Long Distance Relationship.

There’s this question of physical distance intervening in human relationships, I hear. I think about it too, at times. But, well, I don’t know!

I’ve seen ‘Love Aaj Kal’. Entertainment quotient wise - ok, but somehow couldn’t appreciate it much. It led to lot of my acquaintances saying that they could relate very well to it. (I’ll never understand few things in life - do people actually relate to movies or they just want to imitate them.)

Later, I came across this story, ‘The Japanese Wife’ by Kunal Basu which is now a movie as well. It is an unusual tale of two pen friends (a Bengali boy and a Japanese girl). They fall in love over letters and marry. Even over fifteen years of their marriage they do not meet and seldom talk on phone. In the end the boy dies without even meeting his spouse, the girl then comes to his village and leads her life as his widow.

Talk about any long distance relationship and I am sure ‘The Japanese Wife’ takes the cake. But I haven’t found anyone who could relate to even a part of the story.

Are appreciation and the ability to ‘relate’ to a story, fiction/ nonfiction result of convenience and glamour? Or do our faith, wisdom, society and upbringing also have a say? Between human relationships and physical distance, which is stronger, more valuable? Which one should define the other and what is for keepsake?