Charlotte Von Schedvin receives an honorary doctorate on behalf of her husband Pradyumna Kumar Mahanandia from chancellor of KIIT University NL Mitra in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Sanjib Mukherjee

Bhubaneswar, Nov. 16: Charlotte Von Schedvin would remember to take home packets of dantakathi (a toothbrush made of tree bark), charcoal powder (to whiten teeth), snacks and spices from the state when she packs her bags for Sweden, where her Odisha-born husband Pradyumna Kumar Mahanandia now lives.

Mahanandia is famous for his five-month journey from India to Sweden on a cycle to meet Charlotte in 1977.

The story of this untouchable youth from Khandapada in Nayagarh had made headlines then.

She was in town to receive an honorary doctorate awarded to Mahanandia by the KIIT University at its ninth annual convocation.

“He was an expert portrait-maker. I had read about him in a newspaper and gone to him to get a portrait done of myself. But, he couldn’t make a perfect one of me and I had to come to him for three consecutive days. It was then that he told me that it had already been decided in the heaven that I would be his wife. I knew I had found my soul mate,” recalled Charlotte.

Mahanandia, who could not come to Odisha to receive the honorary degree in person, was given the award by the university for his exemplary courage and determination to fight against all odds to get a place for him in life.

Mauritius President Rajkeswur Purryag and Nobel Prize-winning American geneticist Oliver Smithies were also conferred honorary doctorate degrees at the convocation. Delivering the convocation address, President Purryag offered condolences to the victims of cyclone Phailin on behalf of the government of Mauritius and commended the Naveen Patnaik government, the Indian meteorological department and the people of the state for efficient management of the disaster.

Smithies advised students to continue to be as inquisitive as children. “You are getting your degree today, but you have not finished learning. Learning is a lifelong process,” said Smithies, a geneticist who won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2007 for his discovery of principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by use of embryonic stem cells.