Good Advice to O-indians

Going through my various blogs, Google groups, web pages of the last 40 years, I found this very good post on O-India Google Group by Sreekanth Kanjarla from December 2007!

First O-india meeting in Oulu. January 2008

Here is a picture with the young handsome Sreekanth kneeling in the front before Renu and Dipu came to Finland. 

He and Vishu Mallabadi were living in Peltola and I had the good fortune to join them for a small celebration of Christmas in their home. 

Those were some beautiful days of OUR O-India! :-)

I thought that I should blog it as advice to newcomers to Oulu. Those who would like to give additional up-to-date advice can send it to me and I will blog it.

This, taken with our book “Handbook for Survival in Finland” published in 1994 (30 years ago), should help some of you get acclimatised quickly!

Sreekanth and his delightful wife, Renu, are still in Oulu and their son, Dipu, is a fine example of a Findian. 

I have known Dipu from the  very first trip when I picked them up from Oulu Airport. I knew we had a fascinating addition to our group in Oilu and I have not been disappointed.

I had an email from Rajesh Kumar just this week, who has returned to Helsinki. He recalled how I did drive him snd his family (of three then) from Oulu Airport their new new home in Oulu. 

Rajesh and his family now back in Helsinki.

He sent me this beautiful photo of his grown up family in Finland. They all look so gorgeous and I wish them a happy stay in our country! I have invited him to Oulu to catch up with us.

I digress, as here is Sreekanth’s great 2007 post to the O-India Google Group:

“sreekanth

12/7/07

to o-india@googlegroups.com

Dear O-Indians,

 

Here are some of the contents (i:e @ Oulu)   that can go into the front page of our "O-India" website, which we are planning to develop. This is only draft version and sub-contents can be modified with the actual information.

 

Fresher @ Oulu

            i. Items to bring from India

            ii. Formalities at Oulu (Bus pass, population registrations etc…)

 

Apartments @ Oulu

            1. Formalities for apartments

            2. Looking for new apartments

           

Schooling @ Oulu

            i. Kindergarten,

            ii. Pre-school,

            iii. Primary/High School Educations

 

Kids @ Oulu

            i. Tips for take care of small kids

            ii. Kids shops

 

Banking @ Oulu

            i. Open a new account

            ii. Closing of account

 

Library @ Oulu

            i. Library care issue information

 

Games Clubs @ Oulu

            i. Cricket

            ii. Vollyball

            iii. Skiing

            iv. Swimming

 

Indian Food @ Oulu

            i. Indian Shopping stores

            ii. Indian Hotels

 

Passport Info @ Oulu

            i. Passport Expired

            ii. Passport Lost

 

ByeToOulu @ Oulu

            i. Closure formalities of apartment ( Bank account, gas connection etc…)

Regards,

Sreekanth Kanjarla”

Please feel free to add or suggest, so that I can include them to this list.

For your information there are over a thousand posts about the past of O-India in Oulu from 2007 onwards.

I  have decided to make our O-India group more active.

The Moderators are Atul Mahajan, Mani Shankar Bhowmik, Pushpa Dhundwal and me. 

All posts are moderated.

 

 

Google is amazing

At 4:20 (16:20) today, I put up my most recent blog entry and mentioned my experience yesterday with water plaining.

I was not sure whether I had used the correct word, plaining, as it is derived NOT from the words PLAIN or PLAN, but from PLANE! And there is no such word as PLANEING! The English Language does not allow this.

I thought I would check it out on Google. At 17:45, just less than 2 hours after I had posted my entry, the No. 1 hit on Google Search was my entry!

How do they do this?

I take my hats off to Google, an amazing company.

"Findians" gets hijacked

Findians was a word I coined 42 years ago when I, an Indian, married Annikki, a Finn.

My first novel, yet unpublished, was written in 1975 and was entitled "The Adventures of the Findians".
I started a company in Finland in 1992 and called it Findians Ltd.
Findians Briefings was first an in-house monthly newsletter which started with a circulation of 110 readers and soared to 6000 in the matter of a half a dozen issues.
This was converted into a fortnightly webletter in 1994 with a worldwide readership of around 80000 by the end of 1999.
The domain name findians.com was registered in India in 1999 and had its server in Canada when I was threatened to have my internet access in Finland cut for writing the truth about the levels of corruption in Finland.

Finally in the middle of 2003, when spammers overran that domain name, I was forced to close it but never the "findians" concept which has been active right through till today. I stopped several who tried to usurp that name over the years.

Imagine my surprise when I found that someone had hijacked the "findians" name in their URL http://www.findians.co.uk/



Interesting development!

A number of questions arise.

As Findians, Annikki and I (who have been described as "anarchist hippies" by the usurper) stood for justice, freedom of speech, fighting for the rights of minorities, good schooling, promotion of the alma maters of school and college, spreading of information of all facets of life, religious tolerance, secularism, nationalism, etc., etc.

Will the new "findians" continue to promote these time-honoured family values or superimpose their own values under this banner.

A "findians" named or linked site usually goes the top of the search engines in a matter of hours simply because the enormity of links to that word and the previous 5000+ sites.

We hope the person who has taken this name is not just to jump on to the band wagon but intends to promote the values of "THE FINDIANS". For the persons information:

The Findians Google Group is still in existence.



The Findians current phone number is still being used by me: +358 8 531 5335.

And many of the articles and web pages that started under the Findians domain name have beem moved our personal webs servers of "jmatthan", "amatthan" as well as "findians" on netplaza.fi!

So, I do say that someone using our trade-marked name without as so much as a "by your leave" is a most most interesting development!

Never heard of the NOROVIRUS before Wednesday!

(Cross-posted on all my major blogs.)

I have been missing on the Blogosphere and in my Google Groups for a few weeks. It has been because of the sheer workload and also as I have found the Facebook experience quite fascinating. I found many relatives, even quite distant ones, many many friends, Cathedralites, Stephanians, CHAFF and many other groups, including my School House Group, SAVAGE, on Facebook, that I have been familarising myself to all what could be done by me on Facebook.

Although I am achieving quite a lot in creating my corner in Facebook, it is no match for the direct Blog or a Google group - and that is why I am back at blogging!

In my 24+ years in Finland I had never missed a days work or events because of any form of serious illness. I have been ill (including a bout of painful herpes inside the mouth), but it was always possible to get to work and work without having to take time off.

But this last week was different.



While at the funeral of a dear friend, Willie, Michelle's husband, I felt claustrophobic in the Small Chapel, which meant I had to go outside for some fresh air. Annikki and I went back inside to place the wreath from the whole MATTHAN Family on the coffin, but I continued to feel very weak.

Michelle (with Willie) owns the best Chinese / Indian Restaurant in town - the Royal Garden.

Michelle is from Calcutta and is a close friend of our daughter, Joanna, and consequently, a close family friend of ours. Any visitor to Oulu usually gets a treat at one of her restaurants. So Michelle is known by our family and friends around the world. (Cousins Chacko and Ammu, niece Nirupa, niece Preminda with husband Chris and Malayika, Cathedralites Sunil (and Kamal) Sahni, Sadhana Madhusadan (née Shah) Viney Sethi, Stephanians Ajay Verma, Prof. Ajeet Mathur, are just a few who have enjoyed the hospitality of Michelle and Willie.)

I suggested to Annikki that we go home and rest before attending the farewell reception for Willie at the Royal Garden Restaurant.

After getting home and resting for about half an hour I was violently ill and unable to lift my head. I did not know what had hit me. Annikki treated me all the best remedies that she has up her sleeve, Silica to line the stomach, magnesium tablets, and one pain-killer. I managed to retain a bit of everything to help me sleep off the next four to six hours, but the vomiting and diarrhoea did not abate. It was absolutely miserable.

Next morning Annikki read in the local newspaper about something known as the NOROVIRUS and the symptoms were exactly what I had been through.

A quick Google Search yielded all the important data and I was sure that absolute fasting with only liquids was the right answer.

By evening I was able to consume some of Annikki's great Fish Soup and it stayed in.

By the next morning the main symptoms had vanished, but at 5 am the Norovirus hit Annikki.



Despite her agony she took quick action to ensure that her mother, Hilja, who was supposed to be brought home that afternoon, was looked after while Annikki recovered from this virus. According to Jonana, who sent us a text message from Newcastle, it can be fatal for the elderly.

I had a good friend from Tampere, a town 500 km south of Oulu, coming to visit me on Friday evening / Saturday morning.



I did not want to disappoint Nadir or miss meeting him as his visits to Oulu are only once every two years. Rather than ask him to cancel, I booked Nadir in at a hotel across from the Railway Station, as the Norovirus is extremely contagious. I was clean but the house would have been disturbingly filled the virus.

We spent a few wonderful hours together and he was on his way on Saturday afternoon.

I would like to know which of my efforts you appreciate more - my blogs, my Facebook entries, my direct posts to you - or maybe I should just SHUT UP....

(OK Ubi, I know what you will say, but believe me you are not too old for Facebook. However, although it seems easy, it is quite complicated to work out all the ins and outs and it is not intuitive as it should be.)