Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love: 'You won't find any other love story that is so beautiful' Grazia

by Per J Andersson, Anna Holmwood (Translator)

Overview

WINNER OF THE MARCO POLO OUTSTANDING GENERAL TRAVEL THEMED BOOK OF THE YEAR AT THE 2018 EDWARD STANFORD TRAVEL WRITING AWARDS

The story begins in a public square in New Delhi. On a cold December evening a young European woman of noble descent appears before an Indian street artist known locally as PK and asks him to paint her portrait – it is an encounter that will change their lives irrevocably.

PK was not born in the city. He grew up in a small remote village on the edge of the jungle in East India, and his childhood as an untouchable was one of crushing hardship. He was forced to sit outside the classroom during school, would watch classmates wash themselves if they came into contact with him, and had stones thrown at him when he approached the village temple. According to the priests, PK dirtied everything that was pure and holy. But had PK not been an untouchable, his life would have turned out very differently.

This is the remarkable true story of how love and courage led PK to overcome extreme poverty, caste prejudice and adversity – as well as a 7,000-mile, adventure-filled journey across continents and cultures – to be with the woman he loved.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786072085
Publisher:	Oneworld Publications
Publication date:	03/13/2018
Edition description:	B FORMAT
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Per J Andersson is a writer and journalist. He is the co-founder of Sweden’s most well-known traveller’s magazine Vagabond, and has been visiting India for the last 30 years. He lives in Stockholm.

Anna Holmwood translates literature from Chinese and Swedish to English. She was awarded one of the first British Centre for Literary Translation mentorship awards in 2010 and is currently working on a major series of Chinese martial arts novels by Jin Yong for MacLehose Press. In 2011 she co-founded the Emerging Translators’ Network to support early career translators, and was elected to the UK Translators Association committee in 2012. She lives in China.

Interviews

This book is about your 1970s bicycle journey from India to Sweden for love, but it is also a fascinating look at your entire life: you were a child of the forest who wore nothing but a peacock feather and escaped an elephant attack, you grew into a young starving artist in the 60s, drawing portraits by a fountain to make enough money for food, and you’re now active in arts education and international politics, fighting for an end to the discrimination you were subjected to as a child. What would you say is your biggest achievement of all?

I think of my life as a series of meetings with others. Some of those meetings have been like hard lessons to be learned and some have been blessings.

I needed both to experience and understand my life’s journey and the real value of life. Of all of the lessons and blessings of my life, love is my biggest achievement — winning the heart of a woman, my wife Charlotte (Lotta), who gave me unconditional love and the power to forgive others —those who


What did it mean to be an “untouchable” in India when you were growing up in the 50s? Does the caste system still exist in the same way today?

To be an “untouchable” when I was young meant that you were rejected as a human from society when you were born — you were regarded as below even farm animals and dogs.

The caste system does still exist in India today in a sophisticated way, like when it comes to marriage, and it is sometimes still very brutal. You can read stories about it in Indian newspapers.

Fundamentally Indians are good, warm-hearted people, but they are encouraged to do bad things because of this system that is pre-medieval in its practices.

My mother used to say you cannot ferry yourself by two boats at the same time by placing your feet on each boat, one new and other old & broken. In this metaphor for India, democracy is the new boat and the caste system — which think of as being like a skyscraper without an elevator — is the old one.


Is there anything you miss about your boyhood?

I miss my Mother, through whom I came to this world and who welcomed me to this planet first. I also miss the elephant, Sambhu, who I used to ride and play with when I was young.


For a few years in art school in the 70s, you survived by drawing people’s portraits by a large fountain in New Delhi. You were befriended by some powerful people, including Valentina Tereshkova, the first female Russian cosmonaut, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the US Ambassador to India, and perhaps most important of all, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Can you tell us about these years of your life? Were they happy ones?

I lived between hope and despair in New Delhi at art school. Meetings with Valentina, Moynihan and Indira became blessings for me. They gave me hope to continue living my life with successes that lead to happiness.

Valentina opened up my mind into space, infinity, the woman power which was very similar to tribal and indigenous beliefs where the power of Mother Earth is the highest.

Moynihan taught me the power of family values. A healthy nation is possible if its families are healthy.

Indira was a strong, daring and remarkable woman. I learned from her to have faith in myself and to say goodbye to the doubts and fears of life.


Your great love story starts in December 1975 when you met Charlotte, a Swedish tourist, when she was in line to have her portrait drawn. It was love at first sight for you both, but Charlotte had to return to Sweden. A few months later, you decided to undertake the long journey to be with her — if you had known how difficult trip would be, would you still have undertaken it?

Yes, because I had nothing to lose except my life, which was already labeled as below human. I was determined to meet her again in this life or the next life. They say “Love is Blind" and I was blind in thinking desperately that it was “Do or Die” – meet her and make a better life for me and my future family or die trying.


The route you took from India to Sweden was called the “Hippie Trail,” which many American and British young people travelled in the 60s, seeking enlightenment in the East. You had $80 USD and a few hundred rupees. What was it like out on the trail with so little money and no friends?

Yes I had little money but I made many friends on the Hippie Trail who were very helpful, some fed me and instructed me how best to reach my goal. In return I gave them quick sketches of themselves – caricatures you would call them now, like what a tourist gets in Central Park.

I never met anyone on the Hippie Trail whom I disliked. It was a different time, a different world of love and peace and, of course, freedom — especially freedom to do what you love to do.

My permanent friend was my own shadow on land and my reflection in water.

In good weather, I met the beautiful, bright rising sun in the morning and in the evening, I saw the colorful setting sun — but never on the same landscape.


A news outlet recently called your relationship with Lotta the “greatest love story of the century.” What is your secret to a happy marriage?

Charlotte and I are happy to hear that millions of people are inspired by our story irrespective of race, gender, age and nationality! We feel this story has become for the people, of the people, by the people and with the people. We are happily married more than 40 years, and the secret to a happy marriage is there is no secret at all — but simple, heartfelt openness to each other is important and needed to maintain understanding and respect for each other. Marriage is a union not only physically but also spiritually. Recognizing that allows love to then grow like ripples on water.

Editorial Reviews

'This is a story of human connection that spans continents, class, and race.'

Library Journal

‘Charming...epic...a journey repeatedly facilitated by the kindness of strangers, but also fraught with danger and pitfalls...[a] 7,000-mile journey across continents, lasting almost five months – all in the name of love.’

Daily Mail

'A beautiful, epic tale of love and perseverance.'

Booklist

'A wonderful love story.'

National Geographic’s Best Books of 2017

‘[This] is one of those genuinely illuminating stories that come along once in a while. At heart an against-all-odds love story, this wonderful book does so much to explain why Indian society is the way it is. The story of PK, growing up an 'untouchable' at a time when such labels should have been abolished, is touching, harrowing and ultimately enlightening. The writing is humorous and tender, the cast of characters joyous, and best of all – it's all true.’

author of The Baby Ganesh Detective Agency Series Vaseem Khan

'A feel-good story that’s so feel-good it makes other feel-good stories feel bad.'

New York Times Book Review

‘A must-read because you won’t find any other love story that is so beautiful, touching, and – above all – true’

Grazia

'Often filled with sumptuous prose.'

Publishers Weekly

'A wonderful love story.'

National Geographics Best Books of 2017

'A wonderful love story.'

National Geographic’s Best Books of 2017

To read [PK's] biography, The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love…is to absorb a feel-good story that's so feel-good it makes other feel-good stories feel bad.

The New York Times Book Review - Liesl Schillinger

‘Charming...epic...a journey repeatedly facilitated by the kindness of strangers, but also fraught with danger and pitfalls...[a] 7,000-mile journey across continents, lasting almost five months – all in the name of love.’

Daily Mail

'A beautiful, epic tale of love and perseverance.'

Booklist

A romance, a travelogue, and a cultural critique… filled with sumptuous prose. [PK’s] determination is more than enough to keep readers enthralled.”


— Publishers Weekly


"Positive thinking is a power that Pradyumna Kumar harnesses at an early age. Born into the Harijan (untouchable) caste in a small town in eastern India, Kumar faces discrimination yet rises above the harassment. He receives an art scholarship to a prestigious school in Delhi, but his money is siphoned off by a corrupt bureaucrat, leaving him hungry and homeless. Kumar supports himself during art school by drawing portraits of people in a public square. Befriending everyone he meets, including the police, a Russian cosmonaut, and Western hippies, Kumar develops an extensive network of friends. Eventually, he paints Lotta, a serious young woman from Sweden, and falls instantly in love. They have a monthlong romance before Lotta returns to Sweden on a VW bus. A few months later, Kumar embarks on a bicycle journey from India to Sweden to rejoin Lotta. Journalist Andersson (cofounder of Swedish travel magazine Vagabond) and translator Holmwood explain how Kumar relies on his connections and his art to find his one true love. VERDICT Part biography, part travelog, and part love story, this book will appeal to the optimistic, the romantic, and the armchair traveler. This is a story of human connection that spans continents, class, and race. ”


—Library Journal

“Swedish travel-journalist Andersson tells a story of adventure, transcendence, and, best of all, uncompromising love. Born under a rainbow, Pradyumna Kumar, known as PK, grew up poor but was prophesied for greatness in spite of the limitations of his caste. An astrologer foretold that PK would study, work with color, marry a girl not from the village, not even from India; that she would also be an artist, and would, improbably, own a jungle. Before beginning school, PK had no understanding of the caste system that both defined and excluded him. He and his family were Dalit, the so-called untouchables. After surviving many years of prejudice, PK attends art school in the 1970s, always pushed along by the prophecy. He earns acclaim drawing portraits in a park, which is where he meets a Swedish woman, Charlotte von Schendin. Love blooms quickly, but Lotta must return home. With nothing but his meager art supplies and his secondhand bicycle, PK sets out across Asia, bound for Sweden and the woman he loves. A beautiful, epic tale of love and perseverance.”


—Booklist

From the Publisher