LOVE IS GOLDEN
Blacktown Advocate (Australia)
April 19, 2006 Wednesday
IT was love at first sight for Khorand Zeinali.
Fifty years ago the then goldsmith met his future wife Salbi at a
market in Tehran, Iran. The next day he visited her hairdressing
salon and asked her hand in marriage.
The couple, Christian Armenians, were married 18 days later.
“I felt in my heart she was right for me,” Mr Zeinali, now 75, said.
Though Salbi was at first coy demanding that her suitor ask her
parents for permission first the sentiments were mutual.
“I knew his family, I knew they were nice people . . . and he was
such a handsome man,” Mrs Zeinali, 66, said.
The couple spoke to the Advocate in Farsi as their daughter translated.
While Mrs Zeinali moved to their Marayong home eight years ago,
her husband could not make arrangements to follow from Tehran for
another three years.
They say the separation was tempered by a constant exchange of love
letters and international phone calls.
“It was like I had the world again when I saw her again,” Mr Zeinali
said.
They have five children three living in Sydney and 14 grandchildren.