Travelling from Heaven to Hell

Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, United States, United Kingdom, Belgium, Netherlands, South Africa, Slovenia etc… are the countries I have visited earlier but the most unique country I visited this time is Norway. The country of heaven, the country of kindness, the country of apex in development, the happiest country in the world bla.. bla..bla…all I heard about is a true facts once I experienced myself when first I arrived in Norway on July 13. It was so kind that professor was eager waiting in the airport to welcome me. Almost 30Km drives, we reached in a place near a jungle. Helmut stopped the car, got out from car and told, ‘welcome babu, this is your place’. At the beginning, I am sucked, watched all four directions if there are any houses nearby. The house is located near the jungle and no more houses attached on it. I felt like how could I stay here alone? The ground floor is under-ground. It looks like a simple one flat house what we called Katero (कटेरो) in Nepalese language. When entered into the house, socked again by seeing its amazing decoration and furnishing/management. My feeling is directly connected and felt like no more fear of living alone. Prof. Martina introduced all the features inside the house and left me to pick me back to campus on Tuesday morning. Sidhartha (Rita Kumar’s Son) picked me up next day to market. He helped me out for bus card, phone recharge and buy some food stuffs.

Fig. 1. My apartment and its environment when i arrived on July

Everything managed on Tuesday (17th July) at office including office access, library access etc…at Department of ProductDesign, NTNU. Also Met & greet HoD Dr. Ole Andreas Alsos and other friends at office. But university is on vacation, and hence not much student’s flow at the department.

Being not familiar with travel and locations, I was having little fear about how to reach campus by

bus. But I was already guided about the nearest bus station near home and drop location near campus. The bus card was already loaded with 760Kr (monthly unlimited travel scheme). The interesting and nice attitude what I found here is like when anyone person you meet in the street while walking or elsewhere, no matter, whether each others are known or unknown, greet starts by saying ‘Hei’. When I entered into the bus, the driver also said the same ‘Hei’. When someone meet and walk on the same street, definitely, they starts speaking after exchanging ‘Hei’, share about the view and elaborates each other’s background. This creates such a friendly environment that as if I know everyone. Hence, for next 20 days, I still had to stay alone in the apartment but I feel happy enjoying the summer at Trondheim. The apartment house is a good meditating environment looked like what we called a ‘GUMBA’ at Nepal where you calm yourself whenever you want.

Bus come to the Dragvoll station on every ten minutes at the exact timing. The real time GPS controlled bus has two displays, one at the first row and second at the mid row. The displays show the upcoming next consequent three stations in order. Not only this, the system automatically announce the coming next station. Must of the stations also have speaker dedicated for blind people to know the bus arrival details. In fact, I never saw that systematic and well managed transportation before. Every bus station has real time display shows the upcoming bus details with arrival time. Well controlled population in the city with no crowd in the transportation. Buses are moving on the road according to time even if the bus has no passenger. This perfectly shows the transportation reliability and government accountability to public.  City is perfectly internationalized as we can see everyone in the bus, on the way, in the shopping store, restaurant etc… speaking English. The heavy intake of international students at NTNU seems like the city is being driven by NTNU itself. 

After Prof. Debi and Ramesh arrived in the apartment, we had a great meeting and progress presentation in the Product-Design Department, NTNU. We also had a beautiful moment to meet Chinese professor during the presentation.

Fig. 2. Snapshot at design department after presentation.

Every people coming back from Norway, tells about the story of bad weather irrespective of its beauty. I was already prepared with the possible worse situation that may happen but this impression revert me because I arrived Norway in the mid-summer season when the beautiful sunny environment and no dark-night moment is really a pleasant one. Here are some glimpse of Trondheim summer.

Fig. 3. Summer at NTNU premise

Fig. 4. City view jungle near the apartment

Fig. 5. Trondheim Summer

Fig. 6. Summer @NTNU premise

Fig. 7. Trondheim Sentrum

Fig. 8. Behind NTNU main historical building

Fig. 9. Prof. Debi, Me and Dr. Basnet @saturday walking

Fig. 10. Saturday walking with Prof. Krishna Kant Panthi

The moment became more joyful after meeting Dr. Surya Kathaya, (My BE met, NTNU graduated), Raghbendra and many more including Chatra Bdr. Basnet (IOE Alumnai) who was PhD candidate and successfully defended his PhD during my stay at NTNU under Professor Krishna Kant Panthi’s supervision, the most respectful, friendly professor @NTNU. It was a great pleasure to attend the PhD defense program of Dr. Basnet. PhD defense procedure @NTNU is a bit different than the world. Before defense, the candidate should pass the trail lecture on a specified topic assigned by the PhD evaluation committee. Candidate conducts 45 minutes trial lecture with major objective to evaluate his/her delivery and confidence so that presenter should have great knowledge about the topic. After trial lecture, candidate formally defend the thesis for about 45 minutes. Opponents take at least 1-2 hours to ask the questions during when the candidate should show strong and depth knowledge of his/her work. I feel the concept of trail lecture is a good idea that we can also introduce at our university to improve the research quality. 

Professor Panthi and his family in fact made our stay more joyful and family-like environment during whole period of our stay. Nepalese Society at Trondheim (NEST) community is awesome. This is the only organization i ever see like a family and completely free from bad Nepalese politics. We joined the festival programs and activities conducted by NEST and enjoyed our stay more.

Fig. 11. Gathering at Prof. Panthi's Home

Within the last 6 months (From July to December), there is a drastic change in the Trondheim weather. These days , Sunshine is at 9AM and sunset at 3PM. While in the July, it seems like there was no sunset. Every morning, when I drop in the campus bus station, I saw fully the working environment like shown in the figure 12. Nothing disturbs the work, workers are quite busy with their duties even in the heavy snowfall.

Fig. 12. Workers working at heavy snowfall near NTNU road

Amazing, they never avoid their duty at this situation. On the contrary, I remembered, Nepalese PM announced to media publicly that “due to summer rain, festival, blab la bla … we are not able to continue development work and we commit to do after rain stops and festival period finished”. I realized, this is how Norwegian and the overall European build their country a heaven though naturally it has harsh situation during winter. The perfect management, dedication, caring, focus and respect every job has made this country a heaven. Unfortunately, following words become synonymous with each other at Nepal so that expecting heaven is really difficult for us.

• Professors and Politics
• Leaders and Contractors
• Bureaucracy and Corruptions
• Police and Dons
• Regulators and Operators
• Education and Trade/Business
• etc.etc..

Nepal is also naturally a country of Heaven. People from all over the world travel to Nepal to view its natural beauty like for example if you see the below links, then definitely you say it is the country of heaven.

Everest Base Camp 

https://www.studentflights.com.au/travel-mag/2017/10/5-things-no-one-tells-you-about-hiking-to-everest-base-camp

Annapurna Trek 

https://www.thecommonwanderer.com/blog/things-to-know-annapurna-circuit-trek

Mustang Trek

https://www.welcomenepal.com/places-to-see/upper-mustang.html
https://www.insidehimalayas.com/9-reasons-travel-lower-mustang-season

https://mustangtrailrace.com

Nature has given us a lot but unfortunately the vision-less leadership, corrupted bureaucracy and lack of our dedication to nation building has made our beautiful country still looks like a hell. Tourists are eager to enjoy the nature what is only available at Nepal but when first entered at Kathmandu City, it feels like we are traveled to hell. Pollution, haphazard transportation, uncontrolled population etc…this is the fact what we can’t hide from this world. We believe, the stable 2/3rd government would be able to face challenges and build a prosperous country. Let us expect our cities and overall Nepal would be better than the world in the near future so that every time when we return back from abroad visit, we wish to say "traveling to heaven" rather to say traveling from heaven to hell.

E-mail, internet and group communication habit is very strong, events are announced virtually, connected, communicated, estimated and managed all online, then subscribers/participants meet the event according to the management announced through group communication. I also had a chance to join one nice event: PhD Julebord party. Product-Design Department has more than 20 PhD candidates including visiting researchers like me. I enjoyed the very informal and entertaining Julebord party organized by the PhD group. Colleagues made the program more joyful with musical chair game and the random gift exchange. Here is some glimpse of PhD Julebord.

Fig. 13. PhD Julebord at Skiboli on 30 Nov.

Fig. 14. Enjoying PhD gift random exchange program @Julebord

Fig. 15. Enjoying PhD gift random exchange program @Julebord

Fig. 16. Enjoying gift random exchange program @Julebord

I hadn’t have the experience to feel snow before though I am from Nepal, the mountainous country. I was quite excited to see and play with snow. At the beginning, having play with snow is joyful but when every day and night, you have to adjust with snow may be boring. Fortunately, we are the luckiest guys who came in the beautiful summer and leaving the country at the beginning of harshly winter. This creates a good impression but those who came in the beginning of winter and leave at the early summer might have worst experiences what we frequently listened from the sufferer. The important part is we got lots of knowledge after visiting with Nepalese friends and society here so that we enjoyed shopping @Lade, City-Syd and Sentraum. Similarly, cheapest food stuffs from Heimdal.

Here are some snapshots of snow fall experiences during the per-departure period.

Fig. 17. The very dry KATERO during my arrival is now fully covered by snow

Fig. 18. Cleaning the snow in the walk way in front of the apartment become a daily job task since December 8  before leaving Trondheim.

Fig. 19. Snow covered land at Dragvoll

I had great enthusiasm to travel around the Scandinavia countries but due to time limitation I just touched Sweden boarder, visited Oslo and also got an opportunity to visit my younger brother and his family at Belgium during Dashain festival.

Fig. 20. Visited Brother and Family during Dashain @Belgium

Finally, thanks to Prof. martina, helmut, Rita Kumar, Ole, Anne, Kari and all other PhD mates of product design department who fully support me to have pleasant stay and research at NTNU.

Fig. 21. With PhD mates at Product Design Research Office

हालको नेपालको परिस्थितिले अन्त्यमा एक गिति-कबिता प्रसंङ्ग लेख्न बाध्य बनायो।


शिर्षक: फरक यही रहेछ

कलियुगमै रमाउँदैछौं हामी हाम्रो ठाउँमा
फेरि सत्ययुग फर्किसकेछ तिम्रो गाउँमा।

गुम्बा खोज्न धेरै टाढा धाउनुपर्छ मेरो ठाउँमा
प्रत्येक घरनै गुम्बा बनेछ तिम्रो यो गाउँमा।

निति-नियम थरि-थरि लागु हुन्छन मेरो ठाउँमा
कार्य-समान, आदर अनि बराबर छन तिम्रो गाउँमा।

जलस्रोतको धनि हुँदानि अन्धकार छ मेरो ठाउँमा
दिनमा रात अनि रातमा दिन हुंदो रछ तिम्रो गाउँमा।

जाडो छल्न हिमालबाट तराई झर्छन मेरो ठाउँमा
माईनस बिसमानि काम गर्न रमाईलोछ तिम्रो गाउँमा।

सनातनलाई तोडमोड गरि रिति बसेकोछ मेरो ठाउँमा
समानतानै बलियो सुत्र भनि थिति बसेछ तिम्रो गाउँमा।

बलत्कारी अनि चोर-ठग छ्यासछ्यासती छन मेरो ठाउँमा
सुन्दर मुस्कान अनि त्यो भावले सदभाव छरिरहेछ तिम्रो गाउँमा।

कानुनको अवसान भो , अपराधिले राज गर्छन मेरो ठाउँमा
"अपराध" भन्ने शब्दकोषबाटै हटिसकेछ तिम्रो गाउँमा।


सम्भव हुन्छ कसरी? उपाय खोजिराछु हाम्रो ठाउँमा
असम्भव पनि सम्भव हुँदोरहेछत, देखें तिम्रो गाउँमा।

दैनिक दुर्घटना, मानव मृत्यु सामान्य छ मेरो ठाउँमा
कुकुर पनि कति भग्यमानि है? तिम्रो गाउँमा।

मातृभूमि प्यारो छ मलाई फर्कन्छु मेरै ठाउँमा
सम्झिरहनेछु ति क्षणहरु बितायको तिम्रो गाउँमा।

समृद्दिका खाकाहरु कोर्छनरे खै मेरो ठाउँमा।
जे भएनि भीसिट-२०२० मा घुम्न आउहै मेरो गाउँमा।

(कविताले आंफैलाई चोट दिएकोमा दू:खी छु।)

Good Bye! Trondheim.

Expected to See You Again!