The Barpali Days

Stories 12:00 AM

P.K.Mahanandia and Charlotte: A Trans-Continental Love Story

[Love story of an Indian who went from New Delhi to Sweden in a bicycle]

It was 17^th December 1975. Emergency had been proclaimed nationwide in India. In the heart of New Delhi near the central fountain of the Central Park (now tube station) of Cannaught Place there was an artist engrossed on sketching the tourists while seating under the open sky. Seldom was this artist aware about the little gathering of spectators watching him. There came a nineteen years old Swedish girl to get a sketch of her own self, who was then attending her college in London.

She watched the artist intently to assure herself about the news she read previous day in The Hindusthan Times about the expertise he posses to sketch people alive. This artist who use to monger on the streets of the Capital to make a living, instantly shoot to fame by the local print media for his pencil sketches on late Prime Minster of India Indira Gandhi; the first lady space astronaut Valentina Teriskova; the then President of India V.V.Giri; and so on. He had developed an USP of his own self to sell his skills. It was “Ten Minutes, Ten Rupees”. When her turn came, she walked ahead calmly to get the portrait of self. By appearance she was lean, thin and absolutely enigmatic. While keenly observing the subject of his art, this artist felt a smooth wave of current transcending in his body. But this artist did not allow his thoughts to divulge his work. Instead he concentrated on his job of portraying the young lady. When his assignment was over, she handed over him Rs.20 /-. But this petty artist honestly returned Rs.10/-, while keeping his nominal charge of other half (roughly US 20 Cents). And she left carrying her portrait proudly with a charming smile.

The artist we are talking all about is Pradyumna Kumar Mahanandia. That night when Pradyumna went to bed, the enigma of that young woman hovered around his mind. But he evaluated his own socio-economic status. Instead of floating in the thin air, he re-positioned himself to the ground reality. Though he was born to the humble family of a postman in the remote tribal district of Athmalik of Odisha, but was outcasted by the society for being a dalit (Schedule Caste). He was someone from the community of scavengers who used to carry human excreta on their heads to dispose off, when neither water-shield toilets nor septic latrines were yet introduced in Odisha. For this reason while attending school he was made to seat separately in the veranda apart from the Bramhin kids. He was a victim of the much hyped Indian caste system.

While growing up as a boy the needs of Pradyumna were largely unfulfilled. He was never interested in attending his school. Rather all day long he would play around with the village children. They would go on to the backyards either to steal the fruits; or go to the jungle to collect the honey-comb, dates, bamboo sprouts; or fishing in the river. Many a times he was caught red handed for all those mischievous acts. As a punishment he got the scolding and the thrash from his father. He was never good at studies. Ever since his childhood Pradyumna was wild in his imaginations, perhaps that is why he turn to be an artist. He wanted to fly in the air as if a bird. Like Leonardo da Vinci, this kid too experimented something on his own self. With the assistance of his friends, he tied bamboo crates which are being used for the domestic purpose (called Kula in Oriya) to his arms and set to jump from the thatched roof of their hut. Needless to say, the mission of this enthusiastic kid was collapsed, when he crash-landed on the ground with severe bruise and wounds to his knees. He was rushed to the hospital to get the first aid. This is how he used to make everyone breathless while growing up.

[his mother]

From childhood he was inclined towards art. His brain was stimulated while observing the nature surrounding his village, be it the jungle, river, ponds or the farm lands. Apart from nature he used to observe his mother from the close quarter, while she was drawing jhuti or alpana on the ground and on the mud walls of their home. She was a pious lady who surrendered herself to the lord, for getting the favour for the welfare of her family members.

Pradyumna the prankster passed 10^th with a third division. His father wanted Pradyumna to be an Engineer so as he could get a decent government job and settle down in life. He was forced by his father to take science stream in the college. But Pradyumna could not pass-out of his college. He went to the railway tracks not to catch the train, but to attempt suicide. But as usual to the Indian standards, the passenger train was running behind the schedule time that day. It was noon hours when the train approached. The tracks were too hot and this immature Oriya lad could not place his neck on the tracks. He had to abort his mission for the time being. He returned back to the tracks at evening, but was spotted by a police man and was whisked away even before the train could approach. Next day morning he went to jump in the river. But since he was such a prolific swimmer, his limbs moved frenetically and made him reach the shore. Once again he had to abandon his “mission suicide” and return home as a looser. How unfortunate was Pradyumna as none of his wishes, neither the death has been approved by the God. May be for the reason, in the days to come a greater role has been set by the Lord for Pradyumna to play on this earth.

He set to flee away from home, breaking all the barricades. He gathered as little as Rs.55 (US $ 1 as on this date) and ran away to pursue a career that was much close to his heart. He went to join Santi Niketan in West Bengal. But he was kicked out of the hostel, as he did not have the money to pay the fee. He came back to Odisha to join a college of lesser repute in a village i.e. Khalikote of Ganjam district, to do his Bachelor in Arts. After graduating from here he left for New Delhi to join the College of Art on a scholarship sponsored by the State Government. As par the poor Indian standards of bureaucracy, there was a delay in the sanction of stipend for all most six months. In the mean while our budding artist had to live life under the penury. He slept many chilling nights in the telephone booths on the platforms of New Delhi Railway Station. He had to skip every third meal of the day as he did not have the money in the pocket.

Many times he survived solely on the cheap berries costing 25 Paise, that were being sold on the streets by the vendors. A couple of times hunger drove him to enter the unknown wedding receptions along with barat, the bridegroom troop. He had to fill his belly with the delicacies, as he did not know when he is going to get the next square meal.

Back in Delhi the following day he rushed to the usual spot where he was working the day before. He kept on sketching the faces of people, but was looking for the foreign lady who came previous day. Finally at the end of the day before the sunset she came. He felt as if a long standing separation has been narrowed. He started sketching yet another portrait of her. When finished our artist abruptly asked the girl “Are you a Taurus ?” To which the girl told affirmatively “Yes, I am”. Face on Pradyumna told her “if so, you are going to be my wife”. Because during his childhood Pradyumna eves drop to hear the village astrologer telling his mother, “This boy has got a bright horoscope. He would merry a girl of Taurus zodiac sign from a distant kingdom”.

After a couple of meets, Charlotte accepted the proposal of Pradyumna even without consulting her parents who live in Sweden. Breaking the conservative Indian culture of that era, Pradyumna married Charlotte. They exchanged rings, while a friend of him bought the roses for them. And the wedding feast constitute of just three ice crème bars. The newly wedded couple began their life afresh in the company of each other in a servant quarter called barsati at Lodhi Colony of South Delhi by paying a monthly rental of Rs.100 (less than US 2 $). This single room sublet accommodation did not even had an independent toilet or a bathroom.

Pradyumna brought Charlotte from Delhi to his village Kandhapada in Odisha by changing two trains and three buses. This village is located in a remote place in the deep forests of Athamallik of Odisha. Every individual of Kandhapada and surrounding villages were overwhelmed to receive their “bideshi bahu”, the foreign bride. It was a fairy tale story which no other Oriya ever accomplished. The illiterate villagers of Kandhapada were unable to pronounce the name of Charlotte in English. They started calling her as Charulata. And Charu too was able to adopt herself to the lifestyle of her in-laws. Every day she would go to the village pond along with the women folk holding the earthen pot on the waist, to fetch the drinking water.

After spending a couple of weeks the alarm ringed for Charlotte. She had to return Sweden as her holidays were getting over. She bid her adieu and caught a flight for Sweden. In the seventies of the last century the cell phones and emails are yet to be invented. This couple resorted to exchange of postal mails. Then it used to take weeks together for the delivery of overseas mails. Our poor artist was unable to bear the high cost of sending even an aerogram. Every afternoon he would look forward for the postman, if he brings a letter sent by Charlotte. Charlotte proposed that she will send an air ticket by mail to Pradyumna. But it hurt the male instinct of this grooming artist. He thought how an Indian husband could ever accept a favour to be forwarded by his wife. He refused to the proposal of Charlotte, saying his love for her will find its own way.

Pradyumna sold most of his belongings of his bachelor life that he possessed at Delhi. But he able to garner just $80. With this paltry money he can never buy an air ticket. During 70’s of the last century air travel was neither economical, nor widely prevailed. In January 1977 he lifted the bicycle that he was riding at Delhi and started the expedition of his life to go Sweden by road which might be somewhere around 10,000 Kms away. His friends laughed at this foolish thought of him. They alerted him, you would be killed on the way and neither your dead body will be able to reach Sweden. But our artist was bitten by a bug called “Love”. As if a sprinter he set to take, what could be the longest marathon by a lone person in a bicycle on this planet. It was sheer foolishness to undertake such a journey, as his body was socked with malnutrition and poor diet for years together.

First he reached Amritsar. It was the time when the two neighbouring nations India and Pakistan were just out of war and in a bitter relation. At Wagha Border he met a group of hippies. He befriended with them. Pradyumna requested them to take his cycle along with and to deliver it in Kabul. On the other hand Pradyumna was wise enough to catch a flight to Afghanistan from Amritsar. But by doing so, a major corpus of his funds was blown away in the air. At Kabul he picked his cycle from the hippies and headed towards his destination on the Hippie Trail. In the 70’s neither there were smart phones, or the GPRS nor the search engine Google to help Pradyumna to find his way for Sweden. He had to consult the layman on the streets to ask for the root. Had he been a migratory bird, he could have flied while observing the direction of the wind. But Pradyumna had to travel only to the direction to which sun sets i.e. West.

During the day hours Pradyumna had to pump his adrenaline to cycle-out for miles together in the dry mountain terrains. On the deserted way there was not a single human being, nor a tree to take the shelter during the noon hours. Apart from the hunger, he had to abate the extreme weathers in the journey that he had undertaken. He travelled from the gruelling heat of Delhi, to the chilling nights in Afghanistan. From the sands of Ghazini to the cyclonic storm in the Caspian Sea of Iran, as if it is one planet where there is no borders and no barrier. In fact it is we the human beings who have divided and ruling this planet just to meet our political end. Where ever feasible Pradyumna asked for a lift in the bulk trucks that were ferrying goods. He did not have the money to pay the fare. So used to take out the white paper sheets and the pencils from his cloth bag and sketch the images of the drivers and gift it to them. The truck’s crew were much overwhelmed and used to tell, you bring your wife from Sweden and we will drop you both back in India in our vehicle. Pradyumna use to have food along with those drivers on the way side hotels. And they use to pay happily the bills of Pradyumna.

In Afghanistan Pradyumna dare to meet the Governor of Herat province and made a portrait of him. As a gesture of good governance, the Governor granted the extension of his visa. Like wise to express his gratitude the Ambassador of Turkey in Afghanistan granted him a transit visa to cross through Turkey. By now he crossed the entire length and breadth of Asia. Yet it seems the road never ends for Pradyumna. While travelling he never looked back to gauge how much distant he travelled so far. Rather he was just looking ahead how many more miles he has to cross over to meet his wife, his love. While on transit he did not spoke over the phone even for once with Charlotte. Because those days there used to be no ISD calls. In the night hours his body was completely exhausted and drenched in fatigue, but his mind was wondering about the beautiful moments he and Charlotte spent together at Delhi and in Odisha. From his bag he use to take out a shirt in which Charlotte had stitched with her own hands in red yarn the two English alphabets “PK” in an interlocked position. He used to keep this shirt beneath his head and sleep while thinking about his better half.

Near Kandahar Pradyumna witnessed a fatal car accident. There were two victims in it, a young lady and her boy friend. They were laying on the highway in a poll of blood. They unable to solicit help from the locals for the barrier of language. Pradyumna intervened and interpreted the language in English and took them to Kabul Hospital. His assistance proved angelical and both the victims survived. The lady was Miss Liene M. of Vienna who was working as an assistant in the oldest art gallery of Vienna by the name Gallery-10. She was much moved by the timely help of Pradyumna and bought him one train ticket to travel from Istanbul to Vienna, the capital of Austria. He boarded the inter-continental train. He was the lone black passenger in the compartment, while the rest were all elite white Europeans. As days together he did not had a bath, his body and the wardrobe were stinking. The expedition now got easier on his part as he travelled a great distance by the train.

On reaching Vienna, the capital of Austria he went to Gallery-10 where Miss Liene was working. He sold to this gallery all his paintings that he did on route. After a couple of weeks the gallery owner Manfred Scheer paid the money and bought him a train ticket for Gothenburg, Sweden. While the train was crossing the international border of Germany the police entered the compartment along with the sniffer dogs to do the routine checking. Looking at the filthy appearance of Pradyumna wearing an unknown Oriya attire called dhoti and kurta, they suspected him to be a drugs peddler. They searched his bags that were wrapped with rags, but could not found any narcotic substances except a few tubes of paints, brushes, pencils and dress materials. And they let him go.

Pradyumna traveled through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Germany, Austria, and Denmark constituting one fourth of the circumference of this planet by catching one flight, changing four cycles and two trains over a period of four months and three weeks. He reached the border of the Scandinavian country Sweden on 28^th May 1977. In the Immigration Office the official questioned him about his motive of coming to Sweden. Pradyumna explained he want to meet his Swedish wife Von Schedvin Charlotte. The officials murmured something in Swedish language in a disbelieve. They asked for the supporting documents as a proof. From his bag Pradyumna took out his wedding photographs and the letters which they have exchanged. Those officers could not believe a lady carrying the title of “Von” could ever be a wife of this worn out, filthy black. It was then Pradyumna discovered that his wife, Charlotte Von Schedvin, was not an ordinary European girl. She is a member of the Swedish Nobility, which is equivalent to the House of Lords of United Kingdom. One of her family’s ancestors was awarded the title of “Von” by the then king of Sweden as a reward to subdue the queen’s plan to oust the king. Charlotte belongs to the highest ranks of European society, but while in India she never revealed this to Pradyumna so as to maintain the domestic equilibrium.

Unlike in other countries, the Swedish immigration officials were very cordial with Pradyumna. They allowed him to call Charlotte over the phone from their office. And in no time Charlotte rushed in her car with thousand buds blooming in her heart to receive Pradyumna. She came and hugged him saying “Volkem Pradyumna, Volkem”.

Charlotte took Pradyumna to her home. Her parents accepted Pradyumna gracefully as their son-in-law for all the troubles he had undertaken to reach Sweden in a cycle from India. For the past 38 years Pradyumna and Charlotte are leading a serene life in the company of each other at Borås in Sweden. They have been blessed with two children. The elder one is a daughter Emelie, who is a faculty in handloom textile designing. On the other hand the younger one is a son Sidharth, who is a helicopter pilot. It is Charlotte who was instrumental to make her family stand together in the upheaval of the domestic life. Like in any other families this couple too have differences, but Charlotte never set any standards for Pradyumna to meet her stature. Pradyumna makes it a point to visit India along with his family members every winter. And when they reach Kandhapada, there become an annual fair and celebration called jatra in this village.