LOVE IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS - Hoarding


-Kalyani Rama

I hate going to grocery stores. It is second on the list of my least favorite places. Diamond stores are first on that list. But today I had to show my face there. I did not stock up as I was preaching for people not to hoard goods. Now I need rice, as we eat rice every day. But there is no rice. I am sure I will be able to find lots of bags of rice in the different Indian, Bangladeshi, and Pakistani houses though. 
There was only one type of rice available. It is called diabetic rice. I bought a very small bag of that only. I do not have diabetes. But I am going to consume it now. What to do?  

Diabetic Rice

From another store, I have got another bag of Amitabh Bachchan, Bollywood Superstar rice. Never heard of that before!

Amitabh Bachchan, Bollywood Superstar rice

The racks for frozen bagels of a supermarket are all empty. So are salt, sugar, and flour racks. People are going to go to their graves with all these I suppose. There are no bananas. I couldn’t find the eggs we buy. As if the fall of Soviet Union is all over here again!

Frozen bagel racks of a super market

Salt, sugar, and flour racks of a super market
But I have nothing to worry about. I have come up with this logic. As most of the people's basements are full of goods now, when the next shipment comes, they will not have anything more to buy. I will get my turn to buy one bag of everything. I will not need to order eggs from Amazon. And my best friend Viji will not need to ship me rice and masoor dal(red lentil, our daily staple) from Dayton to Wisconsin.
Besides, my dog Poppy has her food. That was my biggest concern. Her food comes in big bags and she is just a small puppy.
Actually, we need to learn from her. She is a working breed and for Wisconsin winter she is not getting a chance to run her sprints outside. So, she has stopped eating breakfast and lunch. These days she is eating dinner only.
No wonder Border collie breeds are the most intelligent dogs in the world. But we humans think we are the smartest amongst all animals. But we are filling up our basements with goods which we will not be able to consume even. And we are doing it when others are not getting to buy daily essentials!
Poppy is gazing through the windows and thinking about the human condition with an empty bowl!

Poppy is pondering

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Kalyani Rama is a Bangladesh-born Bilingual author. She has seven published books in Bengali. Kalyani has written for the newspaper 'The Wisconsin State Journal', and other literary magazines.

Kalyani has received her Bachelor of Technology degree from IIT, Kharagpur, India in Electronics and Electrical Communication Engineering.

She is an Application Development Senior Engineer by profession and works in Madison, Wisconsin, USA.

Kalyani loves listening to people, animals, and trees.

Published Books:

‘Amar Ghoroya Golpo’(আমার ঘরোয়া গল্প) ;

‘Hater Patay Golpogulo’(হাতের পাতায় গল্পগুলো – ইয়াসুনারি কাওয়াবাতা);

‘Rat Brishti Bunohash’ (রাত বৃষ্টি বুনোহাঁস – অ্যান সেক্সটন, সিলভিয়া প্লাথ, মেরি অলিভারের কবিতা);

‘Moron Hote Jagi’ (মরণ হ’তে জাগি – হেনরিক ইবসেনের নাটক);

‘Reshom Guti’(রেশমগুটি);

'Jol Rong’(জলরঙ);

‘Dom Bondho’ (দমবন্ধ)

Website: http://www.kalyanirama.com/


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