{"id":136787,"date":"2016-03-09T14:01:32","date_gmt":"2016-03-09T12:01:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/?p=136787"},"modified":"2016-03-09T14:01:32","modified_gmt":"2016-03-09T12:01:32","slug":"cycling-from-india-to-sweden-for-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2016\/03\/09\/cycling-from-india-to-sweden-for-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Cycling from India to Sweden For Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>PK Mahanandia was born in the lowest caste. He was one of \u2019the Untouchables\u2019 and as the result of that, people often beat him and even threw rocks at him. Charlotte Von Schedvin, on the other hand, was born into a rich Swedish family connected to the royalty. It seems almost impossible these two would ever meet, but they did.<\/strong><br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The \u2019Holywood styled\u2019 romance was born in 1975, when Charlotte finally managed to do the long wanted trip to India. At that time, PK was a broke art student, who got by through painting portraits of rich people and Von Schedvin ended up being one of his models.<\/p>\n<p>PK instantly remembered the prophecy his mother told him many years ago. According to the palm leaf horoscope, he was supposed to marry \u2019a white woman from a far away land\u2019, who was a Taurus. The family believed it so much, they didn\u2019t even arrange marriage for him. A very unusual decision at the time.<\/p>\n<p>So PK asked Charlotte about her zodiac sign and naturally, she was a Taurus. They both fell madly in love and became inseparable for the next month, but after that Von Schedvin had to leave and PK still had one year left of art school in India.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/03\/PK-Charulata11.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-136793\" src=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/03\/PK-Charulata11-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"The \u2019Holywood styled\u2019 romance was born in 1975, when Charlotte finally managed to do the long wanted trip to India. At that time, PK was a broke art student, who got by through painting portraits of rich people and Von Schedvin ended up being one of his models.\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>He was determined to see his love again though, and in January 1977 sent a letter to Charlotte, in which he described his plan to cycle to Sweden and marry her.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When I was with her, I felt taller than the sky. I was no longer an outcast. It changed my attitude to myself inside,&#8221; said PK of his love for Charlotte in an interview for CNN.<\/p>\n<p>Mahanandia sold everything he owned and, because only a Maharaja could afford a plane ticket at that time, climbed on his bicycle and took off. He chose the \u2018Hippie Trail\u2019, a popular route that stretched from India all the way to Yugoslavia in Europe. At that time the region was really safe, so the passage through Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey was no problem at all. In reality many hippie buses (hence the name of the trail) regularly departed from Western Europe for India using this route.<\/p>\n<p>PK cycled up to 70 kilometers per day but admits he took lifts whenever it was possible.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/03\/pkold.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-136789\" src=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2016\/03\/pkold-600x823.jpg\" alt=\"PK instantly remembered the prophecy his mother told him many years ago. According to the palm leaf horoscope, he was supposed to marry \u2019a white woman from a far away land\u2019, who was a Taurus. The family believed it so much, they didn\u2019t even arrange marriage for him. A very unusual decision at the time.\" width=\"600\" height=\"823\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I bicycled for love, but I never loved biking,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The whole trip took him just over four months to finish, but the authorities weren\u2019t impressed with his achievement. They couldn\u2019t believe Von Schedvin, who was of royal blood, would marry a poor guy from India and at that moment, even Mahanandia stumbled.<\/p>\n<p>But Charlotte, on the other hand, didn\u2019t hesitate at all, and drove down to Gothenburg to greet her new husband. And even though some suggested this might only be a holiday fling, forty years later, the couple is still together and very much in love.<\/p>\n<p>Their story might be soon turned into a movie, as Bollywood director Sanjay Leela Bhansali is very interested in their story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PK Mahanandia was born in the lowest caste. He was one of \u2019the Untouchables\u2019 and as the result of that, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":136790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[328,329,334],"tags":[],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-136787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-outdoor-mountain","category-road-cycling","category-socialising-and-culture"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.3 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cycling from India to Sweden For Love - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"PK Mahanandia was born in the lowest caste. 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