Pre Lindau Moments: My Follies Cost a Lot!

It started with a dilemma while The Daily Newspaper Prothom Alo rendered me a thought! Being a student of engineering, I was wondering if I could be eligible to meet dozens of Elite personalities of natural science! In 2009 Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting was dedicated to Chemistry. Textbook and web page “chemistry celebs” will be within the eyes focal length! – I dared to dream and applied through Bangladesh Lindau Council. Amidst back and forth uncertainty, I got the e-mail from Lindau council informing of my preliminary nomination. Final decision is under process! Fingers Crossed! Time is running out. Almost, I left the hope. Suddenly, yes, I received the mail form Lindau with final nomination. It was no less than “early morning call from Stockholm” (at least at my position)!

Dreams came into reality!! I found fellow participants; Shishir and Biplob are also my batch mates. So, it was only a matter of time of friendship. First time overseas trip for us. Excitement was ebullient at the Boiling Point. But, problems came as salt addition to the solution to cause Boiling Point Elevation! How could we manage the huge amount of money for the trip? Finally, Bangladesh Academy of Sciences came into play to heat up the whole thing! With its initiative, Bangladesh Academy of Sciences and North American Bangladeshi Islamic Community (NABIC) jointly sponsored three of us.

Dream finally materialized! Our rate limiting reaction had overcome the high activation energy barrier of all the monetary facts and finally reached its goal by the catalytic activity of all through aid provided by Bangladesh Academy of Science. At the end, we three had a mingle feeling- first time oversees trip to meet atleast dozens of Nobel Laureates!

It was 26th June 2009 morning. The sun shined, so did our dream! We started for the overwhelming journey to Germany. It is worth remembering, we were blessed with the warm attachment of Dr. Mesbah Uddin Ahmad and his wife Dr. Farida Akhter in the whole trip. Anyways, after the long journey, we have reached at Munich Airport at night. We didn’t even know that a little Bangladesh was waiting for us! Yes, it was Sumit Paul, BUET Graduate, now pursuing his PhD in Electrical Engineering in Germany. The more I tell about him is less! Needless to say, his hospitability reminded us of Bangladesh there. We stayed his place that night. I still can relish the taste of Mango Lassi we had at Hotel Surbahar at Munich, which all were sponsored by Sumit Paul. Next day, the whole day we the whole team roamed around the Munich City Centre and had some “Window Shopping”, as it took a lot to count euro while we convert it to Bangladeshi currency!

We, the whole team at Munich City Centre with Sumit Paul

Finally, on 27th June 2009, we reached Lindau. I never consider me as a street smart! For including some safety factor, I tried to act some smart and bought O2 Sim for communication with others within Germany. But, my bad luck couldn’t but that bad! In the whole journey, I had to count the euro for three times for this Sims. One time, Sim didn’t work, and rest two times, I lost the pin code. It results is overall 60 EURO (~ 6,000 Taka).

This was not the end; unfortunately, my hotel accommodation was far distant from the conference hall. So, I had to use the Bus to reach hall everyday. But, three times I missed the bus there! I had to call taxi to reach the conference which later costed me not less than 30 EURO! My stupidity costs a lot!