Inactivity

I must beg pardon for my inactivity on this blog for almost 8 months. I have been posting regularly on Facebook, and keeping in touch with friends and relatives.

It was my 70th birthday this year. Jacob threw me a surprise party, which was such a wonderful occasion attended by many friends.

I was also able to take part in the reception to meet the Indian President His Excellency Pranab Mukherje  and his daughter, Sharmistha. 

83er Sharmistha is a Stephanian, like 63er Jacob, about 20 years his junior. She passed out in 1983, having done History. They are Facebook friends. She is an very competent Indian dancer. She has shared a few of her performances which she has choreographed herself.

She has just informed the public that she is going stand for the Delhi Assembly from Greater Kailash and wants suggestions how SHE can make a difference the lives of Indian women. She is practical and not building castles in the air. She wants suggestions on what she can do, and not things like bringing legislations,etc.

I do hope she will get elected, as she seems to know her priorities and may not be a chamcha to the Nehru-Gandhi family! 

Delhi is given the honour being called the most polluted city in the world. I can vouch for that. I hope she can do something to save this city, which is choking itself!

If Jacob and my reading is right, Sharmistha has the character and personality to become the next head the Indian Congress party, a fitting tribute to the work of her father! 

With young dedicated and competent leaders, the Congress party could rebuild itself after getting rid of people like the 7 Stephanians (68er Kapil Sibal, 72er Ashwini Kumar, 73er Salman Kurshid, 74er R. P.N. Singh, 76er Shashi Tharoor, 90er Joyti Scindia and 97er Sachin Pilot) who sat in the previous Manmohan Singh Government as YES men to Sonia and Rajiv Gandhi. They are the ones who have brought St.Stephen's College to disrepute, filling shoes they did not have the competence to fit!

In comparison, I have only Dr. Verghese Kurian of Anand and Amul fame, who used to do something and then tell indira Gandhi, the autocrat, what he had done. He knew going for approvals was a waste of time and money. The White Revolution was the result of his dedicated work starting at the grassroots level in Gujarat

It was nice to see the the day we flew from Delhi to Hyderabad, it was named as National Milk Day as tribute to Dr. Kurian, known to us a Jollychayan, who was married to Mollykochamma!

Jacob and Annikki standing behind Sharmistha at the Helsinki reception for Indian President His Excellency Pranab Mukerjee. Also seen are Indian Ambassador to Finland, His Excellency Ashok Kumar Sharma and Finnish Foreign Minister, Erkki Tuomioja.

I have been quite active otherwise. We have had the grandchildren,Samu, Daniel and Maria over for summer and Joanna, our younger daughter, brought the three of them also for Christmas.

We had a disastrous trip to India in November and December. Jacob and I are documenting it on our new web site, http://www.findians.com. The new book is being serialised on Jacob's Blog as "The Titanic called India". I did see the Taj Mahal and witness the making of the decorated inlaid marble. And I lived on the edge of a jungle just on the outskirts of Mumbai!

Several have asked why we callled it that, when the Indian greatness is being shouted by the Indian Ministers.

Believe it or not, Indians were flying around the planets many thousands of years ago, but sadly, today, they do not know how to design a simple road and pavement in India. Take a person in a wheelchair anywhere on a street in India, and you will know what we mean.

Maybe the Indian knowledge went along with those who designed those amazing flying machines! :-)

I have designed a few cakes, the last one being based on my discovery of the Agra Petha, a delicious Indian sweet made from Pumpkin. Granddaughter Maria I used it to decorate Joanna's mango Petha birthday cake a few days ago.

I have been crocheting in my spacetime. Jacob complains that I am cutting up his lungis. These lungis are over 25 years old and fall apart the minute you touch them. Does well as colourful crocheting material when I tear them to shreds! This was a my latest piece, a butterfly, but I have been making lots of cylindrical baskets to keep the various papers that Jacob keeps lying around as well his many spectacles which he keeps misplacing! (Earlier I had used Haldiram's Soan Papdi as cake decoration, and it was also a great material!)

Jacob wants me to sell them so he can afford to buy 110 count lungis from his old friend from Madurai, Mohammed Abubacker, the Chank brand lungis. I wonder if the Chank brand exists today as Jacob is talking about 1975!

We received news a few days ago of the passing of another family member, journalist B. G. Verghese.  He and his wife, Jamila were Stephanians, like Jacob, but about10 years senior to him.

I used to enjoy the writings of Bublichayan, as he is known in the family, as they were sharp and incisive!

There are many people that need to be thanked for the help and generosity in looking after us in India. Surya and Devi (Hyderabad), Raghu and Gayathri (Bangalore), Rajen and Prema, Chacko and Ammu (Kottayam), Bina (Cochin), Malathi, Amal. Joseph and Sam (Mumbai). Other names will be thanked by Jacob who kept a meticulous record of the trip!

You will also soon find this blog on our new web portal, http://www.findians.in. Hope you enjoy the re-emergence!:-)

Is Finland one of the Least Corrupt countries in the world?

I have the ability to laugh at myself. That is the basis of good satire. I use it, and also Jacob uses satire in a lot in his writngs.

When I put together the "Edible Art" eBook, there was a lot of humour in the pages.

Right from the first catastrophe of our labrador ravishing my first ginger bread house in Chennai, through to my making the cake "Ruins" for myself, as I could not possibly make it for anyone else, we were looking for an interesting ending to our book.

We are both non-fiction writers. Our books to date include "...for the hour of His Judgement is come:..." which was my rather horrific exprience with the Indian Legal System, "Handbook for Survival in Finland" and Jacob's exposure of the corruption with the Finnish University System, "Seven Years Hard Labour in a Finnish Holiday Camp - A Finnish University".

The first two of these are available as eBooks and paperbacks from Lulu.com.

Another two books we have writing presently are "The Last Will and Testament" which concerns inheritance problems of one side of the family and "Inheritance Nightmare" which is about another part of the family.

Satire on corruption in Finland.

A few years ago when Kampitie, the family property in Oulu was still in my custody, during Christmas, I made an enormous Snow Cake in the front compound. The idea grew steadily in my mind till I finished it with the six inheritors of their parent's property were made as snow people, sitting around this enormous snow cake.

They had been waiting for over 10 years to get their inheritance.

The lawyer who had been appointed by the Court as the Adminisrator had other plans and kept the inheritors waiting as he milked the property and estate for his own ends. Our dead father, 10 years after his death turned up as an entrepreneur and he was taken to the Bailiff as the lawyer took the money for himself and his crony friends!

He used his position as a lawyer to defraud all the investors. By causing two rival groups to be formed in the inheritors, he made hay while the snow cake melted!

My snow cake, with the snow people inheritors sitting around it, was my satirical view of the completely corrupt Finnish Legal System where the judiciary play their own game.

Aided and abetted by the Finnish Police, they can twist any situation to the advantage of those who are more powerful. Your own lawyer also plays as a pawn in the game to get his rightful share of the bounty!

The Finnish Lawyer's Association, which is supposed to protect the lay public from sharks who pose as lawyers, was the biggest joke of all in my saga, and the Finnish Lower and High Courts were just pawns n the hands of the corrupt lawyers and bureaucracy.

Finland is supposed to be one of the least corrupt countries in the world, but if corruption is not defined in the law books, then how can any asssessment be done of corruption in the country.

Finland lives by the image it creates. One of the images they have built up is to present before the world that there is no corruption here.

This image is far from the truth. My Snow Cake is a reflection of the true state of affairs in this country.

Hope you enjoy this satire. Although I have been at the receiving end of this tragic story and saga which still continues into its 13th year!

Cake design milieu

When designing and presenting a cake, it is just not enough to make a good design. The design must suit the occasion and the character of the person it is designed for.

However, when all that is done, it has to put in front of the person with the right atmosphere.

Take for instance the wedding cake which I made for my niece, Suchi.

It was a chocolate sponge cake made by a well known baker in Chennai. The white chocolate, which Suchi wanted me to use, came through a cousin in Australia. Suchi wanted rose petals, and Jacob had to search Chennai high and low to get rose petals which had not been sprayed by pesticide.

The cake details were very simple. A three tier cake. Melting and applying the white chocolate in the heat of Chennai was a problem, but patience and care ensured this was done successfully! Decorating with rose petals was not a problem.

But the presentation had to be unique.

I had made snow candles for our garden every year and they have been used to light of the front gate every winter over Christmas. They were made by sticking a bucket of water into our sub-zero weather with an inserted inner piece and allowing th water to freeze. Take it out of the bucket and we have an ice piece into which you can place a candle and it looks really lovely. The burning candle is protected from the aid and burns for many hours.

This is a welcome sign in Finland that we are at home and you are free to drop in!

I thought of an idea if making a coloured ice candle by using coloured water.

This itself was unique, but then for Suchi's decoration I thought of making multi-colour ice candles.

Remember this is way back n 1999! 14 years ago!

Jacob poured different colours of fizzy drinks. He froze the first layer in the deep freeze, as in Chennai we do not have sub-zero temperatures. When the first layer was frozen, he poured a different coloured drink on top. So we had four layers of different colours, one on top of each other, and with the candle put in them, they looked glorious. Simple but ingenious!

In future blog entries I will show how you can create milieu in different ways, which makes the cake stand out to become an a thing to be remembered!

Testimonial Page for Annikki as an Artist

According to the guide for marketing a book, the first step is to set up a testimonial page.  

These testimonials are for my work as an Artist and for the book "Edible Art"

Out of the many tens of testimonials I have received (no negatives so far!), here are just a few. 

I am glad that my work has been reviewed by friends from around the world, and they like it.

Geordy George (Cochin, India):

"Heartful congrats for bringing out such a wonderful book.

I can definitely tell you that your Ginger cakes are really world class as an edible piece and an artwork. I appreciate the pain and patience behind each such wonders.”

Satish Abraham (Kottayam, India)

"Hello Annikki and thanks for the information on your book and congrats.

You have done a fantastic job in bringing out this work of art through cakes and using your imagination to the maximum.

I am circulating your email to all my circles.”

Ranjeet Jacob (Chennai, India):

"Really impressed about your Edible Art book."

Anuja Saxena (Gurgaon, India)

Toooooo good..... :) 

Aditya Sondhi (Bangalore, India):

“Fascinating!”

Abinash Mahala (Tampere, Finland):

"Its really a great work and especially I liked that pond cakes, it looks so lively :)

I just bought an e-book from scribd.com for my personal learning :) Am sure many of our O-Indians would buy it for their learning and help in spreading the news, so that we can see many more creative works from you in the future!!"

Mani Bhowmik (Oulu, Finland):

"You have all our support. I have seen few live demonstration of your art. May be it is time to have a bigger audience. A live demonstration would be nice.”

Aruna Somani (Oulu, Finland):

 "wow!!!!!!!!!!"

Ashwini Chitrapurisha (Oulu, Finland) 

"Beautiful!!!…”

This is a cake that did not make it into the book. It is called "Blueberry River".

Volcano errupts

Many years ago, a volcano erupted in the Philipines.

 I saw some amazing images on the TV of the crater and the molten lava. I thought it would be nice if I could crewe that scene as a cake.

I created one of my mountain cakes

I used my sugar formula to create the effect of lava running down the side of the volcano. I used some vivid colours to create the effect of molten lava.

I therm put some sparklers in the crater. When they were lit, I got the effect of the flames shooting up from the crater.

I was quite pleased with my effect.

I hope you are.

Snowman Cake

In the last blog I introduced you to the very first Mobile Snowman.

Living in Finland, making art out of snow is second nature. But to create a good snow creation, one must have what I call as Snowman's snow.

It must grip and be able to be fashioned.


But making a cake which is a snowman needs something quite different.

Once Grandson Samu asked for a snowman as his birthday cake, I had to think how to go about it.

I was glad to make a really good Snowman cake, and Samu and his friends loved it!

Ruins

When I reached 60, I thought I would have some fun, so I created a cake for my birthday, which I called "Ruins". I could obviously not make a birthday cake for anyone else with that name! :-)

It was the ruins of a courtyard with a wall with a red window and a cistern filled with water. The water flowed into the little pond in the courtyard.

In daylight it looked just like some biscuits.

But when placed against a window with light streaming in through the red window and water flowing from the cistern into the little pool, the whole cake just jumped to life.

Here are the pages of this from my book "Edible Art".

The book is available add an eBook from Scribd.com and as a Paperback from Lulu.com. For those that write in to me, I can I've you a link to get the book at a special Christmas discount of 40% ad the books will be autographed by me.

Launch of Paperback English Version of "Edible Art"

Once the eBook version was launched, we decided to launch the smaller size A4 Landscape version of "Edible Art".

As Jacob was familiar with Lulu.com, as we have published Annikki's book about her last stages of her fascinating life in India, "...for the hour of His judgement is come:...",  our 1994 best-seller "Handbook for Survival in Finland" and also the 2009 Coffee Table Book, "Golden Reunion November 2009, Cathedral & John Connon School, Mumbai, India, Directory of 1959 Cathedralites", Jacob decided to stick with a known and tested service. There was an email from a company, Archway,  which worked with the international publisher Simon and Schuster, but they wanted us to buy a package which we already had, so that idea was thrown out.

Also there were no upfront fees to pay to Lulu.com. We could pay for hatever services we int ennded to use.

Converting the Powerpoint presentation into a pdf file first seemed to be unsurmountable. Powerpoint did not offer the option to save as a pdf file. Also OpenOffice did not offer this alternative. But NeoOffice, the Mac Version of OpenOffice had an export feature and the document was saved as a pdf.

All the inside pages were uploaded onto Lulu.com and then the single front and back cover was created. The spine was a problem, and only after we receive the proof copy can we finalise it.

But we decided to launch the book and inform our friends about its availability.

The reaction was spontaneous and overwhelming. We will publish some of the comments we received in forthcoming posts.

Probably the most liked creation was Annikki's Pond Cake.

Whoever met Jacob was fascinated by this cake.

Now it has come to the process of marketing the book. We knew from our many relatives and friends that the book was excellent and would be well received. 

The first eBook, meanwhile, was sold to a nephew in Belgium who bought it as a present for his wife who loves cooking.

However, before the final marketing thrust, a proof copy has to be received and any final adjustments made.