Finnish-ing Touches - III

Because I was just a little over five when we made our last trip to Finland, all these memories might appear jejune and unsophisticated to the reader. But for me they mark the time when the constraints surrounding adulthood did not prevail. It surrounds the immunity I enjoyed as a child. Maybe that's the reason for the clarity even though its been nearly three decades. Rather, the more recent ones are obfuscated with trifle inconsistencies each time I try recollecting them, but each one of these is as clear as a crystal.

6) These ones are taken outside my dad's workplace. It was at a walking distance from our house. The campus was of a moderate size with just two floors in each of the buildings. The thing that stood out in the campus was the array of modern art in the form of sculpts, scattered here and there around the buildings. The one in the pics was an obelisk covered in mirrors on all its sides. Unfortunately I do not have any pictures of the rest; not even of my favorite sculpt which happened to be a green colored hand!

7) Särkänniemi, my childhood 'Disney Land'; I used to wait for that one day during spring/summer when we would make that trip, just like how kids wait for Christmas. I first saw dolphins at Särkänniemi and fell in love with sea creatures (I am still petrified of them coming in contact with me; we share a long-distance relationship ;) ). Särkänniemi has an observation tower that was visible from the terrace of our building. Such a huge fan was I of the place that I used to make trips to the terrace during winters, just to see the tip of the tower and glean some happiness out of the knowledge that come spring and I would get to visit the place (Silly nai! :) ). The picture was taken in the zoo that is adjacent to the tower. At the base of the tower, outside the zoo, was a deep pit with seals and right at the entrance of the zoo, on one side was a little blue tub with tiny turtles swimming around energetically and on the other side were little miniature house-like blocks with bunnies snuggling, their little red noses peeping out. 

8) My sister is less than three months old in this picture, when she made her first trip to Finland. Once we had reached the Bombay airport and were just about to get done with the immigration formalities, my mom realized that my sister was missing a sock. It was a woolly little white thing with blue bunnies all over it. I remember her retracing her steps and dragging me along looking for that sock which alas, we weren't able to find! This picture though is taken on the train from Helsinki to Tampere after our flight.

9) I was the proud owner of two dolls; one which I had picked myself (the yellow and blue haired weirdo in the picture), the other thrust on my by some kind friend (It was a clown-like red guy whom I never took to ;) ). The blond in the picture, who happened to be a good friend till this play date, turned foe because we kept fighting over the same weird doll.

10) On the fourth floor of our building lived Kovvikka, a friend of mine. She was a couple of years older than I and had six or seven siblings, the names of most I can't seem to recollect. The second from the youngest was named Cookie. We all used to gather every evening and have a good time in the park and the sand-pit and go home covered from head to toe in sand. You could literally build a sand castle of your own with just the amount of sand that my curly hair would retain. Then one fine day I returned home, not covered in sand, but in blood. In a argument over whose turn it was on the swing, Cookie, in a fit of rage had flung a small rock right at me which happened to hit my head. I didn't feel any pain nor was I aware that I was bleeding profusely. Kovvikka however gauged the situation pretty well and knew instantly that her sister was in deep trouble and so was I, but in a different way. She grabbed my hand and rushed not to my home but hers. Her mom bathed and dressed my wound and then almost trembling all the way took me to my mom who didn't react at all once she saw that I was fine. In fact I remember insisting that she let me go back to play and after some weak protestations she just tied a scarf around my head and let me go. Cookie wasn't there when I joined the jingbang again but she did turn up in some time with her mom. Poor thing must have got a good thrashing for she was all red-eyed and hichuppy. She kept saying something that her mom was egging her to repeat when I failed to understand. Finally I just said o.k. after the kid had repeated it at least some eight times. Turns out she was saying "Forgive me", a word I was unfamiliar with having only heard of 'Sorry'! Again, I do not have a picture of Cookie or Kovvikka or any of her other 6-7 siblings :(

And I can go on and on. Maybe I shall find ways to incorporate the other remaining anecdotes in posts that are not exclusively Finnish. I so look forward to going back but at the same time I am more than apprehensive at the thought of it. Going back would mean looking at all of this with a fresh pair of eyes. Everything will have changed. And that would mean applying another coat of paint on my canvas of memories. And if the present is antithetical to my past, the coat will be an opaque one and will forever eclipse my innocent flashback cosmos! 

Finnish-ing Touches - II

Most pictures have a story to tell. Some funny, some childish and the others wistful. I shall try to list mine (and anecdotes for which I do not appear to have pictures to back me up with) in a chronological order. 

1) I start with a memory that isn't a 'Finnish' memory per se (Nor is it a chronological fit) but is a fond one just around my travel to Finland and is in memory of a favorite uncle.

I was little less than three then and was a 100% into an audio of nursery rhymes sung by yesteryear's 'sensation' in that genre, Preeti Sagar. I used to have it play to me (sometimes sing to me with 'Little Bo Peep' being my favorite) by my grandmother every night just to put me to sleep. Digressing from the topic in hand, another song that my grandfather played to me, especially when I was cross or just lachrymose, was K.L. Saigal's 'So jaa raajkumari'.  If you listen to it now with fresh ears you will very likely find it cacophonous and weepy enough to bring even a peppy person's spirits down. But believe me, back then it worked wonders in calming me (Maybe I discerned a likeness or felt some kind of kinship; the singer and I share a similar nasal voice ;-) ). Although now it does make me weepy but for a whole different set of reasons. Returning to the story, I was flying to Helsinki with my mum that night and had reached the airport when it occurred to me that I had left my audio cassette back home. It was way past midnight, so the shops around had already shut down for the day and it was a good hour long drive to my place. My uncle who had come to see me off  rushed back even before the meek demands of 'Makka zai" had crossed my lips. And huffing and puffing did he return within two hours, to outstretched arms and a beaming face showering him with kisses.

 At his daughter's wedding; the last time ever I laid eyes on him 

(Mangalore, Karnataka; 14 November, 2010)

 The last trip we took together 

(Bekal Fort, Kerala; 18 December, 2009)

For my Bappa, K.N. Rao (1952-2011)

P.S: Love you and miss you Bappa; Mangalore trips aren't the same anymore. I always look around for you even at the slightest hint of tobacco whiff in the air!

2) At the age of two, my mum tutoring me every night about the animals that inhabit the African continent, from a giant orange colored book titled 'Africa'. And the photo of an okapi in particular. Not many people are aware that an animal called okapi exists in our animal kingdom! 

3) A kind lady (total stranger) buying me an ice-cream while boarding a boat with my mum. I was little above two; I remember the smiling face pulling my cheeks and chattering in unintelligible Finnish (or was it Russian, Mum?) :)

4) At the age of three, telling my mum that a couple of ladies on the bench beside us were not speaking Finnish. It actually turned out that they were conversing in Swedish. To this day my mum speaks about this incident not without bafflement.

(At the 'Small Lake'; 1985)

5) I have always loved dogs. I have had them as pets; had one around from the day I was born. But somehow I did not pet or cuddle that cute little poodle in the picture. The kind man kept egging me to pet and stroke the bundle of fur. But I just kept edging away. I remember feeling very sad and longing for another chance at petting him once they had walked away. It really was a dear little thing with soulful eyes!

For the next set of memories, keep an eye out for my third post! :)

Finnish-ing Touches - I

I want to make a trip to Finland again; maybe someday I will.

I spent the first six years of my life shuttling between India and Finland. It was a pretty little town called Tampere in Finland, right on the periphery of the Tundra region with coniferous trees standing tall around charming lakes. Finland is called 'The Land Of A Thousand Lakes' with the last count numbering them to be 187,888. Contrary to most belief, Finland is a Nordic country, but automatically gets grouped with its neighbors Sweden and Norway as a Scandinavian one.

The above picture is of the view from my living room/Kitchen/Bedroom (They all had windows facing the same way) on the 7th floor of a building that had 12 floors. The 13th floor was divided into an attic and the terrace. I did hunt through my treasured photographs for a picture of the building but couldn't find one. But I do remember it to be a rust colored one with intermittent patches of concrete and pebble finishes. It had two wings with sand-pits, bike trails and dainty, small parks on either side of the building. In fact most of my memories are still quite fresh in my mind as if it were just a couple of years ago that I was there, scampering on the streets as a carefree toddler. If I took to penning down every detail that I recall and cherish, I wouldn't have to look for any more topics to adorn my blog space. But since this is one of the constructive and happy outcomes of a memory refresh, I shall go on till the point it starts getting boring even to as generous and patient an audience, as my family and friends.

A couple of minutes walk from our house got us to one of the 187,888 lakes that I had nicknamed 'Small Lake'. I called it so because it was the smaller of the two lakes that I would frequently haunt, so naturally the other one was christened 'Big Lake'.

Small Lake

Big Lake

It was about an hour and a half long walk (for a 2-3 year old and with pine cones strewn all the way, who could resist!) to the 'Big Lake'. And make that 3 hours when spring came along, for it was time for berry picking (I still did not ditch my pine cones; they just went into a separate basket). The walk was an extremely picturesque one complete with little wooden bridges under which ran lyrical brooks in tiny cascades and cave like tunnels with murals bedecking it's otherwise staid walls . The walk was a shimmering pebble trail and dandelions filled the air. All in all it made one pretty postcard.

The place on the whole lacked human touch. The streets were usually devoid of people. Winters brought in the desolation that accompanies an ambient temperature of -30C or lesser. Come summer and we would witness a nod here and a smile there. In general the Finnish were an aloofish lot. But the handful of friends that we made there were a really warm and hospitable bunch. More on the friends and my quirks in my following posts. I should probably focus on the stories that go with the photographs that I have managed to salvage from a fading lot. That might help me cut short what right now appears to be a topic that has a sequel numbered X!