Vajpayee holidaying in Manali. (PTI file picture)

Chandigarh, Oct. 2: Atal Bihari Vajpayee is not the only one to have fallen in love with the serene surroundings of Kullu and Manali. Scores of visitors from foreign shores have been so smitten, they haven?t left.

If the former Prime Minister makes it a point to vacation at least once a year amid the verdant valleys criss-crossed by meandering rivulets, the foreigners are taking Indian spouses and settling down for good.

Nearly every village surrounding Manali has at least one local married to a foreigner. They have been coming in dozens and adopting the local dialect, dress and culture.

?The valley has become a hub for foreigners. While some settle down for the climate, there are many who stay back because of the easy availability of drugs. The data on such marriages is probably not even 10 per cent of the total figure,? a senior district official said.

Weddings in the populated areas are easy to tabulate. But those in the inaccessible pockets of the two valleys of the lower Himalayas often go unnoticed.

Police records show less than 50 foreigners have tied the knot. Unofficially, the figure is said to be nearly four times higher. Many of the marriages are not registered.

?It is a difficult terrain.? Whenever we get information of foreigners being sighted with locals, we send teams to locate them. Many deny they have married. But subsequent investigations show that some may have tied the knot,? said the district official.

Though there has been a boom recently, it is not a recent phenomenon. French national Veyrard Gilbert has been married to Heera Devi of Naggar village, which boasts of half-a-dozen foreigner-local marriages, for the past 26 years.

At home with the local dialect, the kurta-pyjama and the colourful Kullu cap, Gilbert, who has four daughters, looks every inch a Himachali. He says beauty ? of his wife and the place ? kept him in Naggar.

?I too work in the fields like everybody else. I have opened a guesthouse to sustain the family during the lean season,? he said. ?I am a resident non-Indian now.?

Like Russian painter Nicholas Roerich, who made Naggar his home in 1928. Although he did not marry locally, his son, Svetoslav, also a painter, married actor Devika Rani, who frequently visited the village.

Now, the family of retired air force officer Jai Chand is an album of the cross-cultural marriages. His son Deepak has married Oxana, a Russian. Deepak was her trekking guide when she came to India three years ago with Dutch friend Lisa.

Lisa met Harinder, Deepak?s friend, during the holiday and they are married too. All four share an interest in yoga and ayurveda. Deepak?s brother Vinod has found a Belgian bride, Nadia.

?They are happy and I am happy,? Chand said with a smile.

But not all marriages end on a happy note, police said. Recently, a girl from Kullu, who had married a Swede, was caught with drugs on the Indo-Nepal border while on the way for her ?honeymoon?. The husband slipped away, she was arrested.

The villages of choice for these settlers seem to be Raisen Bag and Katrai apart from Naggar. However, they are sprinkled along the entire stretch between Kullu and Manali.

And they are forever under the shadow of drugs. The twin valleys got a bad name since the invasion of the ganja-smoking hippies.

Most of the settlers claim they have nothing to do with the thriving cannabis and poppy cultivation in the area, but concede it is a major attraction for many coming to the area.

Christopher Old Meadow, who settled in Manali in 1981 after marrying Shanti Devi, lamented: ?The lure of drugs and the belief that it is freely available for foreigners hurts us. We are just like any other human being. It is only a few involved in the illegal trade. But the vast majority love god who abhors such activities.?