre of MRRDB had progressed well and India started to import rubber from Malaysia. The job was done and I withdrew into the background and let my brother let the friendship flourish.

Unni was a great scientist and an ever better politician. He developed the technique of doubling and trebling the flow of rubber latex from the rubber tree by applying ammonia to the tree trunk which stopped the clotting mechanism. He however held back this information as he knew it would have a dramatic effect on the plantation labour who would be retrenched. He ensured the plantation labour was gradually reduced so that when he released his research findings there was no panic. 

It came as a shock to the international rubber industry, as a few years earlier he had made a speech in the US saying that natural rubber would become substantially cheaper than synthetic rubber. All had laughed at him but they later held their tongues. 

He was awarded the Raman Magsaysay Award and the given many titles in Malaysia and finally the title of Tan Sri.

After heading the Rubber Research Institute, he then formed the Malaysian Rubber Research Board and the International Rubber Research Crntre in the UK. He then headed the International Rubber Industry and produced patent after patent. He later also headed the Palm Oil Research Institute in Malaysia.

He developed the DELINK process for chemical reclamation of used rubber. It was then he wrote to me and expressed how much he would have wanted my input in launching this novel technique. 

It was the ultimate honour to be remembered by this great man.

When I moved to Finland, both Unni and his wife kept in touch occasionally. Unni was greatly impressed that I had mastered yet another field, Microelectronics.

It was a sad day when I heard of his passing in Chennai in 2006. As a friend he trusted me implicitly. My brother is what he is today because of the lifelong friendship of Unni and myself.

May my mentor rest in peace.