23 years back

23 years back, on February 8th, 1998 we came to Wisconsin with our two dogs and four suitcases. Those suitcases had our Bengali books, and a stainless steel cooking pan. We were too scared to bring my Grandmother’s ‘boroi achar’ for customs and all!!! Life started from zero all over again…

There was snow on the ground. We have seen some snow before, but our dogs Simba and Tongsha came from Kolkata. Ice was available only in the Freezer there!!! It was a very long journey for our 'canine babies.' In fact, at the Dumdum airport, the porters were so surprised! They were telling us how lucky these dogs were, going to the USA! And I was panicking like crazy as one of the porters was proudly telling us about his glorious work experience! He did this kind of 'overseas doggy transport' some five years back, “ONCE”!!!
Tongsha and Simba made it to USA safely. They were a little scared of all the white stuff on the ground at the beginning though. We got all these boots and coats for them, though 'Mounds' ripped us off. They took $60 for the doggy boots!!!

From the office they gave us a rental car. Well, we learnt some driving at the Salt Lake driving school before coming here, but we had no clue of how to fill gas. So we kept looking at people at the gas stations for almost a week. Life is ‘SELF SERVICE CAR WASH’ in this country!!!
We used to feel so at home keeping our Hotel room temperature at some 90F!!! We learned that ‘Wal-mart’ was the place to buy things. And ‘Morton’ IS the salt!!!!
Adjusting and re-adjusting of the room thermostat continued...Then from heaven came summer, in this frozen land!!!

But our Tongsha and Simba’s barking at everybody didn’t stop. We rented a farmhouse in the Prairie hoping no neighbors would complain! And then there were ‘Black Susans’ everywhere…
After 23 years, even today, every winter we dream of flying off to some far-away warm place…

Then May comes. ...And we start dancing with the 'Daffodils', we sing with the ‘Blue Grosbeaks’… and with twigs we keep building a nest just like the 'Robins'…high on a 'Silver Birch' tree…

Monday, February 8, 2021

A dark-eyed Junco

We rented this 150-year-old farmhouse

Black Susan

Robin eggs

Daffodils


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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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