A Story of Mr. Anil Palikhe

A “Finno-Ugrian-Nepalese” medical doctor doing research in Helsinki
Anil comes originally from Nepal, but he left his country quite early to study in Europe. First he went to the university in Hungary for 7 years, and now he has been in Helsinki for almost three years, doing research. Smiling he tells that he has feelings of being partly Finno-Ugrian by now. However, cultural differences still surprise him sometimes, and he likes to talk about them. “You are almost blind at the very beginning in a new place, once you open your eyes you see good and bad things, and that’s life everywhere!” Anil says.Anil is a medical doctor, but for the moment he's not practising in Finland. He completed his medical studies in Pécs (Hungary) with a fulltime scholarship from the Hungarian Ministry of Education. Before going to the Medical University he spent one year in Budapest to learn Hungarian from the beginning. Later Anil made all his studies in Hungarian. It was a challenge, but he managed very well at the end. He got another scholarship for his PhD in Hungary, but he started to think about going somewhere else. His Hungarian professor helped him to make a decision to come to Finland. There were so much more resources for research, the professor said.”I didn't even know where Finland was, in Scandinavia?” Anil tells about his arrival to Helsinki. Then he cocks his eye and reveals that his brother had business contacts in Finland, so Anil knew exactly where he was going. Since the beginning he made friends with both Finnish and international people. He says that Finns are very nice in general, and sometimes they seem even too polite to him. ”If all their reactions are nice and polite”, he says, ”you don't know what they really mean.” Anil also noticed that it's sometimes hard to take the first step with Finns. ”They hide like turtles!” he laughs. But not all Finns are shy either, and Anil says he has some very good friends around Finland.
”Hard work calls for hard leisure”, as we say in Finnish
Anil does research for his PhD at the University of Helsinki. His office and laboratory are in Biomedicum, which is a centre for medical research and training. He participates in a research project with an objective to define the connection between genetics and heart disease. Some of the work is made in the laboratory, some in the office. Anil also takes care of raising funds for the project, and during the academic year he takes part in doctoral courses at the university. That is good for learning new approaches, but also for making contacts anf friends with different people. With all these different things to do, Anil has quite free hands to organize his working days.Generally Anil can do everything in English, but he keeps on studying Finnish. First he attended some Finnish courses at the university, but now he studies independently, mainly by reading and speaking with friends. In his free time Anil likes to relax, sometimes without any attachment with anyone or with anything. From time to time he just takes his bike for the weekend and totally disappears from the civilization – even in the winter. He puts his tent down somewhere in the forest, spends a relaxing evening in the peace of the nature, and comes back on the following day. He lives for the present moment and enjoys the life. He does not make too many plans for the future – “there is enough time for future, let me fix the present first”, he says.
Motto
Dalai Lama, “Every human has to visit a new place in a year.” But I try to do once in a week.
Three great things about Finland:
Sauna three times a week in a Finnish way
Going by bike anywhere you want
A summer cottage by a lake, in the summer or in the winter
Funny incidents in Finland
A morning coffee with his colleagues in the very first week in Finland surprised Anil. Nobody talked while they were around the coffee table. Anil's first thought was that for some reason they were angry at him. Only later he found out that in Finland silence doesn't mean anything offensive, it is just a normal way to be.On the first winter in Finland Anil got surprised by the cold. He wanted to buy something in a shop just accross the street, so he put on his jacket and went out. However, it was way too cold, so he came back, put on another winter jacket, and then he was able to cross the street.Anil goes to a sauna in his building every week. Once, with some other foreigners, they started to make food on the stove. The caretaker came in and said it was forbidden to grill sausages on the stove, because of the horrible smell. ”It's not a sausage, but fish!” Anil said spontaneously. But the caretaker was strict and carried out the smelling packet.