While reading an article about daily life in the Kurdish region of northern Iraq, this lovely story unfolded affirming that even in times of conflict, life goes on in happily surprising ways:

Ohmed is 28 and doing his Masters in Business Studies at the University of Kurdistan in Irbil.

In the intimacy of long car journeys, he told me how his part in a bizarre and somewhat cruel practical joke had turned into a proposal of marriage to a young woman called Nasreen.

He was now waiting for her father to approve the match and growing increasingly anxious as each day passed with no news.

None of it would have been possible without the mobile phone.

Even urban professional families in Iraq’s Kurdish region expect their sons and daughters to be spotlessly pure in thought and deed. Contact between the sexes is strictly controlled.

But the phone opens up new opportunities.

Nasreen’s college friends made use of it for a bit of mischief.

They borrowed Ohmed’s mobile to ring her repeatedly and hang up before she answered.

Then they teased her about the mystery number in her call log saying there were rumours she was having an affair with a married man and here was the evidence.

The culmination of the plot was to get Ohmed, older and therefore manly enough to be convincing, to phone again, wait this time for her to answer and pretend he was her lover.

“Who are you and why do you keep ringing?” she wailed, only to be told how cruel she was to deny what was going on between them.

Ohmed is a great charmer and even though she could not see his jet black hair and glittering eyes, Nasreen was obviously rather impressed by her first contact with this softly spoken stranger of the opposite sex.

She mentioned to her friends that she would not mind speaking to him again.

A daily, sometimes nightly, ritual began of long conversations, unchaperoned and unconstrained.

They fell in love without seeing each other in the flesh.

Then Ohmed drove to her street at a pre-arranged time, got out of the car, and stood near her house pretending to talk on his mobile.

She made some excuse to come outside and they glanced at each other discreetly to their mutual satisfaction.

All this took place, of course, without her parents knowing.

Like the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, the mobile was the romantic facilitator, a 21st Century substitute for the go-between, arranging assignations and delivering messages.

Fortunately there has been no rude awakening for Ohmed and Nasreen.

He managed to get an invitation to her home through a distant relative so they are now able to meet, though never alone.

Conversation in front of her parents is stiff and awkward but thanks to those lengthy private phone calls, they have probably got to know each other as well as many couples in more liberal societies.

I was worried I would have to leave the region before knowing whether Nasreen’s father would give them his blessing.

Ohmed was getting increasingly tense and, as the rhetoric from Turkey grew more belligerent, I imagined him exchanging T-shirt and jeans for military fatigues, a vision of disaster.

But on the romance side, at least, it is good news.

Her father has given his answer and it is yes.

The young couple will marry, perhaps as soon as a fortnight from now.

On that day, during the ceremony at least, their phones will be switched off.