Indian artist PK Mahanandia met Charlotte Von Schedvin on a winter evening in Delhi in December 17,1975 when she asked him to draw her portrait. And they fell in love despite the language barrier.
Ms Von Schedvin was visiting India as a tourist when she spotted Mr Mahanandia in Delhi's Connaught Place district.
He had made a name for himself as a sketch artist and enjoyed a good reputation in the local press.
Intrigued by his claim of "making a portrait in 10 minutes", she decided to give it a try.
But she wasn't impressed with the result and decided to come back the next day.
All night, PK couldn't stop thinking: "It couldn't be her, could it?"
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Many years before that, the local astrologer woman told his mother about PK's future with a mysterious prophecy:
...that his wife would be from faraway land...
...that she would be born under the zodiac sign of a Taurus...
...that she would play the flute...
...and that she would own a forest...
But it was her final words that caught PK off guard: "Follow her footsteps..."
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Charlotte returned the next day to have her portrait painted.
As she sat, PK found the courage to ask her the questions...
the questions he had been thinking about for decades...
He asked the same questions that his mother told him before, and strangely all are matching with Charlotte answers.
It seems that the prophecy and their first meeting was the beautiful thing that set his future into motion. And he listened, watched, and waited. He had to follow her footsteps, like the prophecy said, but he was too poor to travel by plane.
He sold few things he owned, including his paints and brushes, and bought a used bicycle.
That was the beginning of an epic bicycle journey from India to Europe - all for love.
Charlotte and PK married...
They went on to have 2 beautiful children and still married to this day.
