DHAKA: Charlotte Von Schedvin was a blonde, blue-eyed young woman who hailed from Swedish nobility.
PK Mahanandia was a poor art student from eastern India, seen as an “untouchable” in his country’s caste system.
Yet their chance meeting in Delhi, late 1975, when Von Schedvin asked him to paint her portrait, led to him cycling from India to Sweden to be with her -- a mammoth 3,600-km journey spanning eight countries and taking over four months to complete.
Despite their different backgrounds and as if masterminded by fate, the young couple’s love was instant and overwhelming, reports CNN.
They would spend one glorious month together before Von Schedvin returned to her home in Boras, Sweden.
Mahanandia vowed to marry the woman he loved, at any cost. The talented painter sold everything he owned to buy a pushbike, and with just $80 in his pocket set off on his epic journey.
In those days “only a Maharaja could afford a flight to Sweden”, explained Mahanandia.
Along the way, he slept in Bedouin tents, youth hostels or under the stars by the Caspian Sea. The young couple kept their romance burning through letters.
When their remarkable tale was recently shared on Facebook it was quickly shared tens of thousands of times.
Now, after almost four decades of marriage and two children later, the couple's story has also reportedly sparked the interest of filmmakers around the world.
Mahanandia was just nine years old when an emotional encounter sowed the seeds for match he'd make 17 years later.
Born into the Dalit caste, the young boy was shunned by his fellow villagers -- even forced to sit outside the schoolroom.
“I was below the dogs and cows,” he told CNN.
“The moment I went near the temple, (people) started throwing stones. Those things, I never forget.” He wells up recalling those long painful years.
“It was like a little light for me in the dark cave.”
One day he was allowed to sit at the back of the classroom -- but not to touch anyone, as they'd be “polluted”. A British school inspector and his wife were coming to visit.
After a royal welcome, the inspector gave his garland of flowers to a girl at the front. His wife walked all the way to the back and gave hers to Mahanandia.
“She could see I was an outcaste,” he remembers. “She touched my head and said, 'Your lovely curly hair!’”
“I was happy, but at the same time I was crying. It was like a little light for me in the dark cave.”
Mahanandia took the garland proudly home to his mother and said, “Mum, I'm in love with the school inspector's wife”.
Her response would impact the rest of his life.
Presenting her son with a palm leaf horoscope, she told him he'd marry “a white woman, from a faraway land”.
She would also be a Taurus, involved in music and own a jungle, according to the prophecy.
“We're not going to arrange any marriage for you,” Mahanandia recalls his mother saying -- an unusual decision at the time, in a country where many unions were pre-arranged by parents.
Mahanandia and Von Schedvin got married after his long waited-arrival in Sweden. The couple have been together for nearly 40-years and have two children, Sid and Emilie.
BDST: 0003 HRS, Feb 14, 2016
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