Last March 2020, when the whole world was shut down by the COVID-19 epidemic, the author’s friend Dr. Ranjit Biswas, senior professor at SN Bose National Center for Basic Science, Kolkata and Sahabul Islam, a teacher at Teghri Nazirpur Institution (Higher Secondary School), a resident of Padmanabpur, Hariharpara, started an e-literary magazine, named Jhingeful. The name of this e-magazine was after the famous Bengali poem “Jhingeful” written by the Bengali rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam. At their request, the author started writing regularly for this e-magazine on a variety of topics.
The author grew up in India, got a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry, and in the year 2000 moved to USA for post-doctoral studies. Since then, he has been living in Pennsylvania, USA for the last twenty-four years. In this book, the author recollects the journey of his life abroad, life stories of an immigrant and his experiences from being a part of the Bengali diaspora with a cross cultural perspective and reflection.
In this memoir the author covers a wide range of topics including travel, literature, religion, science, politics, socioeconomics issues, sports, cooking and writes with a humorous and satirical undertone. He skillfully weaves in his experience as an immigrant into the fabric of the stories.
The stories are not arranged in any particular chronological order. As he recollects the past he realizes his perceptions about life, religion, ideology, society have evolved resulting in a better understanding over time.