Honeymoon Travels -- Director: Sushma Swaraj

Delhi couple Faizan Patel and his wife Sana Fatima returned from their fairytale honeymoon on Sunday. The couple had almost missed out on the trip, were it not for External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj - the fairy godmother, who made their dream of honeymooning in Italy come true. After Sana's passport went missing, a tweet to Swaraj was all it took to get her team to ensure she was issued a duplicate passport at the earliest.

Faizan Patel and Sana Fatima, after Sana landed in Florence

The couple got married on December 12, 2015, in Rampur in Uttar Pradesh and opted for a three-day honeymoon to Jim Corbett Park due to work commitments. "We had decided to take a two-week honeymoon to Italy once we had settled. In July, we got our visas in a record time of two days. I was ecstatic, and booked tickets for August 7. I placed the passports on my work desk, where I could see them every day. Just a build-up to the excitement that we were finally going," said Patel, a photographer, over the phone.

Where's the passport?
On the night of August 4, Patel and Sana began packing, only to realise that her passport was nowhere in sight. "Till date, I am not sure of whether it got stolen or how it got misplaced," says Patel. "We spent the rest of the days calling friends over to help us find the passport. In fact, before we applied for our visas, Sana was teasing me that I might not get the visa and she would have to go alone. Turns out, the joke was on her," he laughed.

Patel had almost decided on cancelling the trip, if it weren't for the non-refundable tickets and stay bookings. "Sana coaxed me to go for the trip, and I had already signed some collaborations with brands and didn't want to cancel at the last minute," he added.

Tweets to the rescue
On August 8, at the Delhi airport, he took a selfie with his wife and tweeted: ‘Travelling to Italy without wifey.' Thus began his solo honeymoon trip and his few days as a star on social media, with followers following his quirky messages and pictures with Sana's photographs in many moods. All attempts to get a duplicate passport on an urgent basis failed. "Someone suggested I tweet to Sushma Swaraj, who is pretty active. On the night of the flight, I put up a picture of me in the plane next to Sana's photograph, and wrote: This is how I am travelling with my wife as of now. @SushmaSwaraj."

Patel was carrying pictures of Sana in different moods, to take pictures on the trip as a gesture that he was missing her. His witty posts drew attention of the international media too. He was featured on a radio channel in Naples called Kiss Kiss as well as BBC radio.

Sushma to the rescue
When Patel landed in Milan, and switched on his phone, he realised that his tweet had gone viral and that Swaraj had actually replied.

"I sent her a direct message, asking how my wife can contact her, and she asked me for her number. By the time I sent a WhatsApp message to Sana, she had already got a call from Swaraj's PA. She was asked to go to the Delhi passport office with the documents the next day," said Patel, who had first thought not much would come of this.

"But when the process of getting a duplicate passport started, I was excited. An Indian politician going out of her way to help a layman is a big gesture. I got trolled on social media too, but I got used to it," Faizan said.

Throughout the trip, Patel posed with his wife's photo at the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Rome to trains and restaurants in Venice.

On August 10, Sana joined him in Florence, and for the rest of their honeymoon, her pictures were left behind in the hotel room.