All roads lead to Puhelin
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Back in July-Oct ,2014 , I was in Finland for work ; Finland is where our organization is headquartered in. My deputation was in our R&D labs in a small town in Northern Finland named Oulu. A quaint and beautiful, laidback town which had quite some old architecture to boast of ; a river named Oulujoki (read as Oulu-yoki) flowing right through the middle of town, that had made a nature reserve around the entire stretch of river and it was a protected area with entry restricted to people and bicycles. The river was home to wild ducks floating freely in them. Oulu was a perfect little town to live and dream in.
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Finland , Oulu especially, is in its summer best in the month of July , for it basks in warm sun for 14-16 hours in a day. The sun rises as early as 5am and does not set until it is 10pm or so. That means that the body’s biological clock is tricked into staying up longer than usual, allowing more time for daydreamers to be productive about.
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The inadvertent availability of excess time had made me soak in the beautiful environs and surrounding things – living or not. The cherry tree standing by the side of the Toripakka bus-stop , the Oulujoki river flowing silently but steadily like a characteristic Finnish man, the selfless Raspberry plants growing in the wild by the banks of the river, the wild blueberries that were back to life after a hibernation under the snow and were lush with deep violet fruits , the different varieties of wild mushrooms of various shapes and deep and vibrant colors growing underneath damp trees and vast grasslands – aw , Oulu was a fairy-land for a romantic.
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But any fairy tale , as you know , is incomplete without a Prince Charming - isn’t it so ? That is where ‘Jakub’ fit in . Jakub Jackowski – a Polish man in his late 20s or early 30s ; he was a few inches taller than an average Indian man, and was in the lower end on the Fitzpatrick scale . I noticed a twinkle in his eyes and he was very chivalrous to this petite woman from the East. A slight wink was his way of acknowledging my presence and his facial muscles on the right slightly shifted further to the side - on seeing me pass by. Jakub easily took me off my guards of arrogance and haughtiness , quite effortlessly. “You have an intelligent looking face” , he would tell me on our short breaks together , “intelligence turns me on” , he would warn with a slight wink again. Jakub’s accolades took me onto the skies to levitate like a balloon cut off from its thread , in the clear Finnish blue skies hedged underneath by tall pine trees.
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Everyday , Jakub will board the 8 o’ clock bus to the office. I made it a point to board the same bus too , my plastic, consumer based life in the studio apartment there, allowed me that luxury – a few loaves of bread or a bowl of muesli with a glass of milk for breakfast and with cooked rice , fried salmon and vegetable salad for the lunch, it was not difficult for me - especially with the extra motivation that starting the day with meeting Jakub gave me. But the bus reaches exactly at 8 am, that is the point!, a minute late on the other side and it would be gone, yes, the 8 o’clock bus means that it comes at the bus stop at exactly 1 minute past 7:59 am. On the dot. And you can’t mistake the time because everything that operates in Oulu is synchronized to the GPS – ie to say, the time that your mobile phone shows, which as you know is the time sent by the last mile wireless network connectors , and the time of the bus operations , they are all synchronized to one common time, the time sent by one satellite , which allowed for no confusion about time. You are late by a minute means that you have to wait for the next bus that is exactly 30 minutes later.
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Needless to say, I ensured that I reached the bus stop a few seconds before 8 to ensure boarding the bus. And Jakub boarded it from the next , we would exchange greetings and a short glance which was my spring board to a productive day like getting your morning tea brewed with the right amount of tea leaves.
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Being a conventional Indian woman, I was never direct about my overtures of friendship or whatever you would call that. At the same time, I fantasized about riding on a white horse by the Oulujoki river with Jakub by the side and that goes without saying that I waited for the right opportunity to get to spend a longer time with the man
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On a certain Wednesday, I was making plans for the weekend to visit an “Automobile Museum” in Oulu , and after a fair amount of web search, I found out a small and cozy restaurant serving indigenous Finnish cuisine too . And incidentally , and they were both located around the same neighborhood which made strategy making easier for me, for they both pointed to a hamlet called “Puhelin” that I was given to understand from the addresses. It surprised me that the hamlet was not to be found on Google Maps. And, the pin codes were different , but the hamlets the same, I checked again – that baffled me a little, but I did not want to question a working system that is in place at a foreign land. To each their own! , I thought and left it at that. Then came Jakub, and I tried not to show my nervousness while asking him out. I asked him to join me while I visit Puhelin , and Jakub gave me a suspicious look. He asked me to repeat the name . “Puhelin”, I repeated with an air of superiority to be taking him to a place unknown to him. He still could not get it right and asked me to show the address. At that point , Jakub laughed out loud , forgetting all chivalry , and he told me that “Puhelin” is the Finnish word for Phone number . I was speechless at my own stupidity .
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Needless to say , I missed the 8 o’ clock bus on the next two days. And after I got off the white horse, I bought a copy of “Teach Yourself Finnish” and read it over the weekend.
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Now, when I go on foreign trips you can imagine what will be going into my travel suitcase first.
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