KTWV06 - Issue 11: Completed the article for "The Stephanian"

Several weeks ago, a new correspondent, Yakub P. Mathew, a Stephanian Malayali, also with the name Jacob, but much junior to me, who did his BA (Hons) Economics during 1982-1985 and then his MA (Eco), and who is at present a banker with HSBC, New York, alerted me to the fact that "The Stephanian" was bringing out an issue, and maybe I should contribute a piece, the deadline being end July.

As summer was here, the deadline passed, and I had not done anything about it.

So I wrote to the editors at the beginning of August asking whether they were still interested.

There was a prompt answer - Yes, and could I get it to them by the end of August.

I completed the piece called "Kooler Talk - A revolution in the making" and was able to send yesterday it with a couple of quite topical scans before the new deadline.

Hope you will enjoy it when it comes out!!

KTWV06 - Issue 10: 100% Reunion AGAIN!!

Professor Ajeet Mathur who lives in South Finland in the largest Industrial town, Tampere, was here for a brief visit. He arrived by the early morning train at 07:30 and left by the train at 16:00 hours the same day.

Ajeet and me

In the meantime we managed to have two alma mater reunions.

Like me, he is a Mumbai Cathedralite. But also like me he is a Delhi Stephanian.

And we are the only two Cathedralites and Stephanians in Finland.

So, whenever we meet, it is a Reunion with 100% attendance.

There are few who share this unique combination:

• Cathedralite 54er, Stephanian 58er Rahul Bajaj,


• Cathedralite 56er, Stephanian 60er Ranjit Matthan,


• Cathedralite 57er, Stephanian 61er Ashok Jaitly (Tony),


• Cathedralite 58er, Stephanian 62er Dr. Peter Philip (Tubby),


• Cathedralite 59er, Stephanian 63er Jacob Matthan (Dead Chicken),


• Cathedralite 59er, Stephanian 60er The late Jacob Eapen (for a very short time a Stephanian),


• Cathedralite 59er, Stephanian 63er Sujit Bhattacharya,


• Cathedralite 70er, Stephanian 75er Professor Ajeet Mathur

If you know of anyone else who has this combination - please do let me know.

KTWV06 - Issue 9: Padma Shri Award to Mammen Mathew (exclusive pictures)

In January of this year I blogged the great news of my fellow Stephanian and my cousin being awarded the Padma Shree. I am now able to give you the exclusive pictures of the event as they were sent to me directly by Mammen.

The President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, conferred on Mammen Mathew (Kandathil, Stephanian, commonly known to all of us as Rajen) the PADMA SHREE Award.

Stephanian Mammen Mathew receiving the Padma Shree Award
from President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

This important news was announced on Republic Day at New Delhi.

Mammen studied journalism on the job at Bristol in Wales and then in the USA. In 2002 he received the rare honour of being appointed as a Reuters Trustee, the first Indian to be appointed to this position. He has been the Chairman of the Indian Section of the Commonwealth Press Union, President of the Indian Newspaper Society, and the Editors Guild of India, and has also been on the Press Council of India.

Today, he is the guiding spirit of the Malayala Manorama Newspapers Group, India's most outstanding newspaper and magazine publishing centre, founded by our greatgranduncle, Kandathil Varghese Mappillai, given shape by our grandfather K. C. Mammen Mappillai and then guided in turn by the late K. M. Cherian and then K. M. Mathew, till Rajen took the helm.


Mammen and his father, K. M. Mathew,
who was also awarded the Padma Bhushan in the mid-nineties

Mammen's daughter-in-law, Miriam (Anu) Mathew (née Paul), is also a Stephanian. She was a leading executive in a US bank till she returned to India to take the helm of Manorama Online. Her husband Jayant, is also in the newspaper business.


Mammen and his family, wife (Prema) on his left,
son (Jayant) behind him, father (K. M. Mathew) on his right,
and Stephanian daughter-in-law (Miriam) on the far right

The other Award Winners in our family:

1. The late Mr. K. M. Cherian - first awarded the Padma Shree and the later he was given the Padma Bhushan.
2. Mr. K. M. Philip (Stephanian Dr. Peter Philip's (Tubby) father) was given the Padma Shree three years ago ago.
3. Mr. K. M. Mathew (Mammen's father, and also grandfather of several Stephanians) was given the Padma Bhushan, nearly a decade ago.
4. The late Mr. K. M. Mammen Mappillai (Grandfather of several Stephanians), received the Padma Shree half a decade before he died in 2003.

Mr. K. M. Mathulla, founder of H.M.T. (Hindustan Machine Tools - India's largest producer of machine tools) and a die hard Kandathil, got a Padma Shree some 20 years ago.

KTWV06 - Issue 8: A new picture....

By incessant demand may I introduce a new picture of....

Wander over today's entry in my Jacob's Blog

(Please note: My main server is being serviced and hence pictures from there will not display on any of my blogs till the morning of 20th July 2005)

KTWV06 - Issue 7: Please watch this on your computer

Please, please watch this video on your computer.

If the link does not work please try this URL

http://www.bushflash.com/right.html

KTWV06 - Issue 6: Boycott Call by Jury of Conscience at the World Tribunal on Iraq

The Jury of Conscience, after the final session of the World Tribunal on Iraq, after 2 years of deliberation, included the following recommendation:

7. That people throughout the world launch actions against US and UK corporations that directly profit from this war. Examples of such corporations include Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle, CACI Inc., Titan Corporation, Kellog, Brown and Root (subsidiary of Halliburton), DynCorp, Boeing, ExxonMobil, Texaco, British Petroleum. The following companies have sued Iraq and received “reparation awards”: Toys R Us, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Shell, Nestlé, Pepsi, Phillip Morris, Sheraton, Mobil. Such actions may take the form of direct actions such as shutting down their offices, consumer boycotts, and pressure on shareholders to divest.

May I request all my readers to take steps and pass this information on to at least five of their friends.

To read the entire verdict and recommendations of the Jury of Conscience, please visit my blog page:

http://jmpolitics.blogspot.com

KTWV06 - Issue 5: A difference of culture

(I owe my secular, liberal view of life entirely to my life in my alma maters, Good Shepherd Convent, Mysore, Bishop Cotton's School, Bangalore, Cathedral and John Connon Boys' High School, Bombay and St. Stephen's College, Delhi.)

For the full text of this blog entry please visit my main blog entry for this date and time at Jacob's Blog 07:30 PM, 25th March 2005

KTWV06 - Issue 4: My 80,000 friends

One of my corresponents (who shall remain unnamed) wrote to me

"Dear Jacob,

Even I would have 80,000 friends if I forwarded all the e-mails I got to every one I know !!

Just kidding.

Somehow, I prefer a more personal approach, more one-on-one -- too shy to have my mails all over the place."

Actually, I rarely forward emails unless there is a specific purpose to be served.

I replied thus to my correspondent:

Hi,

What you say is absolutely true that the number of contacts could grow by forwarding emails, but in my case there is a slight difference (and my fault) in that I get personally involved with all the people I deal with.

For instance this is an email I got yesterday from my a Finnish and a Hungarian friend whom I introduced day-before-yesterday to a Mumbai couple:

"Hi!

Had dinner last night with Ashok and Malathi, and they invited us to stay with them already on the phone before they had met us. .......

Today, we will call Fazila at 4 pm and we should meet her tonight unless something came up. Malathi asked us to invite her for dinner at their's tonight as well, so we will call and ask to see if that is ok.

They are really great people and thank you for linking us up (ildi's words)."

You see how it works.

All my worldwide friends are great and wonderful people and I always try to link the right types, knowing each person's background and character.

That cannot be done by only forwarding emails!!!

When I started "Findians Briefings" as a free hard copy in-house journal, it was just for a few hundred Finnish and Indian businessmen interested in trade between the two countries. Within three months it had snow-balled into 7000 copies which I could no longer afford to produce it as hard copy. That was why I started putting it on internet.

Within a year the readership was in 90 countries and covered over 50,000 people!! And it grew and grew. I was producing it from my attic with an obsolete Mac PowerBook.

When I launched Seventh Heaven and Kooler Talk, it again blew up out of all proportions.

The secret was personal "nostalgic involvement" (and it still is). Plus it is a close one-to-one relationship with my audience which involves a 24 hour reply and action cycle. Some contact me once a year, some as often as two or three times a week. Their husbands / wives, children, grandchildren, are all important to them (and me).

Again to give an instance, Shallu, mother of Rohit and Rahul read the blog, got her 90 year old mother involved, generating a huge audience from Madras and Bangalore. Now Rahul's photography is on the blog. Within a few hours I had readers clamouring for more. I posted the short note about Rohit's wife's (Kavita's) book "Brahmins and Bungalows : Travels Through South Indian History by Kavita Watsa" . That has generated an enormous response from people I had never heard of before yesterday!!

To give you a couple of examples that you would be more familiar with: How else would I have stepped in and taken care of Sadhana's daughter, and her relationship leading to marriage with a Finn, even though I have never met Sadhana in my life? Or why would I search and locate Barbara Rossi for Gracie as I have never personally met Gracie in my life (knowingly)? Both Sadhana and Gracie are part of my absolutely lovely personally unmet friends, but we know each other intimately through our correspondence!!!

In the old days it used to be called "pen-pals" whom I have termed as "e-pals".

When I wrote the article "Greed : Missile of Black Gold", I hadliterally hundreds of people all over the world (professors to housewives) who were saved from losing large amounts of money and life in the Nigerian Scam. All of these people have become dear friends even though I do not "know them from Adam"!!!

When my domain name in Canada collapsed, there was utter chaos, but now it is slowly getting back to normal as I restore normal communications with this circle of "friends". (JM: This has proven to be the most difficult of the tasks that I have
ever undertaken.)

There are hundreds of journalists and writers that I know who send out automated replies when people write to them about their articles. I have never done that, so that is why my circle of friends and readers is so large and growing. Of course I get criticism, but I answer them with a principled answer which may conflict with the opinions of the correspondent. But we soon agree to disagree and remain friends. (Unless of course it is so blatant as in the bizarre exchange of e-correspondence with the "educated" American!!)

What is the secret behind Malayala Manorama and its immense readership? My grandfather's personal involvement with his audience, something I learnt from him in the 50s!!

It is a philosophy which is built into the organisation and does not depend on who is in charge today. Rajen, Thambi and Chacko are really introverts, but Malayala Manorama continues to grow because of a philosophy laid down in its early years which has remained unchanged.

Regards

Jacob

KTWV06 - Issue 3: Stephanians, hip, hip, HURRAH!

The President of India, Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, has conferred on Mammen Mathew (Kandathil family, Stephanian) the PADMA SHREE Award. This important news was announced on Republic Day at New Delhi. This award has made it a record for any one family in Independent India (see below).

Mammen, former US President Bill Clinton and former Indian President Shri K. R. Narayanan

Besides being my dear and constant companion when we were together in St Stephen's College, Delhi, Mammen was also very dear to both Annikki and me when he came to England. It was Mammen and his friends who campaigned for me and made history in the college by getting a second year student elected to the post of JCR President of the College. Together we made the JCR from a dumb unloving unfriendly place into one of the most liveliest places to hang out in.

Later, I was one who was involved in giving him the courage to choose his life partner, Prema!! I still remember him sweating away in the car when he went to see his to-be for the first time!! He ran through more than a few of my handkerchiefs and hand towels at that time!!

Mammen, with another outstanding Stephanian classmate, architect Ramu Katakam, who is also now a member of the Kandathil family by marriage, hitch-hiked across the globe from India to London to land at my doorstep in the mid 1960's. Both were going places, and Mammen has shown us the way to the top.

I must mention the other two of the four Stephanian musketeers of Mammen’s year, Azhar Siddique, who went into hotel management and made a great name for himself in that field, and Suresh Mehra, who runs one of the finest garment export houses from Hyderabad.

Mammen studied journalism on the job at Bristol in Wales and then in the USA. In 2002 he received the rare honour of being appointed as a Reuters Trustee, the first Indian to be appointed to this position. He has been the Chairman of the Indian Section of the Commonwealth Press Union, President of the Indian Newspaper Society, and the Editors Guild of India, and has also been on the Press Council of India.

Today, he is the guiding spirit of the Malayala Manorama Newspapers Group, India's most outstanding newspaper and magazine publishing centre, founded by our greatgranduncle, Kandathil Varghese Mappillai, given shape by our grandfather K. C. Mammen Mappillai and then guided in turn by the late K. M. Cherian and then K. M. Mathew, till Mammen took the helm.
Mammen is assisted by his two younger brother, both professionals, Philip Mathew, also a Stephanian and father of 2 Stephanians, Amit and Riyad, and Jacob Mathew , sadly not a Stephanian but the father of one, Harsha.

Mammen's daughter-in-law, Miriam Mathew (née Paul) was an outstanding Stephanian and a leading executive in a US bank till she returned to India to take the helm of Manorama Online. Her husband Jayant, is also in the newspaper business and a student of our leading Stephanian friend, Sreenath Sreenivasan, Professor of Journalism at Columbia University and an expert on convergence journalism.

The other Award Winners in our family:

1. The late Mr. K. M. Cherian - first awarded the Padma Shree and the later he was given the Padma Bhushan.
2. Mr. K. M. Philip was give the Padma Shree three ago back. He was the World President of the Y. M. C. A. after many years of outstanding and honorary service in the Indian Y. M. C. A. At the age of 92, he is still physically and mentally fully active and still takes part in many business functions. His wife is also fully active at the age of 85. She was the leading light of the Mumbai Y. W. C. A. for many many years. A dearer lady so full of fun and laughter one will not find on this earth. His two children are Sen Philip and Dr. Peter Philip (Tubby, Suresh, a fellow Stephanian of my era, an outstanding economist, the business brain behind the launch of the FIRST Kooler Talk, classmate of such leading Stephanians as Sayeed Rizvi, Sarwar Lateef, Zaffar Hai).
3. Mr. K. M. Mathew (Mammen's father) was given the Padma Bhushan, nearly a decade ago. His wife, the late Mrs. K. M. Mathew, who passed away in 2003, surpassed all what her husband and her children have done in her service to the women and children of India. His daughter, Thangam, Mammen’s sister is the mother of 2 Stephanians, Adit and Rohan. (See above for details of his sons - Rajen, Thambi and Chacko.)
4. The late Mr. K. M. Mammen Mappillai, half a decade before he died in 2003. His wife, is a hostess extraordinaire, a person who has made any person entering over the doorstep feel as one of the family. KMMM, aided by his six brothers (Cherian, Oommen, Eapen, Varghese Mappillai, Philip and Mathew) and one sister (Mariam, my late mother ) and the sister-in-law of their deceased brother, (Mrs. K. M. Jacob), built the MRF tyre company by their sense of unity and devotion to one another as well as the entire Syrian Christian Malayali Community. Kochappachen was physically assisted by his wife’s brother, now retired Technical Director of MRF, Kurian George (my dear friend in Chennai who keeps me abreast of all the best news from India these days) and technically, mentally and morally assisted by my late father (Kuriyan Matthan). MRF was stabilised and brought forward as India’s leading tyre company by his son, the late Ravi Mammen, and is now run in the family tradition of professional management by his two surviving sons, Vinoo and Arun. Vinoo is the father of 2 Stephanians, Samir and Rahul. His only daughter, Remani is an outstanding artist running her own creative art design company.

It is important to mention Mr. M. K. Mathulla, founder of H.M.T. and a die hard Kandathil, got a Padma Shree some 20 years ago.

KTWV06 - Issue 2 : What a GLORIOUS day!!

Today, January 28th 2005, is truly a Glorious Day.

It is 38 years since Annikki and I got married in a small beautiful English town called Shrewsbury in Shropshire.

Sadly, we are barred from visiting that town by our local friends. When we visited there the last time, about 14 years ago, as we drove into the town, it was hit by an earthquake!! :-)

As my mother used to say, if I had been married to an Indian, I would have been thrown out on the streets a long long time ago. Annikki deserves that cup the my father used to say was his trophy for having been married to Ammachi for all their years together!!

And here is a recent photograph of us with 2 of our 3 grandchildren . Asha and Samu.



Annikki's mother is in her interval care in the Old People's Home. Mika is also at his 3 day a month interval care.

We were able to sleep late. We are looking forward to a day of shopping - Annikki as usual at the fleamarket, while I potter around a few shops - looking for nothing particular in mind as I have everything I need. After that we will choose to dine at some restaurant, one of the vast array of friends' restuarants to choose from - Chinese, Thai, Indian, Turkish, Greek, Mexican and, of course, Finnish. Depends on what we feel like in the evening. Maybe not Turkish, as we did that last year and maybe not Chinese as we did that the year before!!

Many thanks to all the rest of you who remembered us through emails on this great day.

As we enjoy another honeymoon year, it is on to the 39th!!!

KTWV06 - Issue 1: Proud to be a Stephanian

BBC Hard Talk on BBC World on Thursday 13th January 2005 featured the Indian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, none other than my good friend and Stephanian colleague, Kamalesh Sharma. Kamalesh had just gone into the MA course when I joined as a fresher in 1960.

On my very first night in college, there was a knock at my window after dinner. It was a time when all us freshers were living in fear of who would catch us to rag us. But for the rest of this story kindly visit

Katy Issue 7 14th July 1996.

Kamlesh had previously been the Indian representative at the United Nations, where he had faced some tough interviews, and one on them was on BBC World Service Radio. It was after this that I was able to re-establish contact with my old friend.

Kamlesh stood up as a true diplomat when faced with the aggressive questioning on Hard Talk.The whole objective of the interviewer was to question why India had rejected to receive Aid from the developed world and seemed to be focused on "India's pride" and the "desire of India to be a superpower in the region". Some of the questioning, as is usually the case in Hard Talk, bordered on the ridiculous!!

I was impressed by how Kamalesh stood up and in a quiet and gentle manner brought the aggresson down in a manner which made the interviewer look quite ridiculous with her one track mind. His Stephanianness stood out above all!!

You will be able to download and see the interview in a day or so from the

Hard Talk Web Site.

It is not yet on the web but should be in a day or two.

Well done Kamalesh!!

KTWV05 - Issue 12 : Some Cathedralite / Stephanian news

Willie (Cathedral Physics Teacher 50s & 60s) in Canada has just updated me on some Cathedralite / Stephanian news.

He has only received a one sentence input of this year's Founders Day in Mumbai. Hasnain (59er) is travelling in India, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Will someone feed me with info.

Roshni, (wife of Stephanian Raj who is the son of former Prinipal Sircar of my era in Stephen's), who is also the aunt of my sister-in-law, is back in Canada after a holiday in Bangalore. Willie does say that Bangalore has become over-populated and polluted and as a possible result, Roshni was ill with bronchial trouble. I am fully in agreement with that statement about Bangalore judging from my last visit there a few years ago.

Willie and Pushpa are off for a 10 day, 6 island, cruise in the Eastern Caribbean. Hope both of you have a great holiday.

KTWV05 - Issue 11: Popular Encounter Journalist passes on!

I must thank one of my very regular contributors, Aftab, of the old days representing our timer in Stephen's, for drawing my attention to this Obituary.

OBITUARY:

Melvin J. Lasky
Cold Warrior editor of the controversially funded 'Encounter'
21 May 2004

Melvin Jonah Lasky, journalist and writer: born New York 15 January 1920;
Editor and Publisher, Der Monat 1948-58, 1978-83; Editor, Encounter 1958-90;
married 1947 Brigitte Newiger (one son, one daughter; marriage dissolved 1974);
died Berlin 19 May 2004. ...more

The full obituary can be read online at

http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/story.jsp?story=523285

Certainly brought back memories of my time in the Stephanian Reading Room!!

KTWV05 - Issue 10: Need I Say More?

Wednesday 5th May 2004, 18:44 Finnish time, our daughter, Joanna, delivered a beautiful baby boy, 53 cm length and weighing 4 kg and 300 gm. Samu, Joanna's first born, was 54 cm when born but 3.9 kg.

Annikki and I were looking after Samu all afternoon and evening as dad, Tony, stayed at Joanna's side right from 09:00 hours.

I have just picked up Tony, giving Samu a chance to see his baby brother.

Samu was all excited telling me that his briother had brown hair, but he could not see the eyes!!

Annikki and I are thrilled to have an addition to our family, our third grandchild after a gap of 7 years!!

Mother and baby are well and that is all we asked of God.

KTWV05 - Issue 9: Sasser Virus And You

How many of you have been hit by the Sasser virus?

Tony's computer closed down on Sunday as the virus hit Finland. There is worldwide chaos. With this virus you do not have to download a virus email or open any attachment. The virus finds the computers that are connected to the internet and which are not protected, and then infects it.

Of course, you have to be running a PC with the Windows operating system to be infected, which represents 95% of the world computing population.

On the other hand, I am perpetually connected to the internet, do not have any virus protectioon software, and in my 20 years of computing have never experienced a single virus since I run the Mac operating system.

As reports come to me from every corner of the globe about horror stories related to each virus, and there are over 120000 of them for the Windows platform, all I can say is that I am not following the rats off the plank into the murky waters below. I can sleep at night knowing that no-one can infect my computer network.

KTWV05 - Issue 8: Some Stephanian Family Members

When Peter (Tubby) and I were Stephanian's, we were closely followed by Mammen and then his brother, Philip Mathew. After a long gap, several third generation family members became Stephanians and there have been marriages to Stephanians.

I try to highlight some of my Stephanian family members here.

I would like to wish Divya (daughter of Stephanian Peter Philip, also known in college days as Tubby), on her birthday, today.

Tomorrow is the birthday of Stephanian Adit (nephew of Stephanian Mammen - 1964 and Philip Mathew (??)). Best wishes Adit.

From what I understand, Adit is one of the growing band of Stephanians in the Kandathil branch of my family. Besides me (1963, B. Sc. , the ones I have listed so far are Ranjit Matthan (1960, did not complete his degree), Peter (1962 BA, Economics), Mammen (1964, BA), Ramu Katakam (1964- married my niece, Roshin), Philip (??), Amit (??), Riyad (??), Anu (??), Adit (??), Rohan (??), Harsha (??), Samir (??) and Rahul (??).

Second cousin, Ranjit Jacob (1962), now retired in Chennai, is also a Stephanian. Ranjit qualified as a lawyer and worked with the SPIC group of companies in Madras till recently. He lives in Adyar. Ranjit was two years senior to me but had a terrible accident when he was going home for the annual holidays when he fell off the train at Jamuna bridge. He recovered and returned after a year off from college. Ranjit's brother, John and I have been corresponding for several years. John lives in Denver, Colarado but is presently in the UK.

How is Stephanian Ranjit related to me?

Varughese Mapillai, the founder of Malayala Manorama, had two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was Ranjit's and John's grandfather, K.V. Eapen. The girl apparently died young. K. V. Eapen also died in his thirties. He had four children, two boys and two girls. Ranjit and John are the sons of the elder daughter, who was called Omana. Their father worked with the forest service in Assam and retired to Madras. John was born pretty late in his father's life. He spent most of his early years in Madras (between 1963 and 1979). They lived in Gandhinagar, Adyar where Ranjit still lives. Ranjit spent his early years in Assam.

Ranjit is extremely talented as a musician and used to play the guitar in college. He was extremely popular with all groups because of his friendly and always smiling attitude to life. I did not know he was my second cousin while we were in college and only worked it out after corresponding with John, when quite to my surprise I discovered he was Ranjit's younger brother!!

The person who took over Malayala Manorama on the demise of Varughese Mappilai was my grandfather, K. C. Mammen Mappillai from where streams a long line of Stephanians.

I believe there is soon going to be a marriage of Kandathil to a Stephanian colleague of mine very shortly. The daughter of my cousin Jacob (brother of Stephanians Mammen and Philip Mathew) , Malini. will be marrying the son of George Verghese. Georgie was in college at the same time as me and also in the same class (1963).

Maybe someone could fill me in on the years and degrees earned by each of the Kandathil Stephanians, as well as the current email addresses.

KTWV05 - Issue 7: Stephanian Directory Project

A few seem to be clamouring to get their names into the Stephanian Directory.

A laudable objective, but for what purpose?

As alumni lists, we have several online, including "the official" one on the Stephanian website and the master one at the world alumni project website. Group lists as New York, Singapore, Bangalore, Mumbai, and of course, Finland, with two very active members, Ajeet and myself, exist.

Many Stephanians on my comprehensive Kooler talk (Web Version) mailing list, probably the most comprehensive of all, do not want their email addresses or their mailing addresses published for various reasons.

So I doubt whether the Directory Project will be successful.

The objective of publishing this Directory appears to be to raise some money for the College just as the release of the "short-lived" MINCE. I have yet to receive the copy which was supposed to contain the article requested off me and submitted.

KTWV05 - Issue 6: The Irony Of It All

Rahul's "Simputer" is with me now. I received three last week, thanks to Anil and Lalitha. One of them has been submitted to the local newspaper, Kaleva, who are testing it to do a special feature to appear on the 1st of May. The second was given to a friend who does all the special scripting for Nokia. He was just leaving for Egypt for the Nile Cruise. He started to play around with it the minute he received it, so much so that his wife banned him from carrying it with him on their vacation!! The third is being played around with by me as I set it up to be handed over to Annikki. Maybe she can start reading this blog using the SIMPUTER!!!

Sorry folks, here is an off-topic blog. I have been busy with visitors from Bangalore to be able to keep this blog up. Anil (Baldwinian from my own era and area, Richmond Town) and Lalitha, sister of a dear friend, Malathi, and Business Development Director of Anil's company, arrived in Helsinki last Friday afternoon. I drove the 630 km to Helsinki, leaving Oulu with a good friend, pentti, in my company, did some work on the way, picked up some Indian spices, pickles, papads from the Helsinki Indian Market, picked up my guests at the airport, had dinner with Gopa and Timo, and left Helsinki at 9:30 pm to drive back all night. I handed the wheel to Pentti for a mere 150 km, when I took a quick shut-eye. Reached Oulu on Saturday morning by break-of-day at 4:30 am.

It was a truly hectic week as I had organised a work schedule for Anil and Lalitha to present their Enterprise Resource Planning software to major potential customers and also had former Motor Rally World Champion Driver, Jussi Kynsilehto, take them to his home town of Pulkila, to meet with the town authorities to finalise plans to produce Anil's fabulous Electric Scooter range, in Finland.

This was Lalitha's first trip abroad. She was counting on seeing and feeling snow, and, especially, on seeing it floating down from the sky. It was, on the contrary, the warmest week of spring that we have had in a long time. The snow cleared up almost completely, even in our back garden which usually has a mound of snow right until early May.

I put Anil and Lalitha on the train to Helsinki on Friday morning, a superfast Pendolino double decker, so that they could enjoy the view of the country side on their trip south.

Guess what we woke up to on this Saturday morning?

The ground is covered with snow. It has snowed right through the early hours of today.

Back to blogging in real earnest, so welcome back to a springy wintry Oulu.

KTWV05 - Issue 5: Bee Bop A Luulaa

What does the title of the blog mean?

It means that I could not think of a good enough title for this entry. This hit tune of the fifties passed through my mind, so down it went. Could not have found a better title...

When I had the email from Cathedralite 54er, Rumy Kapadia, with the subject line "Help", I sort of acted and sent his request out to a few on my list. Promptly came a reply from my faithful correspondent, Willie Shiri, our school Physics mentor, now retired and living in Canada, who identified the brother of one of the persons that Rumy was trying to contact. In the process, Willie mentioned that his local contact, Atul Shenoy, a Cathedralite 52er, had known of my family in Bangalore and had remembered me from my exploits way back in 1953, even before I became a Cathedralite.

I wrote to Atul and elder brother of Cathedralite 54er, Arun. We had a lively email exchange of those really old days. I was amazed that he could remember a 11 year old boy and his exploits of 51 years onwards.

At that time I was an active Bishop Cottonian and had many friends from Cottons who used to form part of our evening cricket team. Cottonian classmate, Om Prakash, cousin Anand, brother Ranjit, Clifford Ealing, Sahadev (now somewhere in Brazil), and a whole host of other little ones whose names I cannot remember were all part of our crowd.

In 1952 and 1953, I used to frequent the St. Joseph College Hostel on Lalbagh Road, Bangalore which was opposite our house. I made friends with several hosteliers. I used to watch the cricket and hockey matches as the college hockey and cricket grounds which were adjacent to the hostel. I used to fly kites on the college grounds.

I became so close to the cricket team which was captained by L. T. Subba, brother of Mysore Ranji Trophy player, L. T. Adisesh. Subba later went on to also become a Ranji Trophy team player for Mysore. My contacts with them gave my friends a chance to use their pitch for our practice and cricket games whenever we wanted, which was just great when we youngsters wanted to play matches against teams of others in Bangalore.

I started my career for the St. Joseph College team as the runner to update the scoreboard. Later I was promoted to be their scorer for their local games. Also, Subba got us passes for the Ranji Trophy and international matches (the MCC team with babyface Tom Graveney is the one I remember) that were played in Bangalore.

The college hockey goalkeeper, Abe Tharakan, also became a close friend. I was so taken up by Abe's superb goalkeeping that I took up goalkeeping myself to later become the Cathedral School First Eleven goalkeeper for two years running and later became the St. Stephen's College goalkeeper. However, my goalkeeping career in college was tragically cut short when I got a splinter from my hockey stick into my right hand index finder. It swelled up to the size of a ripe tomato. That put me out of the game at the crucial time when the season was at its height, and being in St. Stephen's, we had at least two others knocking hard at the doors of the team. Six weeks away from the top team was the end of my career at the top. The spot was filled by a good friend and classmate - Norval Prakash from Sherwood College, Nanital. Norval was one of three Sherwoodians in my class, the others being Rajiva Srivastava and Kuldip Singh Shergill.

Norval was a great goalkeeper, and once given the spot, it was virtually impossible to get back into the top team except as the reserve goalkeeper.

Just as an aside, the Captain of the St. Stephen's hockey team was none other than Arun Shourie, noted Magasay award winning journalist, who gave up his morals to become an anti-Christian, anti-Muslim activist in his ambition to become a politician so as to get his own back on the newspaper that cut him down to size. He has almost achieved his ends by now becoming a Minister in the Indian Government, but in the process has lost the respect of many of those, like me, who used to admire him and his journalistic talent prior his hate journalism days.

Going back to Atul, he did know that Abe had a crush on my late elder sister, Nalini. I was the go between them. We moved from Bangalore to Bombay in 1954 (Nalini went to Women's Christian College in Madras) so that blossoming friendship ended.

Nalini's classmates, our neighbour Chitra Rao, and other Cottonians, Niino Bhagvagar and her brother Aspi, who served in the Indian Air Force, Nimmi Apoodorai, Pushpa Bhatia, Beverley Wilson, now in Australia and daughter of then Police Inspector Doug Wilson (whose family wife Marge, brothers Abe and Cedric and sisters Dinky and Zeena) were all featured in our reminiscences.

Was it not amazing that this contact with Atul in Canada revived all these great nostalgic memories of the past!! Thank you Rumuy and Willie.

KTWV05 - Issue 4: Response to the blog

I am glad to say that the response to the Stephanian blog has been very positive. The first person to write in was Akash, my regular correspondent from our Singapore Stephanian group. Then, Rajnish weighed in. This was followed by the steady stream of congratulatory messages.

To get to the regular blogging habit, it is best to subscribe to them. It does not cost any money. Use blogging subscription lists so you do not even need to have a traditional web browser. The iBlog software I use permits me to subscribe to various blogs in the Reader Mode, such as Apple, News summaries, etc, and this makes my communicating experience a little more specific than just web surfing.

My decision to blog was vindicated by the fact that out of the 1435 Stephanians that I sent out the message to, there were 97 returns of persons whose email addresses had changed and not informed me of the same. It sort of clogs up my Inbox to get so many returns after a posting.

I had an interesting discourse with one person to whom I sent out the information about the blog. He wrote back asking, quite rudely, to be taken off the mailing list as he was not a Stephanian and that he came from a much better college.

I checked and found that he was not on my list, but his wife, who was a Staphanian, had asked me to mail her at that address. It is possible that they are no more together and this may have been a sort of deep seated feeling of resentment on the person's chest. I informed him the cause for the posting to him and told him that he was now off my mailing list. I then asked him, very politely, to let me know which was the "much better college" than our Stephania.

He did not answer me on his wife's subscription to our email list or even apologise for his outburst, but his short answer was "presiency" in Calcutta.

I commented in my reply that I knew very well "presiency" :-) and told him that I had several friends from Presidency College in Calcutta who are on my email lists for another group that I run.

Well, I guess that sort of shut him up.

I think I was quite relieved to know that we hail from a far superior college than "presiency" and from one where the students know about polite conversation.