The Distance between Delhi and Kolkata

The distance between Delhi and Kolkata, Falguni writes, is not elastic and you can feel the utter helplessness and homesickness around this time, that always creeps up and grabs the Bengalis hard. CR park cannot fulfill the aspirations of an entire race seeking salvation in duplicity of it's favorite festival. Although, it's a two hour aeroplane journey or an 18 hour long train journey, the Bongs still whine a lot, it's something about their weather. Parminder who cycled all the way from Multan to Delhi did witness radical changes every 5 hours, he wonders if he would see the same from Bengal to Delhi- he would know when the humid marshlands will give up to the ancient plains of Magadha, to the entire old world where people have grown like vermin, because life was too easy- because "ish Desh mein Ganga behti Hain". 

The distance between two cities is never much, by air, by rail, and yet these people are complaining, says Falguni, who took the Sher Shah route herself; and then her life changed. Like Parminder when she decided to cycle all the way from Kolkata to Delhi, she realized how far she was away from home. If one day, all the planes were grounded and all the railway lines were usurped, she would be locked in a strange distant land far, far away from home, and that thought was reason enough to feel the way thousands around her felt- helpless and homeless, a broken being yearning to return to places that were inside them when they were young, places that were them long before they became themselves- places with lush green fields, and rivers and fishes, where you could sweat and swim, where there are forgiving thunderstorms, the blackness of the sky and around this time the greatest festival of all - you know.