A genuine "Finnish" misunderstanding by me...

(Cross-posted on my major blogs.

When I was told by Ville Suomi that we would have two visitors from the Palam Rural Centre in India, I believed that they were from New Delhi, assuming Palam to be related to the Palam Airport.



However, when I went to the chappal making demo on Tuesday noon, I saw a humble "moochi" sitting on the floor making a sandal using his traditional skills.

Daniel Jesudasan, and his boss Benjamin Sundarkumar, are from Tirupur in Tamilnadu.

The real name of the organisation should be Paalam. Paalam mean "bridge" in both Tamil and Malayalam.

Tirupur is the major textile centre of India producing undergarments and t-Shirts by the millions and these can be found in even the most exclusive of shops around the world.

Daniel is a humble cobbler, having learnt the profession from his uncle over 30 years ago. In the period since, he estimated that he has made over 50000 sandals plus a variety of different products as leather bags, key ring holders, and many other leather products. His wife and his children have also been part of his professional activity.


Range of fragrant soaps "literally" lovingly hand-packaged in beautiful hand-made paper cartons from the Paalam Rural Centre.

Benjamin Sundarkumar is the Secretary of the Paalam Rural Centre, which is a cooperative of around 130 families, who are working to create an honest and good life for themselves and their children. They are producing leather products and also about 30 different fragrant soaps at their facility. They now intend to diversify into liquid soaps and shampoos.

Over the last 30 years the cooperative, started by a Swedish pastor, has taken legs of its own and has become part of the Fair Trade worldwide programme. (After Oulu, Daniel and Benjamin were on their way to Sweden so see this 80 year old pastor, now living in retirement in Stockholm.)


Kati Hjerp of Juuttiputiikki introduces the visitors from India.

In an evening programme at the WALDA Youth Centre, Benjamin said that the prices they received from the Fair Trade programme was certainly "fair" and had helped the cooperative to develop itself. The small profit had been wisely invested in improving the livelihood of the families that form the cooperative.

Impressive was the Primary School which was equipped with computers and which they hope, with further improvement in profits and help from a few friends, that they can develop into a High School.


Daniel and Benjamin at the Tropical Botanical Greenhouse.

On Thursday, I took the two of them for a tour of the city of Oulu, showing them the Oulu University Central Hospital, the Medipolis area, the Technopolis area, the University of Oulu including the fascinating Botanical Gardens and the Zoological Museum, and then a trip to the Oulu Nallikari Beach including a visit to our friends at the Children's Park.


The first ground bloom flowers in Kampitie.


View of the Kampitie garden.


View of the Kampitie garden.


View of the Kampitie garden.


Annikki's new experiment this year - peat bricks as a border.

After this I took them home to meet Annikki and view the Kampitie garden, which today is a splendour bathed in much colour.

We had a delicious Indian meal at the Indian Cuisine Restaurant. Then, I dropped them off at Juuttiputiikki, where Daniel was once again going to demonstrate his artisan skills to a much larger audience than on Tuesday.

During our conversations, many serious thoughts struck me.

Firstly, with the children of the now cooperative members being educated presently in modern facilities, it is most likely that the artisan skills of Daniel and his friends will not be passed on to the next generation to follow. It is, therefore, imperative to develop their cooperative in a manner that does not drive these educated children away from their roots and homes as they are forced to seek employment in the metropolitan cities.

Secondly, I felt that as water is a scarce resource in Tirupur, when making their liquid soaps for export, it would be far wiser for them to export the liquid soapconcentrates, and market these concentrates in the Fair Trade outlets, just as Juuttiputiikki is doing of products from many other producers of liquid soaps and shampoos.

Thirdly, the cooperative should cooperate with Universities and other organisations to ensure that the water scarcity which plagues their region is solved using modern scientific methods. Otherwise the entire region, which today depends on fast depleting groundwater, will be led to total ruination!

And finally, the manufacturing facilities are truly primitive, but yet they produce a great range of products suitable for the elite of the western world. Here, I am caught in a dilemma as to what to say. If I say that the facilities should be modernised, it will take away the glamour of the humble way of life of these people. But if they do not modernise, their competivity will be lost and they could grind to a halt in the not too distant future.

The primitivity is what impresses me, YET depresses me. To think that India, with its explosion on the world economy, still has such manufacturing primitivity is extremely hard for me to accept.

Having spent many years with Annikki in villages around Karnataka - I know this is a reality. Maybe someone will help me clarify my thinking!

Windy city...

Last Sunday was a beautiful early summer's day. The sun was shining brightly and the strong wind had a wonderful cooling effect in the hot sun.

Annikki wanted to go to the garden shops to pick up some flowers. When I tried to start the car, I found I had left the radio and and the battery was dead. I used the power loader and started the car and we went to do the shopping.

I was not happy that the battery had charged enough in the short run to the shops, so I proposed a trip to the beach. It is about 10 km from home to the Nallikari beach. This is a beach I have depicted several times on this blog - in different states and stages. Here, the scenery is as varied as the days of the year.



When we arrived we found, like us, many had come there to enjoy the beautiful day. The waves were lashing the shore and the foamy sea was something I have not seen here in Oulu for many decades. There were a few wind surfers battling the waves. We saw our next door neighbour there, who had been wind surfing, as it is his hobby.



I was quite surprised to see an small effective dyke that had been built from straw.



Annikki, as usual, was looking for special stones. She was successful in picking up some great ones.

Although we only stayed a short while, it was a fun day at the beach.

Why do I do the things I do?

(Cross-posted on all my major blogs.)

Recently there was a programme on an American internet radio station about how humans were less developed than animals. Examples cited included the fact that all the animals moved to higher ground before the tsunami struck. Several other examples were given and it reinforced my view that animals are infinitely superior in all respects to human beings as far as knowing themselves and their environment.

The programme also highlighted how much we have to learn from animals. For instance, when the super-fast train was being built in Japan, there was a sonic boom when the train emerged from a tunnel at the high speed. This was solved by watching how a kingfisher enters the water with its specially formed beak and it moves effortlessly from one medium into another! The front of the train was designed to be like the beak of a kingfisher.

I have been a strong believer in the philosophy that my body tells me exactly what I should eat or drink. As a result I have never been a pill popper AND I have not been seriously ill for many a decade. In my 23+ years in Finland I never missed a day at work.

People find it hard to believe my very simplistic theories. Usually, when I draw their attention to facts when they are published later, they forget that I had told them the reasons well before scientific evidence had proven something.

I must go back in time when I was a heavy smoker, consuming nothing less than 80 Charminars a day, drinking several bottles of beer and finishing the day with a bottle of rum. This was also a time when I drank about a dozen cups of coffee per day!

Even with this I had never been drunk. I lived and worked hard, usually a grueling 20 hour day.

I also had an unbelievable memory where I could recall facts instantly. My ability to scan a letter and pick out errors was uncanny. My secretaries were astounded by how I glanced down a sheet and faster than they came in they were out of my office with a pageful of corrections on the sheet.

Then, one day I walked into my office in Bangalore and could not find an important paper, I realised my memory was failing. My body immediately told me to lay off alcohol.

Within 24 hours I had given up not only alcohol, but also coffee and cigarettes, as the consumption of one to the other was interlinked.

People were astounded how I had such enormous will power - but it was not me doing the choosing, but my body.

It has taken close to 25 years to rebuild the small portion of my brain that was damaged. Although it was a small partr, it was quite a considerable portion.

My alma mater web sites and my blogging were part of a long term programme which helped me rebuild my damaged brain.

When I quit all the "harmful" parts of my intake, I went on to consuming water for several months. Then my body told me to take to tea.

From then onwards I have been consuming anywhere between 5 to 8 cups of tea per day. The effect on my entire body as well as my brain has been so invigorating. If I told anyone that my tea intake was being controlled by my "intuitive" need, I would be laughed out of the room.

Today, when I read this article on BBC Tea 'healthier' drink than water, I knew my body was the one which had been right all the while.

I quote a couple of passages from this article:

Drinking three or more cups of tea a day is as good for you as drinking plenty of water and may even have extra health benefits, say researchers.....

....Experts believe flavonoids are the key ingredient in tea that promote health.....

....These polyphenol antioxidants are found in many foods and plants, including tea leaves, and have been shown to help prevent cell damage....

...Other health benefits seen included protection against tooth plaque and potentially tooth decay, plus bone strengthening.....

Besides tea, I also consume about 5 to 7 litres of water per day, as my body demands that.

It is my contention that tea not only prevents cell damage, but it helps restore damaged cells, although that is a painfully slow process and needs much outside stimuli to repair the cells to its original form. Maybe this will be discovered in 10 years!

That is how my brain cells have been regenerated!

So I say, learn to listen to your body!

Mother of Mine

(Cross-posted on the CHAFF Blog.
Copyright of photographs is acknowledged.)

It has probably been over 10 years since Annikki and me have visited a cinema theatre to see a movie. Yesterday afternoon, we went to the STUDIO in the Youth Centre to see a Finnish / Swedish movie called "Mother of Mine".

During World War II, more than 70,000 Finnish children were evacuated to neutral Sweden to avoid the conflict. "Mother of Mine," is the award-winning movie by Director Klaus Haro.

The story tackles that painful history in the story of 9-year-old boy, Eero, a child who increasingly feels abandoned by his biological Finnish mother and yet not attached to his Swedish foster mother. When he returns to Finland, his confusion intensifies and it lasts through his entire adult life till he understands what really happened when he goes to attend the funeral of his foster mother.

The movie is heart rending. To someone like Annikki who lived through those times in Finland, it was particularly difficult to believe that this really happened, as she knows her mother would never have sent them anywhere!

The movie is in Swedish and Finnish, with English subtitles. There were several mistakes in the sub-titles, but that did not detract from the powerful impact of the movie itself. The acting was superb and the photography simply exquisite.


Eero help his Finnish mother.


Eero with Hjalmar, his Swedish foster father.


Eero with Signe, his Swedish foster mother.

Topi Majaniemi starred as Eero and gave an outstanding performance. Marjaana Maijala acted Eero's Mother with Maria Lundqvist as Signe, the Swedish foster mother who looked after Eero in Sweden. Michael Nyquist acted as Hjalmar, the Swedish foster father.

What was especially sad was that all 45 seats were reserved making the organisers cut off the number of people who could attend. More than half the people failed to turn up, depriving many of seeing this movie - which was for free!

All those from CHAFF who took tickets did turn up, however, although many more could have benefited from seeing this powerful movie!

Annikki is working her gut out again

Day-before-yesterday, Wednesday evening, Annikki's mother, Hilja, went in for her interval care at the Hirosen Old People's Home, so that Annikki and me could re-energise ourselves.



It was quite a wet day, so Hilja had to be dressed with warmish clothes. It was after five in the evening before the Invalid Taxi arrived to take Hilja and Annikki to the Old People's Home.

I followed by car. As soon as Hilja was comfortably installed, Annikki wanted to go straight to the garden shops to pick up things for the garden. The Flea markets had already closed as it was past 6 pm. :-)

Besides picking up rich soil bags and some evergreen trees for potting, she picked up some wooden lotuses for the pond.





She also picked up two artificial lotuses which have LEDs in the centre. They run on three small batteries. the LEDS are rated as having lives of 8000 to 10000 hours.

When switched on the colour of the LED changes continuously, rotating through a beautiful soft glow blue, to green, to red and to yellow.

I tried to photograph them but was not successful. They look gorgeous. (I must get a better digital camera!) Annikki put one in the main pond and one in the bathtub. They add so much character to the garden.

At the bottom of the pond the real lotus, which is a local variety, is growing very rapidly. We should soon see them flowering at the top of the water.

The solar fountain sent to us by Susanna a few years ago is still functioning beautifully. But I have to get a larger fountain as the goldfish love to have the water splashing aroung them.

On Thursday, which was a holiday here in Finland (Ascension Day - the day Christ ascended to heaven), Annikki, instead of resting was doing back-breaking work cleaning up every corner of the garden. She took all the rubbish out of the flower beds, sifted all the sand, and realigned all the stones. She had to take up each of her many hundreds of stones so as to get the rubbish out from under them.

I saw the first bee in the garden, hovering over the flower beds, although the first flowers are yet to arrive. The magpies are having their regular baths in the shallow pond, and after they finish the smaller birds take their turn.

We are still waiting for some warm days so as to re-introduce the goldfish back into the pond. Annikki is not going to take any risks again!

This year we will have lots more interesting stuff in the garden - so watch out on this blog as Annikki's new creative ideas come to fruition!

The King of Fruit?

Last Friday we got our consignment of Durian from Thailand, considered by many as the "King of Fruits"! Durio kutejensis fruits, is also known as durian merah.



The durian is the fruit of trees of the genus Durio belonging to the Malvaceae, a large family which includes hibiscus, okra, cotton, mallows and linden trees. The fruit is largish, has a unique odour, and a thorn-covered husk, much like the jackfruit, which, however, is considerably larger.

The fruit can grow up to 30 cm long and 15 cm in diameter, and weighs between one to three kilograms. Its shape ranges from oblong to round, the colour of its husk can be green to brown. Its flesh is pale-yellow to red.

The hard outer husk is covered with sharp, prickly thorns. The edible custard-like flesh emits the strong, distinctive odour, which is overpowering and offensive.

The taste of the flesh has been described as nutty and sweet.



Although the fruit arrived very well packed in a plastic container and over-wrapped with plastic film, the extremely strong smell came through the packaging. We had to keep it in our cold front room so that whole house would not start stinking.

We were not able to eat it till today, as it has been quite cold and cloudy. We had decided that we would eat it outdoors when a warm sunny day arrived!

When we opened the plastic container, we found the smell to be what we in Oulu call the "Oulu Odour". This is the traditional stink to high heaven that pervades our city because of the emission from the pulp factory.

However, we could not get the smell once we consumed the fruit.

The fruit was not quite yellow as was promised, but was more whitish. It had a custard like consistency and although I thought it fairly sweet, Annikki did not find it sweet at all and compared the taste to a mixture of onion and some other mushy vegetables.

Bot hof us were quite disappointed with the taste as it is nowhere near the beautiful taste of a ripe jackfruit, a great pulpy mango, or even a really nice papaya.

It was certainly not, in our opinion, the "King of Fruits".



After dinner I felt like having a fruit.

We had a beautifully carved watermelon which had been given by Pailin and Unnop as a present to Annikki for Mother's Day.

Maybe you noted the blue vase in the picture with a rose on top of what appears to be ice in the vase. This is something that Annikki has recently discovered.

She took some ordinary clear plastic film, crumpled it and stuffed it into a vase. When she poured water into the vase, the plastic looked like it was crushed ice.

A wonderful effect!

Wonder who is the creative plastics consultant - Annikki or me! :-)

Am I being spoilt?

Today is Mother's Day in Finland, but it was not Mother's Day in England.

So Annikki did not get any call from our kids there. She got some beautiful roses from Pailin and Unnop, and Kannan rang and sent her a text message from Rauma - so the kids who have adopted her did not forget her on this day.

When I rang Samu in Newcastle, Joanna answered and was quite surprised to hear it was Mother's Day here!

Annikki thought it was Mother's Day last week and dished up a great cake, only to discover she was a week too early. So this week, with a vengeance, she made another cake studded with strawberries - maybe a kilo of them, plenty of cream and her own lemon rind cream filling. Hilja Reinikka (Äiti), Annikki's mother, was very happy to get all the good wishes and a cake all for herself!

The finishing touches to the strawberry Mother's Day cake.

Äiti observes the cake as it is placed in front of her.

"I am waiting", says Äiti, as she waves to the camera.

We did not quite finish the cake this evening, leaving just enough for a midnight snack after a sauna!

Hope all of you Mothers had a great day today.

P.S. We may eat the King of Fruits today. The Durian fruit is considered as the King of Fruits, but it is also the King of horrible smells. We were advised to eat it outside - and as this evening is sunny and we plan to have a sauna later, we decided we may eat this fruit in the garden later this evening.

It is now 10:30 pm and sunset will be in about 10 minutes.

A well deserved award

Dharavi in Mumbai is one of the largest slum areas in the world. It is also the home of some of the best leather products produced in India.

Right in the middle of this slum is a humble doctor who has been serving the people of the area, never thinking of financial reward. He has a long and hazardous journey to come and go to his small clinic bang centre of the slum. The clinic has been his life's work.

Malathi organised a wonderful Indian Evening
in the village where she lived in Finland.

Malathi in Oulu.

News has just reached me that Dr. Ashok Khembavi, a dear friend, husband of another dear friend and a Finnophile, Malathi, has been awarded the prestigous "Rashtriya Gaurav" award by the India International Friendship Society for the devotion to his work and his patients in this slum area.

Malathi first came to Finland to work with handicapped people and she committed her life to helping others, just like her husband. She loved Finland and Finns and us Findians, in return, loved her.

Malathi and Ashok have two wonderful boys, Darshan and Dishnath, now grown up, and they make a lovely family, as seen in the photo below.



They say that behind every successful man is a woman - in this case it is two wonderful people complementing each other in whatever they do. They give each other plenty of space so that they can develop each other and their children alongside them.

Malathi's sister, Lalitha, a brilliant management personality, is also married to an outstanding engineer and inventor, Anil Ananthakrishna from Bangalore, famous for his electric cycles, electric scooters and his electric cars, way ahead of the rest of the world in thinking and invention.

Congratulations Ashok and Malathi. Annikki and I are proud to know you and be part of your wonderful family.

Is this a laughing matter?

The newspaper coverage of my performance at the Free Speech Day had both Annikki and me in splits of laughter. It was not about what I said but the attitudes shown by those that covered the event.

As I have mentioned earlier, the newspaper Kaleva tried to neutralise the effect of accepting my challenge to prove me wrong by introducing in their Main Editorial the fact that Freedom House had claimed that Finland was rated among the top countries of the world as regards the Freedom of the Press.

This is what Annikki and I wrote to Freedom House:

from Annikki Matthan
to info@freedomhouse.org
date May 4, 2007 11:55 PM
subject Surprised ay your rankings!

Dear Sirs,

We are truly amazed at your ranking that Finland is at the top of the Free Press list.

Either your ranking system is run by some incompetent people or you have fallen for the beautiful Finnish methodology of creating an IMAGE, an image which is far from the truth.

See this Blog Entry at

http://jmatthan.blogspot.com/2007/05/oulus-hyde-park-corner.html

--
Annikki & Jacob Matthan
Oulu, Finland

Kaleva index page coverage.

Oulu and the neighbourhood page coverage.

The Finnish radio and tv may not have covered my outburst, (as far as I know), although I have heard reports that I was covered!

Wonder how they pushed it?


Oululehti coverage.

Another Oulu newspaper, not mainstream, Oululehti, had no coverage of the substance in the event, but in a section called "Bridge view" shared with its readers what a passerby would have seen and heard. What they wrote was truly hilarious, but substantially off the mark.

They referred to me as the "talkative Indian", "speaking in English which flew above the heads of the listeners", "creating the flavour of Hyde Park", "was certainly heard"...

The writer was right in all these issues except that what I said flew over the heads of the listeners. The journalist obviously did not hear the thunderous applause that I received.

But the Kaleva certianly got part of the message which they highlighted in "blue".



It reads as "The Police is corrupt, the Magistrate is corrupt, the Public Guardian is corrupt."

Of course, I did not stop there, as the main thrust of my speech is the reason all these forces of power are corrupt is because the "media, symbolised by Kaleva, is corrupt."

The content of my talk was certainly no laughing matter, and none of the audience laughed at the substance.

But the press coverage certainly amused us!

14 family member deaths narrowly averted!

Annikki has been working desperately to get the Kampitie garden to its very best. She worked hard when her mother was away in the Old People's Home at the latter half of April. Even after her mother returned home, every spare sunny period has been much effort on Annikki's part to make sure everything is right. (She rested in the hammock when she got tired!)

I pumped out the water from the pond and Annikki cleaned it. We were both surprised to find that the lotus had survived the winter at the bottom of the pond.







Annikki's new additions this year are a gatekeeper for the "Green Door" and a "farmhand couple" at the door of the "Greenhouse".






As we walked around the garden, it really felt that we were entering into a summer phase.









Having got the garden just right, we waited for a really "warm" day so that Annikki could reintroduce the goldfish from the two inside aquariums back into the pond.

Last week we thought that day had come. Annikki brought the goldfish down and very carefully reintroduced them into the large pond.

As we stood to admire our brood, we both almost entered a state of shock, just as the goldfish, as they went lower and lower down in the pond. They were literally dying before our eyes. The cold water was just too cold for our brood of 14 and they were keeling over.

Annikki acted quickly.

She got out her fishing net and, with a rapidity that was unbelieveable, she netted her brood and put them into warmish water in a bucket.

We held our breaths and waited.

Within a few minutes we saw the activity in the bucket increase as the fish were warmed to the fishbone!

Both of us were relieved to have saved our 14 family members from certain death.




We put them back into Annikki's table top aquarium. We found all of them none the worse from their life-threatening experience.

Hopefully, their trust in their feeder, Annikki, will be restored in the coming days!