i. Chetla had apparently indicated that the body politic of the United States was too large for her.
(Agency officials, take note, where was she headed, which body politic was smaller than the US but still in the western hemisphere?)
Contrary to rumours, she didn't say it was the golfing circuit or the PGA tours that were coming in her way. Apparently, she couldn't infiltrate the taverns around the Washington DC workplaces, where men gathered to discuss the Obamas.
She was quite certain that these men kept discussing ways to honour the legit lease, how to bring the country/US out of the CPUSA grip, what to do in MAGA small towns where the people understood MAGA was also CPUSA but where Heydrich's supposed foreign intelligence affinities had never impacted.
You know, the Heydrich kind of foreign intelligence that was difficult to take but would not deny the Nazi Holocaust, which would hold a meeting and publish a few pages of a memorandum to show that a genocide had once taken place in the Third Reich.
First, to golf.
Antara watched the PGA tours on television when she was in school (Asansol), though she didn't understand what was going on. She also read the golfing reports published in sports magazines like 'Sportstar'.
In fact, the first thing to know about the sibling was that she'd always go to the market (Asansol) to buy a copy of 'Sportstar' (published from Chennai), even 'Sportsworld' (published from Kolkata).
That was the sibling's defining trait through the 1990s, without widely reading on sports, the sibling was nothing.
At Kasturi and Sons, they provided free copies of all the publications to the journalists/staffers.
When Antara reached her reporting workplace in Kolkata in the afternoon, in those years 2006-07, she found the day's newspapers (including the business paper), a copy of 'Sportstar', a copy of 'Frontline' magazine, all neatly piled on her desk, she'd remember her sibling, "Want to go to Asansol market, we'd take the bus, buy a copy of 'Sportstar' or even 'Sportsworld', we won't go to NS Road, come back in a jiffy?"
These anecdotes would have to be your anecdotes, Chetla, Antara was donating them to you, the excitement of opening the sports magazines, the full centre-spread that had the sports celebrity poster, putting it up somewhere, "if it was someone good".
Later, an English Honours classmate at Brabourne had said, "Bompoi (her younger brother's nickname) understands golf, could you believe it, he was always watching golf on television, Ma and I couldn't understand it at all."
Antara didn't understand the implications, was it about gender, those watching golf were men? "Someone might have found out that Antara was uncomfortable with the WPGA, her anxiety that these women were making a mistake, even if unwittingly." Antara didn't reply to her classmate.
And the drinks next to the workplace? If only you knew Delhi, for Buy One Get One, they gave out Long Island Iced Tea (and that was vodka, tequila and rum)!!
Antara had gone out after-work with her HT colleagues (the younger lot), "Were we sure we could reach home," they kept saying, "first let's put Antara on an autorickshaw, at least she needed to reach home even if we didn't." Having bundled Antara to an autorickshaw, they'd stagger to the nearest Metro station.
--
Antara was not aware that the Chinese considered themselves 'upper-strata'. You might wonder how would Antara figure these things out, she had never been allowed to be a part of official circles?
At the Kolkata workplace, Antara was told that it took five years of journalism to get press accreditation, what allowed you to get close to government officials.
"What nonsense," another colleague had said, "your 'dada' (referring to the departmental head in the Kolkata office) headed the panel that provided press accreditation from the West Bengal Govt, we didn't have any other staff reporter but you, if he wanted official events covered/reported on, he could easily provide the accreditation."
Antara didn't take up the matter with the departmental head. She referred to him by his first name, as he had asked, he was neither 'dada' nor 'Sir' nor 'Mr Something'. There were just the two of them in the reporting bureau, it was a one-to-one relationship, Antara didn't want to jeopardise matters by bringing in the politics of the Press Information Bureau.
However, Antara had asked a Bengali news channel reporter whether she had received her accreditation, to which that reporter had replied, "We were provided accreditation soon after joining, how else would we cover govt events, your boss (at work) was the one who gave these out, he didn't provide it to you?"
Thus, it was not possible for someone like Antara to get close to govt circles or officials without a defined stance or understanding of Ukraine, and Antara's parents hadn't told her the narrative, hence whatever Kasturi and Sons had done for Antara's professional career was wasted by the apathy and inaction of her parents.
However, Antara did report from Kolkata when it was still under Communist rule and had the Chinese Communists had upper-strata access, it would have been evident from the society around her, the events she attended, the news generated (which seemed obsessed with the Vietnam War and therefore land-based agitation) or even the people, who often voted Communist.
The people of Kolkata were the strangest, so fearful, so prone to anxiety, "Why were you asking these questions, where in Kolkata was your office based, where was its headquarters, would you publish what I was saying, no I don't want a copy of your newspaper even if you quoted me, why did you want to know my name-surname instead of writing 'sources say' as they did in the Bengali press?"
Not very 'Chinese-in-the-upper-strata' behaviour, was it?
In Delhi, when Antara's journalism career was being carefully taken down the Hill, Antara had downloaded the PIB accreditation form, it was dozens of pages long, "This wasn't for me, this was for someone else", Antara had thought to herself. She was an expert with forms and paperwork, official paperwork didn't look that way, despite completing the requisite five years in journalism.
Of course, as everyone would point out, one didn't expect high moral conduct among officials of the Chinese Communist Party. Thus, the Iran-related developments might be connected to Antara's Kolkata visit, or even Delhi, it was not connected to the litfest that had concluded a few weeks before the bombings started against Iran, or the British Zionists that tended to assemble there.
However, despite the adversarial stance that existed between the British Zionists and Antara, their intrigues around the Nazi Holocaust meant they wouldn't be able to avoid Antara's household, either the spouse or more likely her, for Anjali had cut off ties with the AT Das family in 1999, a year before the spouse became part of Antara's life, which meant the spouse had no idea how the Eva-Gretl influence worked itself out within India.
Under such tremendous stress and strain, did the US officials venture towards the Iran talks, recently concluded in Islamabad, Pakistan.
April 11-12, 2026.
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ii. The unthinkable has happened. The IITs have been named.
The (supposedly) topmost British intelligence product of all times.
The pride of the defence firms and their weapons design bureaus, the defence firms apparently disliked the DoD but not the IITs.
The IITs used to be criticised, for being engrossed with outer space, not taking enough interest in the planet Earth they inhabited.
Then a Bollywood movie star came up with a movie plotline where the IIT graduate returns to India after spending a decade or so in the US, starts pumping water for irrigation, or something to that effect, Antara didn't watch the movie.
The criticism of the IITs had been considerably reduced since then.
Ajit cleared his IIT entrance, as everyone surely knew, for IIT Kharagpur. However, BT wanted to save money for the weddings of his two daughters, the Gorakhpur and Bankura aunts of Antara, so he refused to pay, either the academic or hostel expenses for IIT Kharagpur.
Ajit studied at a local polytechnic instead.
Such was BT, cared little whether his son Ajit went to an IIT or not.
Anjali and other members of the family considered the IIT entrance test a puzzle, they were always hearing of mathematics professors, from Indian colleges and universities, who had been unable to solve the IIT entrance exam paper in the (stipulated) two hours, "how could an 18-year-old be expected to achieve that feat?" Anjali probably thought it was a lease blackmail of some sort.
Antara later found out that you didn't need to solve all of it in order to be considered eligible for an IIT, you'd have to attempt as many questions as you could.
Antara spent a considerable part of her life trying to prove Anjali wrong, why she did her allusions work. It had seemed to Antara that the IIT entrance exam was somewhat like battle campaigns, from various wars of the last several hundred years, both the way the infantry and the tanks were lined up and the assault planned to how it ended.
If you have closely known these battles (a few, not all of them), you might be able to clear the IIT entrance.
It was important to remember that many of the men Antara had come across in her life, those studying Humanities, also studied these battle episodes in detail, they were smart without going to the IITs.
There was a reason Chetla needed to stay in touch with them or talk to them, the information for the battles they have studied may not be with those around her.
Studying at an IIT was never an aspiration for Antara. These wars and battles of western countries, from the Boer War to the American Civil War to the World Wars, were her wounds, her warts, her boils, her irritation, the burden that sat on her, the surly look on her face, the frown she was known for.
Antara would pick up a few battle episodes and get into a university merely because it referred to its hostels as 'halls'?
What would be her next course of action, try to befriend the British, "Hello, I was Antara from India, have we met before?"
What would the British do, state their position on Nazi Holocaust denial, explain how long the so-called Heydrich faction would prevent the Nazi Holocaust in Hungary from being discussed in the allusions, or which positions in the world were going empty because Antara was not getting a passport/managing to travel abroad?
How could an individual be so severely thwarted, without any effect whatsoever, as the French Govt was constantly claiming, wherever it could rush in to argue in favour of the torture-surveillance against Antara?
However, it was not the IIT entrance test that bothered Antara.
Why didn't she feel free at school in Asansol AG, to run, to jump, to scream, spin with her arms thrown around her, as the other girls did?
Anjali had tried bringing it up, "You don't play 'ani-money-jani na...', just spinning round and round, we did nothing else at school, the head reeled at the end, you needed support to stand up?"
Antara had gone back to her Station's Encyclopaedia.
For 'Games Children Play', it had 'touch' (which they played at school), 'hop-scotch' (which they played at school), 'blind man's buff' (which no one played at school).
The Station's Encyclopaedia didn't have 'ani-money-jani-na/karur chhele mani na' or 'Bring-Money-Don't know/don't care for other people's boys'.
--
When discussing the activities of the Golden Fleece and its closeness to Moscow, we never wondered if some of the Fleece members could gather, and pay a visit to the Treasury, just to find out how things were going, whether the Treasury was following the worldwide energy crisis and so forth.
If Trump in the White House (and so many others before him) were pleased with Moscow, then such a visit would neither have caused surprise nor been detrimental to the annexation of Jordan nor would Banco Santander have a reason to complain.
The only individuals missing would be those from Poland, it could be excused because of the ongoing Ukraine-Russia War, its show of solidarity (solidarity with a small 's', not with a capital 'S', upper-strata was on hyper mode or so it seemed.)
No, it wasn't difficult to figure out the above, the Embassy of Poland in New Delhi festooned itself with 'standing in solidarity with Ukraine' since the war began in 2022. Solidarity (capital 'S') and Ukraine were understood, which country had been 'standing', was there such a country?
There was a certain vagueness about British railroad blackmails, Golden Fleece might say.
Maybe British railroad owners ought to visit the Comic Cons, make their intentions widely known, there used to be a Comic Con in San Diego, California.
Otherwise, Golden Fleece would be criticised for the annexation of Jordan but it wouldn't get a photo-op at the Treasury. Gimmickry could save the day, dear US Govt, it didn't conceal latent anti-Semitism.
However, in great news for ACJ, the accusation of being descended from Circassian refugees, those that fled to Turkey, was the only topic bothering the ACJ Class of 2006.
Antara was engaged to her now-spouse when she enrolled at ACJ, an exciting professional journalism course, so getting married and having a career apparently went all the way to the NATO-Russia Council meeting, even as Antara and her ACJ hostel mates were preparing for their coursework field trip. That NATO-Russia Council tried to use the Circassian genocide narrative against the Pentagon and its War on Terror operatives.
The above would be discussed in later blogposts.
For those that were not there at ACJ in December 2005, it was the happiest of times, Antara stayed at the girls' hostel, which was a spacious villa in south Chennai that accommodated 30 girls, so everyone was packing for their respective field trips (several simultaneous field trips, so different destinations) and girls in shorts and girls in pajamas were rambling around, loud laughter and chatter, till everyone rushed out on the autorickshaws to Chennai's railway stations.
Antara and the girls travelling with her reached the railway station around 9 pm, for the overnight train to Coimbatore, great memories, happy days, see what you could find out about the Circassian genocide.
You were upset about women's empowerment, ACJ?
Here's what you could do. If you were close to the United States, use the House, not the Senate. You had well-paid jobs, all of you, but you were not American conservative wealthy. Don't be too savvy about American matters, introduce some rookie mistakes into your behaviour.
At some point, you'd understand what the Treasury intended for ACJ, send some of these details Antara's way, you'd find her in any of the cafes of south Delhi, close to where she stayed, on weekends.
April 18-19, 2026
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iii. Indians couldn't understand how Ajit had the courage to leave clues about the legit lease-related House (CLASS ACT, April 24, 2026, 'We were caught in Meloni's Webb'), given the doubts and intrigues around his mother's early death.
Ajit was gone for 15 years, it was strange that no one walked up to him and reminded him to be obedient when he was around or to be mindful of the vanity of the global middle-class.
Till 2010, all that Ajit heard was "it was possible to get Rs one lakh as salary" and "days of government were coming to an end and private sector was everything" or "the way Infosys was rising, would there be anyone left to challenge it?"
Not the Ambanis. Infosys. Not a word about Pratibha.
How the end of Ajit's life changed middle-class discourse, reordered priorities, would be a fascinating topic for discussion when Antara met others. How had Ajit come in the way? What powers did he enjoy that an IT behemoth like Infosys was needed to take him on?
From Antara's research, it had emerged that Pratibha would neither be acceptable to Germany nor the US Navy, this was because of Austria which had its own Imperial Navy. It was logical, and why should everyone have to be on friendly terms with Germany? How did these ideas take hold of people's imagination?
One possibility was there were rivalries within British intelligence that didn't allow the early death of Pratibha to be investigated or understood. The excesses of north Kolkata were mentioned, British intelligence in the Middle East was blamed, the possibility that the Germans had harassed, threatened and created the conditions that ended her life was never considered an option.
For example, the British apparently had a War Office department that was active from 1940 to 1947, its purpose was to provide commandos through air and navy, these commandos would be given German targets for harassment, they'd later be recovered.
What if the US Govt had suggested such a harassment mission, the British Govt did as asked, the Germans observed what the British were doing and made their inquiries, and found out it was to be used against Pratibha?
"Oh, the Tagore representatives in Washington DC wanted a severe threat against Pratibha, so that she lost her desire to live," the Germans had told each other.
It was not that different from how the torture-surveillance had unfolded against Antara, suggested by the NRIs to the US Govt, which instructed the British Govt, whence the torture went to a German command structure, which managed it with the British.
"From Berkeley to Batanagar, the NRIs had felt safe and satisfied, it had become clear that all govts disliked currencies and Antara, only those individuals favoured by the Tagores were important."
The commonality between Pratibha's fate and Antara's torture should not surprise anyone.
By 2021, all 'minders' had informed Antara that what had been done to Pratibha was being repeated against Antara, there were two reasons for it, one was called BRICS (a multilateral forum), the other was an 'heir in the moon', also called the Chandra Chandra family.
There had been a girl from such a family at the Brabourne hostel, she studied Botany, she had a first and a middle name, both meant 'Moon's daughter', the Alamo Girl referred to her as 'Chand-ki-Beti Chand-ki-Beti', what apparently kept the OSS intelligence with Tripura and the Koreans.
Oh, had Antara said too much?
Was there any rule, law, etc whereby one could discuss giving away BT's House (implicating a recent political group) but one couldn't ask who made Tripura and the Koreas the 'owner' of the OSS intelligence from the China-Burma-India theatre?
Who decided these things, the Tagores of Birbhum district or Washington DC?
What would Brabourne do, if it got identified with such an agenda?
"Brabourne was feeling so haunted" meant OSS ghosts were chasing it?
Yes, Paint-Brush Girl, your turn. Men and women in western countries had been awaiting your appearance in the blog for months.
What a celebrity! Not how to stop the torture against Antara, how to get her the salary but what was Antara's favourite anecdote about the Paint-Brush Girl?
"You always joined Brabourne Hostel (after vacations) once all the girls had returned. Try joining the evening before the formal joining date."
"You mean when no one had returned yet," Antara had replied, "to stay alone in a large, four-storey building with several wings, without anyone around?"
"I've stayed like that," the Paint-Brush Girl had said, "the only problem was going to the washroom, so I closed my eyes, ran down the long corridor till I reached the washroom."
Keep the legit lease in New Zealand. Stay close to the CPM's favourite nation. Get a few chosen Pentagon people over to that nation. Till you were rewarded as the OSS intelligence resource base and thereby connected to the Paris bankers.
Where's Antara's employment and salary? Surely she had bested the Paint-Brush Girl, the Alamo Girl and the Chand-ki-Beti girl?
--
We would deviate from the somewhat educative, somewhat anecdotal, often rhetorical tone of the blogposts to discuss the Aaguri Para house in Asansol, rented by Ajit-Anjali in early 1984.
We had been introduced to it before, it was about a neighbourhood having two levels, a mossy, grim stairway led straight to the upper-level, the road had a large building with several tenants in it, a printing press was located in that building as well.
It was a challenge for Antara, from the spacious two-storied Bankura house to the single-storied Aaguri Para house in Asansol. Disreputable neighbourhood, dingy, houses crowding each other.
A majority of the families were fishmongers, so their British intelligence clout was considerable, the trades/companies that 'ran' London.
The Aaguri Para house had two rooms, a living room and a bedroom, the rooms adjoined by a narrow passageway. As Antara had entered the house for the first time, she had seen the furniture her parents had bought in Bankura piled along that passageway. "Most of it would go to waste, there was not room enough to put them up," Anjali had said.
A certain kind of life had ended, Antara had thought to herself, she was around four-and-a-half years old.
"Go up to the terrace," Anjali told Antara once they were inside the house, "there were climbers there, you know, trees that didn't grow straight but crawled along, for growing pumpkins and gourds, they belonged to the landlady, go check them out before she took them down."
Antara started climbing up to the terrace, all by herself. "Be careful," Anjali called out, "they haven't paved the stairs yet, all bricks, we were the first tenants, no one had lived in this house before us."
Having reached the terrace, Antara found half of it to be covered by vines, several pumpkins ripe enough to be picked. She came down and told her mother, "Why couldn't we keep the vines, we could use the vegetables?"
"It was their pumpkin plant, not ours," Anjali exclaimed.
Anjali didn't refer to the female underwear/support as 'bra', she called it 'brassiere' or 'kate'.
"Hand me the 'kate'," she'd tell Antara at that Aaguri Para house, Antara always helped her mother when the latter got ready.
Anjali was clever like that, she was networked as well, she even knew of Braswell Academy in Morgan County, the 'lake country' of Georgia.
In fact, people often felt that Anjali didn't need to be informed in order to find out everything. Back in 2000-01, the then bf/now spouse and another Jadavpur University batchmate would cross the railway tracks near Dhakuria in Kolkata, "this was our very own Lake District", that chap would tell the then bf/now spouse.
It had led to a significant personal and professional growth for a Delhi journalist, from Dhakuria, surname Dutta. How did Anjali know about the 'Lake District' comment between Antara's batchmates, she hadn't told her mother?
Oh, we didn't explain which individual studied at Braswell Academy, Morgan County, Georgia.
It was an American professor called Moina Belle Michael (1869-1944), it was Moina Michael who had suggested using poppies for 'Remembrance Day'.
"You know, I had enrolled at the Employment Exchange, to receive job alerts even after I was married to your father," Anjali would say. "But was that a way to appear for a job interview? One minute I was grinding the poppy seeds, next moment I was rushing out to appear for the job interview."
Well, Anjali, for all your expertise on Moina Belle Michael, you should have been there when Antara moved to Delhi in 2008, joined a newsroom, was told that she'd have to work the night shift and that her desk hadn't been set up as yet.
As Antara stood in the middle of that newsroom, looking around, peak evening news rush, a belle called Moina had come up to her and said, "Not even a place to sit? Weren't you a Bureau reporter or something back in Kolkata?"
Or maybe Anjali had found out, by some miracle, Antara never left India, not to rush off where there was no desk, except Moina Belle Michael remembering the fallen with poppies.
At that Aaguri Para house, Anjali suffered terribly, she was often in bed through the day, with headache that didn't let her get up. A small, dark bedroom, netting put up even during daytime to keep the mosquitos away, Ajit had left early to commute to his LR/Leave Reserve job, the sibling at school.
Antara would stand at the doorway of that bedroom, looking at her unwell mother. "She said she had a Saridon, it meant she'd recover," Antara thought to herself.
Saridon.
Moina Belle Michael.
Arranged travel back for American tourists from Rome when WWI had broken out.
Moina Belle Michael who returned to the US in 1914, on the RMS Carpathia.
What a hand to play, US Congress!!
Antara was admitted late into Asansol AG Church. She stayed at home for six months, from early February to late July 1984.
"Any other kid would have raised hell, wanting to go back to school but look how happy she was, playing and studying, all by herself," Anjali would tell the other wives.
April 25-26, 2026.
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