Tapan Ghoshal, who walked 1,460 km from Calcutta, in Delhi. Telegraph picture

New Delhi, Dec. 6: From a tea stall in Dum Dum Cantonment to Parliament, the journey has been long — and painful — for Tapan Ghoshal.

With one leg and a 10-year-old crutch, the 42-year-old may have hobbled through 1,460 km, but the goal he set out to achieve remains unfulfilled — meeting the President, Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi.

Not that he wanted a brush with fame, but to convey the message that people like him are often more capable than those fully-abled.

His efforts to get appointments with the leaders bore no fruit.

Ghoshal is now back home, living on hope, one of his few resources when he set out on August 6. He reached Delhi on November 30, walking about 15 km a day.

The walk through alien places, often sleeping in the open, won Ghoshal affection from the people he met.

Hotels were expensive, but his broken, mispronounced Hindi endeared him to dhaba owners, who would allow him to rest overnight.

An East Bengal fan, Ghoshal has been without a job since his stall was demolished by the local municipality six months ago. “I still want to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Sonia Gandhi,” he says.

“I’m sure she (Sonia) will meet me some day.”

His wife Jhuma has studied till her higher secondary and she can speak broken English. She is a housewife with no training in any field.

Hardships, though, are second nature to Ghoshal. At four, one of his legs had to be amputated after gangrene was detected. He remembers how the doctors at the municipal hospital tried to save his leg.

“No one has ever been as nice to me,” he reminisces.

That complaint stayed, till Assam excise minister Gautam Ray, who had seen him on television by chance, agreed to fund a part of the journey. Karimganj MP Lalit Mohan Sukhlabaidya then put him up at Assam House in Delhi. “He also took the papers to try and fix appointments.”

Sukhlabaidya says none of the appointments worked out because of “lack of planning”. Ghoshal did not apparently keep him posted about his itinerary.

Some of Ghoshal’s disappointment was flushed away, though, when he visited Parliament on December 1. “It was a great moment in my life.”

One unsuccessful bid to bring down the wall between busy VIPs and ordinary people is hardly enough to dampen his spirits. “We are more determined about life because of hardships we are forced to endure. All we need is sensitivity,” he says.

But why did he not go to Bengal MLAs or MPs? “They are beyond reach,” Ghoshal says. That won’t be sweet to Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee’s ears.