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.
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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'.
April 18, 2026
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