It was a happy ending to a love story that had to contend with a war and a pandemic when Anna Horodetska and Anubhav Bhasin got married in New Delhi on Sunday.
Anna, from Ukraine, had fled her war-torn homeland last month to marry the Indian man she had been dating for over a year. According to the BBC, the 30-year-old, who works for an IT firm, left her rented apartment in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv with only a couple of clothes and a coffee maker - given to her by her grandmother as a wedding present.
Anna arrived at the Delhi airport on March 17 - just days after Russian forces invaded Ukraine. She was welcomed to India by Anubhav Bhasin, the 33-year-old lawyer she'd been dating for just over a year. When Anubhav proposed to her by going down on one knee, Anna said yes.
On Sunday, the couple got married in an intimate ceremony in the national capital.
Anna Horodetska and Anubhav Bhasin’s love story spanning continents began when she was on a solo trip to India in August 2019.
The two got talking and added each other on Instagram. In early March 2020, Anna visited India again and met Anubhav. The unprecedented coronavirus-induced lockdown, however, meant that she was stuck in the country - and Anubhav invited her to stay with his family in Delhi.
"It was during that time that we grew very close, we realised we liked each other. We now knew this was more than a fling. After she returned to Kyiv, we kept in touch through daily video calls," he was quoted as saying by the BBC.
The pandemic disrupted their plans of meeting - the next time they saw each other was almost a year later in Dubai. After that, he visited her in Ukraine and she came to India in December 2021 again.
Anna and Anubhav, by this time, knew that they wanted to get married. They decided that she would fly down to India in March 2022 to begin the process of completing formalities associated with an inter-religious marriage.
But then the war happened.
"We knew that diplomacy had failed but we still thought war could be averted," says Anna. "Many of us also believed that the attacks would be concentrated on the border and that Kyiv would be safe.
"But on 24 February, I woke up to the sound of bombing and my first thought was, "Am I dreaming?" Then I saw messages from Anubhav and others confirming that we were under attack," she adds.
As shelling intensified, Anna and her mother and their dog moved to a bunker. After days of uncertainty, Anna’s mother and her dog were put on a train to her grandmother’s village, while she herself began an arduous journey out of Ukraine.
After she reached neighbouring Poland, Anna waited for two weeks while Anubhav worked with the Indian embassy to get her a visa. She was finally able to reach India on March 17 - and was greeted by a surprise proposal from Anubhav.
Anna plans to return to Ukraine once the war is over to "wrap up things and pick up my dog".
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