Runaway Internet bride finds home in India

SAHIBABAD: It all began with an online "Hi", followed by a cyberspace secret love affair crossing the Hindu-Muslim religious divide, and then a clandestine journey from East London to India.   But Subia Gaur, an 18-year-old Muslim from London, has no regrets about her marriage to Ashwani Gupta, 21, even though it entailed shifting to a spartan home near New Delhi which has no drainage, a patchy water supply and the occasional cow peering in.

"Back home, I'd have called the police or the fire brigade," laughed Gaur, after one free-roaming bovine mooed through the window.

"It's different, but it's cool. I've now found home. My life's sorted out," said Gaur as she snuggled up to Gupta, with whom she tied the knot on the fifth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.

After their first online contact several years ago, "we exchanged photographs on the Net and we knew then and there we had to be together, forever," she said in Sahibabad, an industrial township 45 kilometres from New Delhi.

 "We chatted every day since then except on the weekends when our dads would be home, and we fell deeply and irreversibly in love," added Gupta, who is studying to become a financial consultant. 

The love-struck couple did not meet until April this year when Gaur visited her grandparents in Mumbai and Gupta took a 1,100-kilometre train-ride to be with his prospective bride. 

 Last month, Gaur fled her family home in Plaistow, East London, causing enormous interest -- and some concern -- in India where a chasm of mistrust still exists between Hindus and Muslims. Their Hindu wedding was broadcast by television stations across the subcontinent and attended by 1,500 uninvited guests.

 "We knew in our hearts that we could not wait too long or everything would have been ruined. So we married and now we are in control of our lives," said Gupta, who hopes to work in New York after studies in India.   

 Abdul Gaur, the runaway bride's father who settled in Britain in 1999, initially charged Gupta with abduction. But police in Sahibabad instead offered protection for the couple.

 Gupta also has problems winning over his mother-in-law, who has demanded he convert to Islam. "But now everything's sorted out and I spoke to my mother and sister and they're cool," said Gaur, as her mother-in-law prepared lunch for the couple. 

 Gupta's family appears happier.  "Never in our wildest dreams had we thought our son would marry so early in age. Now it's done, Subia is family and there's no question of her converting to Hinduism. We love her as she is," his mother said.

"Our happiness lies in the happiness of our son," said his father, a merchant in Sahibabad.

Farhana Begum, a social activist and Muslim, was full of praise for the bold young couple. "Let this marriage go out as a strong message to all tormented young people, that to fall in love is not forbidden," he said.