Raantel OY IS a Best Buy!

One of the tenants, a lady software engineer, who stayed in our Raantel Oy apartments in Oulu returned to India last Sunday after almost 6 months here. Before she left, she sent me this touching email:

"This is just a small note of thanks to you for all the help you have provided in these 8-9 months. Even though I might not have spent hours talking to you but your presence has always made me feel homely. I have never faced any problems as such, but if any, you were always there! It would have been difficult to thrive in a foreign country with lots of insecurity and lack of proper information. With you around nothing was difficult and out of reach. Thanks a lot for everything !"

Raantel Oy Headquarters and Community Centre at Ahmatie 16 in Oulu.

Another lady, who came with her one year old son to be in Oulu where her husband was on an assignment told me at the airport that she so enjoyed her stay with us that even if her husband comes for just a month, she and their son will come with them as they felt so much at home in our apartments and in our company.


Sunita, Karthik and Rajesh leave back for India.

These appreciations shows that Raantel Oy has achieved its objective as THE BEST BUY if you stay with us in our apartments in Oulu, Helsinki or Tampere.


Carom game at the Family Afternoon
at the Raantel Community Centre.

Raantel Oy is not just about giving you an apartment to live in. You become part of our community. With this I think I have achieved what I set out to do!

Claustrophobia - A new definition?

(Posted on all my major blogs.)

Ever since the age of 12 or 13, when an uncle of mine taught me the art of relaxation using artificial stress inducement, I have never had a problem of going to sleep. Before my head is settled in the pillow, I am fast asleep. I do not wake up at night and toss and turn. I nod off as soon as the reason for waking up is attended to. I hardly ever dream. Sit in a car with a safe driver, and I can drop off into neverland within a couple of minutes.

I usually wake up fully relaxed, even if the sleep lasted only a few minutes.



I came back from the hospital on Thursday afternoon with my left hand in plaster from the forearm till the tips of my finger. The operation to repair the knuckle of my fourth finger in my left hand had been successful, but it meant that my arm would be in this plaster-cast for 5 weeks. Plenty of painkillers and a course of antibiotic for 5 days, so no real problem of pain.

When I went to bed on Thursday evening, I thought I was going to sleep in my usual fashion. However, when my head hit the pillow, and as recommended, I put my plastered arm in a suitable and comfortable position on a couple of raised pillows, I felt a tremendous and overpowering feeling of restlessness. Sleep was just not coming in the next few minutes. Each passing second was raising an anxiety within me. I was feeling claustrophobic, even though, bodily, I was not in any confined situation.

Then it dawned on me that my mind was reacting to the fact that my left hand had lost its freedom. It was caged, and the stress relaxation technique, which I have used for over 50 years to drop into my slumber, was blocked by an overpowering feeling of fear. My fingers and wrist had lost their freedom. They were confined and this feeling of confinement was causing my mind to say that I was totally confined. And the realisation that I would have to endure this confinement for 5 more weeks was mentally unbearable.

I jumped out of bed, feeling as if I could not stay put down. I walked into the kitchen and expressed my claustrophobic thoughts to Annikki.

She was cool and calm and told me that I should take each day as it came, and the 5 weeks would be over even before I knew it.

I went to the living room and plonked down in front of the tv, but my heart and soul were not into watching any of the programmes. I let tiredness possess me so much so that I allowed my body to react to a mentally created feeling of a body becoming tired. Then when I went to bed, it was not my relaxation that put me to sleep, but a feeling of great tiredness - quite different to my normal situation.

As soon as Annikki came to bed, I put my plastered arm around her, and that claustrophobic feeling suddenly lifted and I dropped quickly into my normal deep slumber.

When I woke up in the morning, although relaxed, I still had that feeling at the back of my mind that I was a caged person. My n degrees of freedom had been severely curtailed. I now understood how anyone who loses any degree of freedom, mental or physical, could suddenly feel claustrophobic.

In all my life I had never experienced this. It was indeed a major revelation to me about the sufferings of my fellow travellers on this earth who had lost their freedom, any part of it.

I will be glad when this hand is uncaged. I will value all the degrees of freedom that I enjoy much much more than I ever have! And I will appreciate the feelings of other men and women, and any animal, who are caged in any form.

Oulu Cricket Club leaps out

(Also posted on the CHAFF Blog.)

From 090604 Cricket starts in Oulu

The Finnish Chaírman of the Oulu Cricket Club,
Joose Kankare, takes to the crease!

Yesterday saw the first practice session of the Oulu Cricket Club. I am not a player but ready to support this northernmost cricket club in any way possible. So I turned up to show my support. Only, due to other engagements, I was a hour behind schedule.

From 090604 Cricket starts in Oulu

No floodlights required here.
Plenty of Natural Lighting available till 11 pm!

I do not know what they did for the first hour, but when I arrived I saw two teams grouped together talking strategy. They were about to commence a game.



The background was idyllic, but that could not be said about the gravel pitch they chose to play on. A nasty wind was kicking up a lot of dust and playing conditions were not ideal.

From 090604 Cricket starts in Oulu

There are a couple of good cricketers in the midst of the 18 persons who turned up for this first practice. There was a Pakistani, a couple of Australians, a Brit, a Finn, while the rest were a spread of Indians from almost every part of my great country - India.

From 090604 Cricket starts in Oulu

With the strong wind, playing conditions were cold and quite difficult. But I saw some good bowling and also some interesting batting - which means that with this sort of talent available, Oulu may really be able to turn out a good team for the nationals in a year or so.

But that will mean serious practice - not just having fun hitting the ball around.

Besides physical fitness, to be generated by jogging and running a fair bit at the beginning and end of a practice session, there must be batting practice, bowling practice and fielding practice during each practice session.

From Cathedral School, Mumbai

My cricket team, Cathedral School, Bombay - 51 years ago!

I also remember my days at St. Stephen's College where we had a a stickler for fitness as our Captain. With the likes of Siddarth Singh, the wonder from Doon School whose fame preceeded him, Prem Bhatia, Ajit Singhji, Sunil Thakurdas in our midst, it was good to have someone like Vijay Singh as the Captain. He demanded and got respect.

I turned up a few times for cricket practice but as hockey practice was at the same time under an equally fastidious captain, none other than the journalist Arun Shourie, I had to choose between one and the other - and I chose hockey!

Remember 14:00 hours on Saturday at Alppila is the next Oulu Cricket Club practice session!

Reason for excitement

(Also posted on all my major blogs.)

Many of you have emailed me to ask why I was so excited with the software "Cooliris".

There are many many reasons, but I will highlight the two major ones:

1. There is an old Chinese proverb which says: "A picture is worth a thousand words."
2. You can browse thousands of pictures in a couple of minutes, unlike text.

This is now the era of the photo-journalist. If he / she can succeed in capturing the truly great image that depicts an event and add a single one line caption to it, the number of hits one can get to that image or video, and subsequently the caption and then the text, even if the Google Search result was likely to be on the 50th page, is going to be amazing.

Just search for "Jacob, Oulu" on Google Search and you get 95,800 links. It will take months to through those links.

Search for it on "Cooliris" and see how much more you get and you can get to even the 5000th result in a jiffy!

Don't believe me - take any random name of a friend and see what you get!

Truly amazing results. And, you can go through all those tens and tens of results in a flash.

Beware of one problem with "Cooliris".

You can get motion sickness as you race through the thousands of images.

I tried various search combinations yesterday and was thrilled with the results.

But, when I got up from my office table, I was tottering as my eyes had been working overtime going through this huge bonanza of results.

Yes, there is a reason to be excited, but also a warning that this could seriously affect your brain!

Rarely am I so excited

Also posted on the Seventh Heaven Blog, Kooler Talk Blog, CHAFF Blog and the Oulu Best Buy Blog.)

Rarely am I excited about new computer software. Today I came across one which sent shivers down my spine in what it can do.

I downloaded separate versions for SAFARI, the Mac only browser and for FIREFOX, probably the best browser online presently till Google comes up with its Chrome Browser for the mac.

The software is called "COOLIRIS" and it allows you to see many thousands of images and videos from your computer or the web in the blink of an eye.

My time is so limited that I hardly have time to go through all my pictures on the computer. But here I could see all of them in a 3-D type motion and I could see all the top story pictures before you could say "COOLIRIS"

I suggest you enter "Cooliris" in your Google Search facility and then download the version suitable for your browser.

I found a great video called "Slam Dunk Kitty" amongst the literally thousands that came up as I flew through the selection that came before me.

And you can use this software with Facebook, Google, UTube and also your computer images and videos!

What's the bet that Google will acquire this software - which is absolutely FREE, before the lamb shakes its tail!

Unbelievably Clean!

(Also posted on Jacob's Blog and the Oulu Best Buy Blog.)

A friend of mine had let his mother's apartment to a couple of Finnish students. They behaved badly and hence were ejected.

In the process they had dirtied all the good sofas and carpets.

As my friend was adjusting the rent advance, he asked Kamutaza Tembo, the owner of Taza TMI, a suoer cleaning service in Oulu, to take and dispose all the furniture while at the same time as cleaning up the apartment. (Mobile Phone: TAZA TMI +358 400 596317). Among their many clients, Taza TMI cleans the big electronics stores as Gigantti and Markantalo, Sanifer Scooter Factory, all our furnished apartments in Oulu, a large vehicle repair workshop and they do a splendid job.)

Kamu called me and asked me to pick up the furniture.

Annikki and I went to pick it up in our trailer. When I looked at the sofas and carpets I was ready to write them off and take them to the dumping yard.

Kamu had other ideas.

Yesterday he came to our office where all the furniture was stocked in our trailer.

From Taza TMI

Sofa on the trailer with cleaning equipment in the foreground.

From Taza TMI

Kamu gets to work.

From Taza TMI

With all the skill of a graphic artist,
Kamu ekes out the result, cm by cm.

From Taza TMI

As good as new!

The cleaned carpet:

From Taza TMI

Kamu worked on them with some special equipment .

The cleaning equipment is like a vacuum cleaner, except that it pumps out a fine spray of a non-toxic cleaning fluid onto the surface and then sucks it back again with all the dirt and muck.

I was amazed to see the results he achieved, first on two single seater sofas and then on the three seater. They were as good as new.

Kamu changed the head on the machine and worked on a filthy carpet, restoring it to much of its original beauty.

I would recommend using this service, not only for cleaning sofas and carpets, but also doing a complete cleanout of your car.

The charges are very reasonable.

Cleaning a single seater sofa costs Euro 40, a double seater will cost Euro 60 and a threeseater will cost Euro 80. The cost of cleaning a carpet will be dependent on the size and how dirty the carpet is.

Complete cleaning of a car, seats, dashboard, all carpets, dicky (boot), will cost you about Euro 150. The car will smell as fresh as roses as Kamu uses a fragrance when cleaning cars.

VAT at 22% os applicable. You can claim 60% of the cleaning charges from your taxes, so it is really cheap.

I have no hesitation in recommending this Carpet, Sofa and Car Cleaning Service and its results as an OULU BEST BUY!

Where am I going? What am I doing?

(Also posted on all my major blogs.)

Ubi does not believe that I have writer's block. Naval is meticulously letting me of intrusions into my own cyberspace. People are calling me and telling me they are my fans!

And what am I doing?

With the explosion of networking sites - LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Orkut, Plaxo Pulse, My World in Flock, all my blogs, Google Groups, a plethora of calendars, I am getting terribly lost in Cyberspace.

Where should I do first thing in the morning? Which place should I update first to reach the widest spread of my audience. 80000 people worldwide is quite a reach!

What should I write about? Politics, the economy, nostalgic thoughts about school and college, life in Finland?

There certainly is an inexhaustible list of topics.

It is this explosion which is numbing my mind. Everything I want to do seems to be the wrong step - or is it the right step?

I am searching for someone out there with experience to guide me - but it appears that when you are the trend setter . no one wants to proffer their advice!

So I will have to work this out by myself.

All of you out there will continue to get angry with me as no one is satisfied going to a site which just refuses to be updated!

Maybe tomorrow morning the answer will hit me - but maybe not!!!