Building bridges, meeting friends and relatives!

(As more pictures come in, I will blog the nice ones - so please do send them to me. Those below were provided by Unnop and Pailin. For an entire web page of the event go to Indian Evening in Oulu 2007)

I must confess I have borrowed the term "Building Bridges" from the International School of Oulu which has a group of staff and students termed as Bridge Builders. They have the responsibility of making sure that the unison between all the ethnic groups is achieved.

The "Indian Evening", which was held this Saturday evening, was truly a historic occasion. We had to cut off registrations on Wednesday due to limitations of the number of people we could accommodate at the location, the dining hall of the Myllytulli School in the centre of Oulu.

It was sad to inform several CHAFF participants that registration had closed.

We took on a special responsibility this evening of linking people, especially new CHAFF participants needing some form of assistance to those who could help them. It was 100% successful, as both sides of the equation found the CHAFF event to be especially motivating to go out of their way to establish the important first step of a link - communication.

As the evening drew to a close and we were cleaning up, Annikki was talking to a young German student who has become a regular CHAFF participant. As they were talking in English, Annikki inquired her name. Finding she had a Finnish one (as she is half German and half Finnish), they dropped into talking in Finnish. Annikki took a shot in the dark when she queried Julia's Väisänen's ancestry and whether she knew a Väisänen who was linked to her own Reinikka family. When Julia checked with her aunt, whom she woke up late in the evening, she found that this half German, half Finnish person had family links to Annikki! Truly building a bridge!

Before I go on to describe a wonderful evening, I must especially thank a couple of people without whose help this evening would not have been possible, but yet, they could not attend.

Tero Raiskio had to go to Helsinki to take part in a television quiz programme. His selfless help in organising the projector from his school friend in Raahe, Lauri, was crucial to the success of the evening. He rang me from Helsinki as soon as he was free to check how the evening had gone. Although he was away, his heart and soul were with us here.

Unnop with his partner, Pailin,
who attended the India Evening
wearing the beautiful silk sari of my late mother.

The second person who could not attend, as he was busy manning his restaurant, was Unnop Khungrai. Unnop set up the entire system to make the music and computer presentations possible. Not only did he spend time before the event, but after everyone had gone home, he came to dismantle the entire system, clean up the premises and make sure that we left the premises as we had found it.

Thank you Tero and Unnop. Your absence was deeply felt.

The setting was the occasion was created by Kasia Mazur and Mona who along with Ildiko Hamos, Kannan Balaram, Padma Ojala and a few others. Kasia set up the room with an exhibition of Indian artifacts including modern and ancient and modern Indian coins, postcards and literature from around India, a large map of the country, a chess set made of sandalwood with the pieces hand carved people from the Ramayana, a snake and snake charmers flute batik and plenty of other Indian motif batiks and Indian art miniatures. The visitors were greeted by a couple of ancient hanging parrot lamps and a traditional temple lamp burning wicks doused with coconut oil.

The tone for the Indian Evening was set by a decision for each Indian lady attending to bring a couple of Indian saris so that the non-Indian ladies could try to wear this garb. This was absolutely a success. Not only did these ladies wear the unfamiliar dress with grace but they did normal tasks and also dancing to Bollywood and Bhangra music wearing six yards of fabric draped around them.

The food was brought by all those attending. As the theme was India, many of the non-Indians attempted to make Indian dishes. The fare was varied and scrumptious. Even some of the Indian boys attending, who normally do not even try their hand at cooking, put their efforts together and produced some sensational dishes. The chicken soup and the Chettianad curry were truly superb. Every single rendition was worth more than just the taste, as it gave a flavour of participation.


June and Pailin of the large Thai contingent
who attended the evening.

The Thai group headed by June Koskela, turned out a special Thai/Indian chicken and rice combination which also proved a great hit.

Hilmi Oral, a Turkish friend, who won this year's award for the best Man in Finland, along with his daughter, brought a delicious sweet, which was Turkish in-origin but was totally Indian in flavour.

The two bulk submissions were a Madras Curry from the soon to be opened Indian cuisine wing of the Royal Garden Restaurant and the Kashmiri Vegetarian Curry from the established Indian Restaurant in Oulu, The New Bombay. Our special thanks to the owners for helping us out on this evening.

It would be wrong to single out anyone, but the spirit of India was brought through this food not only by the Findian/Indian couples - Helena and Atul Mahajan, Aruna and Mahesh Somani, Aruna and Vamsi Paluguru, Pooja and Mani Kakkar-Bhowmik, and Lathalakshmi and Subramaniam Muragan, but also by the efforts of Ildiko (Hungary), Brent Cassidy (US), Benjamin Hayes (Australia), Kasia (Poland), Mona (Finland), Andreina Moreno (Venezuela), Hilmi (Turkey) and several others - too long a list to be named individually. Confidently, we can say that there was no shortage of food an drink, even delicious cool lassi and the almond flavoured milk that we in India so love.


Padma and Kannan with me.


Kannan and me.

The people attending came from far and wide. Kannan Balaram and Padma Ojala came from Rauma, 550 km south of Oulu. Ranjeet Singh came from Kajaani about 200 km East of Oulu. Pooja and Mani kakkar-Bhowmik with their 10 month old baby and Rita, Sauli and little 2 year old Veikka came from Raahe about 80 km west of Oulu. I had asked Rita to attend as I wanted them to meet this Indian couple living in the same town as them.


Veikka shares my lap with Kwan, a little Thai girl,
who has become my fast friend from the time I picked her up
with her parents from Oulu airport 2 months ago.

Veikka decided he wanted to sit in Joanna's father's lap when Rita told him that I was Joanna's dad. Rita and Joanna are childhood friends having been to school together from the time Joanna came to Finland in 1984.


Pailin wearing Annikki's sari with Annikki.
(The sari was given to Annikki by my late mother
many tens of years ago.)

We had a large contingent from AIESEC, an international student organisation which organises exchange of graduates to companies, joined us in making this event a broad based event as the Indian exchange trainee, Kanchan Gupta, gave a talk about India.

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Kanchan Gupta,
the Indian trainee in Oulu, Finland, through AIESEC.

This was followed by a CD presentation that Kasia had made for her school students when she talked about India to them a few weeks ago.


Pailin with Pupe and Kwan,
who performed a special dance at the Evening.

Two young Thai girls, Pupe and Kwan, performed a dance for the audience. This was followed by a group of international girls trying to dance a traditional Indian dance with all the movements which they had been taught by the Indian ladies present. They performed flawlessly getting many of the head and finger movements perfectly. Many thanks to newcomer to Oulu, Aruna Paluguru, for this coaching.

After the meal, instead of the intended showing of Bollywood films, the lively Indian music started and the younger crowd thought that it was more fun dancing to the music - and boy oh boy, did they dance. Many of us did not´t know we have such great talent in our Indian residents here.

Then, the non-Indian ladies in Saris took over. As a symbol of their affection to Annikki and me, they wanted us to join them on the dance floor to bridge the generation gap. Annikki was not in the mood, so I ended up dancing with a bevy of beautiful girls from all around the world, such as Hungary, Poland, Venezuela, Finland! The bones did creak a bit!

The wonderful atmosphere created lasted till the very last moment when the people all joined together to clear up the premises and leave it exactly as we had found it 6 hours earlier. The general opinion was that a Bridge was built between the dormant but lively Indian community in Oulu and all the different nationalities (over 30) who have made CHAFF a household word in the community of Oulu.

Many try to pin this success on me. This, I solemnly deny, as without this group of young people so dedicated to the cause of building a beautiful bridge, such a success would never be possible.

We missed Isaac Sundarajan, Indian CEO of Finnish IT company, Codenomicon Oy, who sent us a message from San Francisco, expressing his deep regret of not being able to join us. We also missed Veli-Matti Jäskeläinen, CEO of the Indian owned Finnish wind energy company, WinWind OY, as he had, unfortunately, committed to a another engagement.

But Ashesh Kumar, the Indian represntative of the new owners of the Biotechnology facility in Medipolis, his charming wife, Indu and 3-year old live-wire son, Karthik, graced the occasion. It is important these industrial leaders recognise the existence of CHAFF and its work, as they could play a very important role in building the bridge in the most important gap today - unemployment of ethnic minorities in Oulu and the whole of Finland.