Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, July 8

Natasha Natalie Sommer, a Danish woman and a self-confessed chat addict, meets a hardcore heroin addict in Gurdaspur through the Internet, travels nearly 6,000 km to find him, marries him and reforms him. A surreal love story, indeed.

Natasha, who belongs to a well-off Copenhagen family with her father owning a coffee shop and several car garages, on January 1 this year nonchalantly started chatting with her virtual friend, clicking on one Malkit Singh (33), who hails from Sundal village of Gurdsapur. On the very first day, Malkit candidly admitted that he had been into drugs for the last several months because he could no more tolerate his mother’s constant taunts for being unemployed.

“I took refuge in heroin. I confessed to Natasha that I had no job, was a junkie and was at the point of no-return,” he says.

Impressed with his “candour and sincerity", the Dane, a graduate, took a Qatar Airways flight to New Delhi three weeks later where she was received by her future husband, who brought her to his village. “My parents allowed me to fly to India and ever since have stood by me like a rock," says Natasha, who stayed in the nondescript village and tied the knot with Malkit on January 23 as per the Sikh rituals. Hundreds of villagers, bewildered by the turn of events, descended on Malkit’s residence to meet the "Mem".

On March 12, she took her husband to Belgrade (Serbia) to get him treated for addiction. The effect of heroin tapered off gradually and Malkit came out of the shackles of addiction. Apprehending that he may suffer a relapse, she brought him back to India in May and got him admitted to the Gurdaspur Red Cross de-addiction centre where project director Romesh Mahajan began treating him.

“I wanted him to heal in his home environ,” she says. Malkit is now off drugs and the couple is all set to start a new life in Denmark.

“Next week, my husband will apply for a Danish visa and after that we will settle down in my country. I plan to open a car garage for him. My parents, relatives and friends are eager to help us,” she says.