How far will you go for love?

635 letters, 3 phone calls, 15 years of marriage but they have not met…how far will you go for love?

This is the caption for the story titled “The Japanese wife” written by Dr. Kunal Basu. When I saw the movie with the same title and storyline, I must say the story took me into another world. It is a story of Snehamoy, a schoolteacher in the village of Sunderbans, West Bengal and Miyage, a young girl in Japan. They meet through letters, knew each other through letters even when they were not very good in English. He was a student when they started their journey together and she was a young girl taking care of her mother and her family small shop. They used to write letters regularly. Years passed. They became close and started loving each other. Both decided to get married. But, neither he had enough money to go to Japan nor she had to come to India. But their bond was not so weak that distance will make its way through it. They decided to marry through letter. They got married. She used to send him gifts, she used to make socks, sweaters for him and send it to him. With her gifts, his room was full with her presence. He used to send her Saree, bangles, flowers, kumkum to put on as Indian wives put on forehead. With his sent gifts, her home thousand miles away from India was full of his presence. They were living a happy married life for years after years being miles away. 15 years like this passed away. 15 years! Without seeing each other they loved so much that nothing could change it. She was not feeling well for quite long time. Then she informed she was having cancer. He took 6 months leave from school and ran around whole city to consult doctors, and all sorts of treatments. He used to send her the herbs for treatment. On the 15 year of their anniversary, she sent him a box full of kites. Their gifts were so precious for them. The gifts used to bring the touch, the smell of the other one. They could feel each other through these gifts. He ran so much that he fall sick and suffered from severe fever. It was rainy season so the post office could not deliver letter for long time. He was going mad without her letter. He was not getting well too. Months passed without any letter. His aunt suggested him to get married but he never considered that. He died and till the last day he kept uttering her name and died holding the last letter from her to his chest. She came to India after some months to his house where she felt him everywhere. Even when he was not there she could feel his smell, his love, his presence in every corner of that house. They became together for the first time even when they did not see each other yet. They went this far for their love.

Does it sound strange? What kind of people are these? 15 years of love without seeing each other, just through letters! Can any word describe their love? They loved each other so much that even being miles away their love never faded away even a bit. They loved each other more every passing day. Nothing could distract them from loving each other. Their trust, their love was that strong. Life changes at every moment thus we should know the price of everything that we have before we lose it in the course of life. They understood that and so they kept on their promise and loved each other till the last breath. They made history just by loving each other so much. Every relation has a fine and a gross layer. If the fine layer is strong and intact we do not have to care for the gross one as it is taken care of. The fine layer is trust and love and nothing else. The gross is other all stuff. We sometime give preference to gross layer so much that the finer part fades away. The life goes on but it will not be the same anymore if the finer part gets lost. We keep searching for our existence and run away but never find peace as the peace we left long back. They preferred to love each other and nothing else. So even when they could not meet, they were the happiest. Their trust for each other and love kept them going. They were not lost as they had each other forever. 

Thus, the question that really matters a lot is - how far will you go for love?