See-saw, hurry up and down (33)

Before we move to Taiwan and analyse what kind of a friend America made, one must understand the decades-long planning that go into creating a major conflict in the world. This was a public blog, to the best of Antara's ability, no one would be named, except interest groups that have severely hurt her and who should have been legally sued.

For example, many of you were not aware that Ukraine was informally known as 'prasad' or divine offering in several parts of India. 'Prasad' was a concept from Hinduism, intrinsic to it, offered in temples and places of worship, mostly sweetmeat or sometimes a more elaborate meal. To call Ukraine a 'prasad' was not someone who took his Hinduism seriously. 

It followed that it would also be turned into a name-surname combination, and never mind the historicity of surnames, the narrative around 'prasad' would unfold around Antara. For example, early in Antara's life, by the mid-1980s, she'd come across Winning Prasad. It indicated Antara and hinted that the influence of BT was still powerful in higher echelons of the US establishment, else why would Larry and Basu even have to acknowledge that there was such a thing called the lease family in India? Remember, Larry was a young chap, Basu a novice politician but they were apparently powerful enough to bury centuries of European narrative. 

Winning Prasad was a menace, too powerful, running around with a single-minded determination, so focussed that she usually played alone. Sounds familiar, in 2025?

The next Prasad was Agency Prasad, surly, trying to be useful, wracked with doubts about how to enforce the Civil Rights in the US. The older sibling soon joined Agency Prasad, she was called Prussian Prasad. You wouldn't believe it, but Agency Prasad was not equipped to handle that pressure of post-WWI German Communism. Agency Prasad perished, and Civil Rights in the US became a debate, not something writ in legal terms. An anarchic felon with nothing to lose could easily overturn the Civil Rights narrative. 

By 1989, as David KE Bruce's possible abduction in Normandy blackmail was picking up, arrived Destiny Prasad. Our Winning Prasad had long faded from the scene, though occasionally one could see her at the far end of the field, still playing by herself. Destiny Prasad was a 'long' person, uncomfortable with western outfits, smiled a lot, and out of nowhere, showed an amazing head for 'Numbers'. You had to bring up Math and Destiny Prasad was ahead, even of the teachers.

That was 33 years before Russia invaded Ukraine in Feb 2022. Ukraine was still the West, in which Occident-worshippers took greater interest. Imagine the level of planning around China and Taiwan. Why not be an unreliable friend, Antara had so many of those.

Soon after Destiny Prasad and her Numbers, the drama of Prasads moved away from Antara to her sibling's life. She was caught in a stranglehold by a furious Nuremberg Prasad, "Eh girl, I will never leave you alone".

April 1, 2025.

See-saw, hurry up and down (32)

There was a burgeoning controversy over David KE Bruce of OSS. Antara was considering putting it in the email but was warned about any of the recipients marking at as 'spam', there was much pressure from Summers etc.

i. The Germans have apparently assumed that gradual use of the David KE Bruce blackmail was about getting ahead in the engineering sector over two generations (after the 1980 arrangement.) The 1980s gen gets the BTech, the next gen gets familiar with those in the West who were cowered enough to share credit.

ii. The British have assumed that the David KE Bruce blackmail was about an elevated network of high defence establishments in DC which would exclude the British, merely CPUSA and its allies since 2009.

iii. The Agency has assumed that the David KE Bruce blackmail was about protecting 9/11 masterminds or maybe it was its stated position.

iv. Antara had understood that for her, David KE Bruce was meant to be a cartography challenge, if she could remember names from the European countryside. Kolkata men had been very sceptical about Antara scrutinising maps. 

It was true that in boys' schools of Kolkata, back in the 1990s and even later, popular books included 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' and 'Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps'.

April 1, 2025.

See-saw, hurry up and down (31)

For the last two years, there have been daily checks about whether Kolkata was willing to concede or capitulate. Kolkata has never agreed, not to this day.

It was assumed that German Nazi officials were present at the interrogation, if it was true that David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce had been captured on D-Day (June 1944) at Normandy. Bruce was probably held at Saint-Contest, a village near Buron in Normandy. 

(The excitement that Bengali developmental economists felt about Antara's Maggi Quiz Contest participation, back in her school days, had always been about Bruce and Saint-Contest.)

Kolkata felt that people like Bruce would speak at length about financiers and arrangements for the lease family if he was suitably pressured. With that information, if pressure was increased on Antara in 2025, there might be further funding for left-wing political action in India. Then there was the Treasury and Summers. Why should Kolkata surrender?

The Germans remained in charge of Saint-Contest, Buron and Bruce of OSS. The Germans reported to the London-based PR firm. Trump-Vance was a sideshow. 

March 31, 2025.

See-saw, hurry up and down (30)

Some would wonder if blackmails around David KE Bruce of SA/B were used from March 1990, between the collapse of Communism in Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. That way, Kolkata could dominate the post-Communist world that was emerging. 

It was far more likely to have been in use from 1986 onwards, when Kolkata had rushed to 'own' Germany a few years before the Wall came down. 

"The Germans agreed to depart the legit lease. The Germans didn't consider whether Kolkata was a reliable ally given German history. The Germans didn't consider that the Poor family of Purulia had never hurt Germany, why would it suddenly do so?"

(Context: The bulk of Auschwitz-related allusions were being apparently held back because of German pressure against the United States. Nazi Germany was responsible for the Holocaust against the Jews.) 

March 31, 2025.

See-saw, hurry up and down (29)

When discussions remained so focussed on the London-based PR firm, it would definitely make everyone tense about arrangements for post-ceasefire peacekeeping troops in Ukraine.

Ukraine that could defend itself against aggressive war from Russia would not be able to hold its peace without help from Paris or London. 

The above implied political blackmail, and it had been pulled against Antara in January 2015. Chetla had called her, said people in Kolkata always wanted to know if she drove a BMW or a Saab. Antara assumed automobile makers were being discussed.

As it turned out, the reference was to a former OSS spy called David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce, who, had been appointed chief of a unit called Special Activities/Bruce or SA/B. 

This SA/B was the secret intelligence branch of the OSS, and by 2015, Kolkata, amazed at Chetla's success in the US, was making detailed inquiries, it would accordingly play its games there. 

The biggest upper-hand for Kolkata was if Bruce of SA/B had been captured at Normandy on D-Day (June 1944). Bruce didn't acknowledge it but surely the Germans and Kolkata knew better.

For the London-based PR firm, Bruce was important for other reasons as well. Bruce was the son-in-law of Andrew Mellon, the Treasury Secretary, and SA/B was the reason why developmental economics was so popular in Kolkata.

March 31, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (28)

When faced with even a partial discussion of their activities over the past two decades, both Chetla and Chinsurah neither had an exit strategy nor any argument to defend themselves.

Their agents apparently ran around the Indian Government offices, "You were also like us, you were also unworthy students but studied abroad. Do you know they don't even plan to discuss our academic records or cooperate with Indian universities. All that they would say was that Indian students studying abroad didn't use the skill-sets they were supposed to pick up at foreign universities, they only come for networking and to know more people." 

Apparently, the London-based PR firm had advised Chetla and Chinsurah to keep advertising that they had collected a few personal mobile numbers in their two decades in the US, and from Ukraine to the lease, Antara should concede on all matters. "There was nothing to identity except how many people you could call up, who you know, not what you knew," the London-based PR firm had said.

March 31, 2025.  

See-saw, hurry up and down (27)

Any mention of daily work schedule and an almost immediate, hostile reaction. 

Remember, if an adult worked 10-12 hours a day, there was nothing unusual about it. It meant the anxieties were elsewhere, what if Antara managed to communicate to the world how serious her work was, how endless individuals and institutions across the world were engaged with it? 

Not Chetla this time but Chinsurah, she was ready. Even back at Brabourne, any mention of Antara's skill-set and tutored answers would spring forth from her.

Chinsurah etc were suburban areas in Bengal that were erstwhile French colonies, not British. That's where the anxieties lay, in Paris, not in the Indian political scene, hence the reaction.

No London-based PR firm embarked on this kind of action against the Treasury without meticulous planning and elaborate arrangements. As with everything emanating from Paris, it would have to involve endless relatives of Antara (Purulia for the better intrigues against the Balkans), some Russian component and arrange it all against the American tycoons, the Carnegies and the Rockefellers. 

For best results, Paris would find out who Morgan and Lenin relied on to keep the lease family in India, realise that particular family was being taken to the US as a Russian emigre family after the Bolshevik Revolution, decide on a gradual spread of Communism across the world, often accepting setbacks as well as in Europe of 1989, create the most durable Communist stronghold in Bengal, allow both BT and his son to accept the patronage of that Russian emigre family and sell that entire storehouse of lease family secrets to Putin the moment he became Russian President in 2000. 

Wanted to join the autocratic club? Apply to Paris for the narrative around a Jewish violinist from Vilna, and you might get lucky. 

Some of the information from Paris on the Vilna violinist was with media offices in Delhi-NCR, some with JLF litfest sorts. Hence Chinsurah's constant interest in the media, hence the freedom Indian citizens enjoyed to grind Antara's life any which way. 

The Vilna violinist died in 1987. There were no further roadblocks to the London-based PR firm. 

The US intelligence community officials were supposed to sit and watch while Paris took apart their country. Antara would advise them to get to work, there was a world to save.

March 30, 2025.  

See-saw, hurry up and down (26)

What, then, was the purpose of Antara's allusions work? She worked online, she submitted her work to various government offices, in India and elsewhere. If she considered it sensitive, she bought ledger-style notebooks and wrote long-hand. Beginning 2021, Antara's allusions work took 10-11 hours on a daily basis. She never stopped on weekends, she never got a break, not even during her trips to eastern India, she went to bed around 2.30 am, without exception.  

What did all of the above achieve for Antara or the country where she stayed?

It was necessary to understand the nature of the 'allusions' work. It was an in-depth reading and understanding of political events, developments in the world of business and commerce, along with war and military matters over the last century. The lease-related details came up in the course of it. However, Antara didn't do research on espionage given how the Indian tycoons felt about Berlin in the 1950s.

It would follow that Antara's work was controlled from somewhere, by groups of individuals, including Indians, that it was about the two World Wars fought in Europe in the first half of the 20th century. 

Let's say there were several such systems/groups, and Antara was hooked to a network that offered credible supervision but was outdated, like a discarded fighter jet model that no one used. It would know everything about the World Wars and the Cold War, she'd have regular breakthroughs, she'd be able to inform one and all about it but because it was an 'outdated' and 'outmoded' group, it would neither be able to help her in New Delhi nor in Washington DC. Antara would never get any rewards or privileges for her work.

Antara's peer generation, and those that didn't care about her blog, were hooked to the London-based PR firm. How much could a PR firm achieve? It could keep using its high political clout in every situation till daily life became a crisis, it could make a monster out of JP Morgan to make sure the Treasury never asserted or the lease revived, and given the marathon Biden political career in DC spanning half a century, provide Antara's peers and relatives an advantage that Antara would never be able to match.  

If relatives and friends stayed away from Antara, surely they did so for a reason.

March 30, 2025.  

See-saw, hurry up and down (25)

Almost a month after the blog went daily, the situation was not encouraging. Apparently, the feedback from all of India was, "She could keep writing, interesting posts". It implied that given the services offered by the London-based PR firm to the Indian middle-class since 1987, from mass immigration to foreign university education for the unworthy, few Indians were going to be disloyal to the London-based PR firm. 

One had to keep in mind that Indian immigration didn't follow any established socioeconomic definition. It was neither a 'pull' immigration, where the foreign countries where so much better, such green pastures, that you'd want to go and settle there. After India's economic liberalisation in the 1990s, almost every world-class facility was available in India. Plus, India was a welfare State for those with Aadhaar. 

Nor was there a 'push' factor for Indian immigration, that situation where the country was so troubled or stricken with famines and civil wars that it was impossible to reside there. These were the Afghanistans, the Syrias, the African countries, where immigration touts operated and where people risked their lives to try and escape. 

Indian immigration was thus 'rejection' immigration. Those who had a problem with India, who disliked its various aspects, who wanted an easy superiority over other citizens, who wanted to establish themselves in another country and browbeat the democratic zeal of resident Indians, it was their 'rejection' which was the narrative. 

Antara was reminded that it was a good thing she was a champion of democracy. "Somebody who has done a six-month course abroad was superior to all other Indians who hadn't done so, forget those who pursued prolonged higher education in foreign campuses". At some point, the ordinary bloke on the street would have felt that he had better status under some Hindu kingdom or even the Mughal Empire, even a couple of hundred years ago, where there would be iniquity but no harassment and insult from abroad by recent immigrants. 

Antara's blog was meant to remind everyone that even in the face of adversity, democracy was still the preferred option.

March 30, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (24)

 To sum up our work (till now) on the London-based PR firm:

i. The London-based PR firm seemed to have benefitted from the Wall Street crash of Oct 19, 1987, aka the Black Monday crash.

ii. The intrigues by the London-based PR firm have ended up pitting BT's House against the Morgans. Those in the financial world have to keep it in mind.

iii. It was possible that SOGO SHOSHA/Japanese trading houses' writ didn't run in Kolkata, Antara was not altogether sure. After all, Kolkata had its airport named after Netaji Bose. 

iv. As far as the 1911 IFA Shield football tournament in Kolkata controversy was concerned (Indian side had defeated the British, the latter colonial rulers), the Indian footballers back in the day had relied on the narrative of the lease to prevail. Over the last couple of decades, 'IFA Shield' became a joke, used to denigrate BT's House.

March 29, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (23)

It followed from the previous post (See-saw, hurry up and down no 22) that after the apparent use of Turkish influence in Afghanistan, say from 2004 onwards, the gains from such a tactic had also been realised, both in terms of increasing the stranglehold on BT's House (and thereby controlling the WWII and Nazi Holocaust intelligence) as well as influencing who occupied the White House in DC. 

All that remained was Oświęcim/Auschwitz, one would have to guess that either BT's work was incomplete or that he had decided not to keep it in his House. 

Thus, the Bengalis of Kolkata were satiated, whatever had been their political demands have been met over the last couple of decades. No reason to exult, let's figure out how they felt within those two decades.

Certain experts assumed that Kolkata had a single objective: how to keep the Pentagon distrustful of the rest of the US intelligence community. Both Trump-style anarchy or other kinds of upheavals could thereby slip through, even Turkish-influence in Afghanistan might have been detected with closer cooperation.

Those Bengali families that sent their females to the United States had their own fears, especially that the topnotch US military personnel would suspect their motives or even scrutinise their activities. What those Bengali females reported back was something different: "No personnel causes us any bother but it seemed that they listen to advice from Bengal, from those Bengali women that refuse to immigrate/or have nothing to do with immigration."

Kolkata set out to investigate and realised these were Prussian networks that deliberately kept a low-profile in West Bengal. Worse, many of them were leading back to Antara's mother. The course-correction started setting in from 2012-13.

March 29, 2025.  

See-saw, hurry up and down (22)

The London-based PR firm had apparently been surprised by the Pentagon's willingness to 'spread the war', right before the 2003 Iraq invasion. "The mere fact that the Pentagon was in Afghanistan was giving a certain legitimacy to both the legit lease and Reading. What further points were being proved?" the PR firm worthies had wondered before Turkish influence was introduced through the news agencies in Afghanistan. 

There were reasons for the London-based PR firm getting worried. "Unlike what the Bengalis of Kolkata thought, the Sept 11, 2001, attacks didn't considerably set back the US intelligence community. Its agents and officials had already travelled to every part of the world to collect Ukraine-related intelligence, and how India might be cornered over its Ukraine policy when Russia finally invaded Ukraine. More than shutting down departments or getting rid of US intelligence officials, it was necessary to compromise them. They were all present in Afghanistan, and the London-based PR firm decided to use Turkey against them."

March 29, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (21)

The information in the previous post (See-saw, hurry up and down no 20) was bound to startle. Most individuals and groups across the world had their own theories about what the Bengalis would do to get the lease or once they got the lease. 

For example, those who watched the intrigues around the 1945 Shimla Conference in India were of the opinion that the moment the Bengalis would get the lease, they'd call it a Prussian myth, something for entertainment and not to be taken seriously.

There were others, the Pentagon sorts, that had thought that the Sept 11, 2001, attacks would be used to grab the lease but only if the Trumps were in power. The problem was, through the long War on Terror, while fending off Mumbai tycoons, had the Pentagon honchos not noticed Turkish influence in Afghanistan? 

It apparently worked through the news agencies operating in Afghanistan, and Afghan journalists had always come under attack. 

(Just fyi: The Indonesian news agency was called Antara, it had always been so.) 

March 29, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (20)

 "You can forget your lease," Antara was often told nowadays. You might wonder, how often? Every few weeks over the last year or so, at least since the Israel-Hamas War began in Oct 2023. Such statements were not 'madness', there was considerable method, probably coming from the London-based PR firm.   

Antara was under a torture-surveillance for a decade now, she got scared when she heard such things. Remember, no individual or institution had made the slightest effort to provide any relief to her, unlikely they ever would. Growing up, her pair of spectacles was sacrosanct at her home, probably her parents had not understood that Antara contracted myopia in the mid-1980s because the lease was about to be lost to Japan, that it was a joke from the London-based PR firm and its worthies.

"Never seen a small girl like her," Antara's mother would say in later decades. "Not once did she break a pair of spectacles, never did she lose them, nor did we have to worry. Washed them regularly, took good care." Thus, when Antara's spectacles repeatedly came under attack in the present day (she couldn't find them, she accidentally sat on them so that she might get injured as part of the 'surveillance' fun), it was bound to be a bother. If the lease had been lost to Japan in the 1980s, if most politicians in Delhi (except a few INC sorts not liked by Prominent Personality) would be beneficiaries, why have so much mirth at the expense of Antara's spectacles?

Where was the lease headed from Japan? To Prominent Personality's household? In the course of her allusions work, this was what Antara had come across. "The Bengalis of Kolkata hankered after the lease only as a fashion statement, they had little courage to manage the lease. In April 1912, a few hours before the RMS Titanic sank, DC had offered the lease to a Bengali family of Kolkata, the Bengalis had immediately returned it. In subsequent decades, Kolkata families went around looking for someone who could teach them central banking operations, not 'how to be a clerk at a central bank' but how to be its owner. They were still looking, which meant Bank of England had not provided any help to the Bengalis."

Thus, the lease was in Japan because Bengalis of Kolkata were still trying to learn what it took to manage a central bank. Antara was being given a scare over her pair of spectacles because the Bengalis were trying to learn such things. The world was waiting as well. 

March 29, 2025.  

See-saw, hurry up and down (19)

The conversation came back to Colin Powell, why did he capitulate to the London-based PR firm? Why was he unable to resist the onslaught of the British knighthood recipients against Washington DC?

It seemed the London-based PR firm had provided detailed instructions to all of Antara's relatives when it came to the lease, both hers and her in-laws. As a result, everyone knew what to 'order' from DC when it came to the lease, such details were never to be provided to Antara. 

Therefore, whichever relative threw food at Antara did so willingly, knowing they had an upper-hand against Antara. They wanted to insult, they were sure they'd be able to fool Washington DC as well as the Treasury. 

Apparently, they were called The Dolly Group, lease-related instructions came from the London-based PR firm to Delhi, and then it dispersed.

March 28, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (18)

For London-based PR firm: if you criticised certain teachers from Kolkata, you didn't join the "autocratic club", it was part of 'Freedom of Speech'. But it seems that the PR firm still hasn't introduced that concept to the women of Kolkata. 

And once you were done with 'Freedom of Speech', do distribute copies of Antara's postgrad essay on semiosis and Derrida. There were many in the world who believed that essay alone saved democracy for the next two decades, and Jadavpur was pushed back.

March 28, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (17)

The London-based PR firm might keep promoting a narrative about Chinese prowess in Artificial Intelligence. However, its own support when it came to AI was American research, not Chinese.

The PR firm's adversaries were Henry Varnum Poor/Rashmela as well as Telford Taylor, which was odd, given Poor family/Rashmela had no dealings with Telford Taylor, it was more BT's thing. 

Therefore, it was possible that such arrangements existed against Antara, so that she suddenly couldn't invade BT's House, given Antara's only achievement seemed to be a "plateau-ed middle-class existence in India", or so Kolkata felt.

March 28, 2025.

See-saw, hurry up and down (16)

One reason the JLF 2011 event might have been important was because it was followed in a little over a month by the disaster that occurred at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, after an earthquake-tsunami, on March 11, 2011.  

What was generally not known was that the Seven-Eleven convenience stores in Japan, run by a company called York Seven, established in 1973, had opened its first 24-hour store in Koriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, sometime in 1974. Around 1978, it changed its name to Seven-Eleven Japan; by 1979, it was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. 

Around 1987, when the London-based PR firm was being set up, Seven-Eleven partnered with Tokyo Electric Power Company to enable electricity bill payment in its 1,600 stores. Why electricity bill at convenience stores? The answer may have been provided by Delhi: from 2014 onwards, Antara's neighbourhood had a guy in his 50s, collecting electricity bills and cash from households, then riding his bicycle to the electricity supply office to pay those bills. It had infuriated certain US Democrats, the President sorts. Physical bills and payment fell out of favour and online payment became the norm, that would be around 2015-16. 

Thus, the supply of electricity and the payment of its bills had been connected to the lease, both in Japan and London, by 1987. 

By April 2005, the Seven-Eleven authorities had established a holding company called 'Seven & I' holdings, because there was an "imbalance in the parent-child relationship" within Seven-Eleven. (Just asking, did the London-based PR firm check with Agit whether he was uncomfortable with Antara?)

By September 1, 2005, the holding company (Seven & I) had been established as well. By that time, Antara was at ACJ Chennai, her birthday that month. For her birthday, she ate a paltry meal at a restaurant, in the company of only two of her classmates, one from Kerala and the other from Assam, Antara "couldn't afford" buying meals for anymore of them. 

So that was the legit lease in India as per the London-based PR firm, DC supporters from Kerala and the Bengali families of Guwahati?

Did the London-based PR firm check with the rest of India how they felt about the above situation? Or was one immigrant to the US now speaking on behalf of 1.5 billion people of India? 

In such a case, Antara would appear unwanted, out-of-place and aggressive at JLF 2011, since it had far more people working with her than Kerala and Assam.

March 28, 2025.

See-saw, hurry up and down (15)

The purpose of disclosure demands that Antara inform (at least those in the know) that JLF 2011 had far greater relevance to the present crisis than JLF 2012. 'Focus on JLF 2011' had repeatedly come up in Antara's allusions work, it must be serious. 

The standout event of JLF 2011, for Antara, was a skirmish with a female American bodyguard. You could come across such things till the 2011 litfest, then it disappeared. Fit and energetic Americans (Caucasians), wearing paramilitary attire, making sure famous novelists didn't get mobbed by journalists and their silly questions, one of these females kept pushing back Antara and the other reporters. It was Antara's slotted story for the JLF coverage in her newspaper, she had to get the interview, so she tried again, and the American female replied, "Oh, you seem to be an aggressive one" and shoved Antara away. 

There was really no knowing who had employed these Caucasian female bodyguards, but Antara had lodged a formal complaint with the organisers. "Did you tell her what newspaper it was? How many copies it sold? Across the country, in Delhi, the circulation figures? That it was the second biggest in India?", one of the organising officials had asked. Antara didn't provide circulation figures as she was being shoved but the next day, she got five minutes of interview time, a 'standing interview', mind you, not even occasion to sit down, the female bodyguard nowhere around. 

The problem with scoring 'brownie points' through various kinds of online media (as Antara was supposedly doing) was that the 'brownie points' seemed to have been collected from Antara's life. Every individual understood that a London-based PR firm, established in 1987, had undergone many twists and turns since, not least around 2002-2003, when the controversy over the Invasion of Saddam's Iraq was raging. Hegseth had brought the matter to focus, American journalists and editors who had supported the invasion, and thereby Colin Powell. 

What had bothered the London-based PR firm? That in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Tony Blair couldn't lord it over the US Govt and set down terms, that Britain got reduced to the infamous "pet poodle" status? Or was it something else altogether, the massive anti-Iraq invasion protests in London which implied lack of public appetite for worldwide war?

Who organised those protests in London back in 2003, those who read newspapers in Delhi?

March 28, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (14)

 A joke going around among the worthies of the London-based PR firm:

Why did Antara like visiting brick-and-mortar shops?

Because back in the American Civil War (1860s), European royals had provided 'mortar' assistance to the Union side. 

(The blackmail, that Europeans were warmongering, might have been used to take Fleece to Britain in the early 1990s.)

March 27, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (13)

A character called Minku-mashi entered the scene, someone Antara had encountered while in Kolkata, in the 1990s. Not on Antara's side, so you can guess which side she played on.

i. Did Minku-mashi tend to rely on the US intelligence community or on Fleece when it came to bitcoin? Obviously the latter, 'suits' didn't suit Minku-mashi while Fleece was in Britain since the early 1990s, if you remember the machine-made sweater etc, and therefore close to the London-based PR firm. The PR firm opened in 1987, Fleece was there by 1991. 

ii. If Minku-mashi didn't trust the 'suits', why were her proteges so bent on controlling DC and its policymaking? This was probably because of the 19th century American tycoons, so-called Carnegie-Rockefeller networks, these had alerted certain north Indian provinces in the 1960s about the Numbers blackmail of the Nazi Holocaust. 

The moment any lease family member entered the US, the full fury of the Numbers blackmail would be unleashed. Back in the 1960s, it was called 'hisab mein kamzor hai'/'Math was not their strong point'. Minku-mashi wanted to find out why DC had alerted these north Indians, which groups in DC didn't like Minku-mashi?

iii. What did Minku-mashi fear? Minku-mashi feared Prussian puzzles, like asking the public to solve 'For Emily...' etc

iv. What was Minku-mashi's politics? Minku-mashi knew the darker characters in Yemen, those who didn't care for American intelligence inputs. 

Between Minku-mashi and Hegseth, the Middle East was heating up. 

Who said Chetla would give up so easily?

March 27, 2025.

See-saw, hurry up and down (12)

One of the problems that the likes of Prominent Personality faced in Delhi was the unpredictability of the other Mrs G. The Italian automobile makers had considerable influence on the latter, so the city couldn't be shaped the way Prominent Personality wanted it shaped. A quick word to London-based PR firm, from there to Trump and there was now 25 percent tariff on imported cars and parts. Italy was being warned. 

Could the Delhi city-state itself show a support for bitcoin, through legislative action? How would it appear to politicians in Washington DC, wasted all their intelligence clout on Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia to control proliferation, and Prominent Personality had used the intervening decades to create a situation for a Delhi-based currency?

And if the idea of a 'Delhi-based currency' didn't raise a few laughs in Mr Summers' and Mr Nobel's households, what would? 

Antara was wondering: if the other Mrs G promoted her own bitcoin, what would Prominent Personality do? Join the bandwagon but as a follower, as long as she could influence Trump's erratic behaviour?

March 27, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (11)

The next thing everyone would want to know, how much support did Jadavpur enjoy in Delhi? The city, not the government?

In the near two-decades that Antara had spent in Delhi, several residents had made it clear to her that the city was never the same after Mrs G. This was to be expected, given the convulsive riots it suffered, or the fact that BT's House was supposedly given away to Fergie in the mid-1980s, or even Air India's Kanishka disaster in June 1985, "this will be a game-changer", Antara's mother had predicted, and she was often correct. (The flight was on a Montreal-London-Delhi route. Trump remained excited about Canada.)

Thus, one could assume, that even if they felt disempowered, the older residents of Delhi would not support Jadavpur's plans for instability.

Which left the other Delhi residents and as Antara had found out at Asansol AG Church, there was one aspect to them that Kolkata liked: they didn't like Jews, they were anti-Semites. If they were anti-Semites, their biggest problem was the US intelligence community. This was Delhi since 2012, what the London-based PR firm had created. 

March 27, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (10)

We'd deviate a bit from a discussion of the London-based PR firm to see what support system it had generated since 1987, which groups of people from Kolkata were thriving on it. 

An obvious example would be Jadavpur: its problem was, Antara had been one of its students as well. In fact, it was quite likely that Antara had been one of those rare students who had all-time highs in her academic performance while at Jadavpur, which had somehow been concealed. Thus, the advantage of Jadavpur was the advantage of that individual called Donald Trump. As long as Trump was erratic, Jadavpur could fend off Antara. As long as Jadavpur could fend off Antara, the London-based PR firm was thriving and there was no end to the instabilities. 

The problem with Jadavpur was that "there was always something that was extra, right at the end", which caught governments and authorities off-guard. There was no reason for it, except that the heavy Agency recruitment in Kolkata of the mid-1990s had altogether filled them with pride and disregard for others. US officials have come to recruit, surely Kolkata was better than the rest of India, this must be some award system, the nation-State was now irrelevant to Jadavpur. If it was followed by immigration and cushy academic jobs at US universities, imagine how Kolkata would react. Exactly what we were living through!

"I'm taking a taxi, I'm taking a taxi, towards Salt Lake, anybody wants to come along," some of these worthies would go around, like a town-crier, back in the campus, gathering as many into the taxi as possible. The same explanation as above; the Agency has made it possible for Kolkata to invade the US and ignore India, won't you rather join me? (Do remember Jadavpur would have a problem with well-argued blogposts.)

Once in the US, it followed that Jadavpur would start redefining BT's House: Antara could enter it but only if she kept her WWII identity outside as well as any Morgan baggage. Why would she do that? Wherever Jadavpur stayed, did it throw out all its belongings outside? 

Or did immigration provide such rights, do remember these were all Public Interest cases, hence the blog, because it concerned the public. Any number of Indians might want to know how and why Jadavpur was redefining rules of entry to BT's House. 

That overconfidence of Jadavpur was the Donald Trump Presidency 2.0. 

March 27, 2025.

Larry's gambit

As days and weeks pass, a certain problem was bound to emerge: it was about Brabourne students picking up hints and clues not meant for them, interpreting them anyway they wanted it to, then selling it to the Howdy crowd in the US. 

From time to time, Antara would provide clarifications. Just so we knew, Prominent Personality was at Brabourne for all five years but spent only a little over one year at the hostel, Aug 1995 to Oct 1996. Similarly, the in-law/cousin studied at Brabourne all five years but hostel was around a year or so. One would have to understand why distorting these personal details was proving lucrative to the Howdy crowd, why were they doing it?

If Brabourne gave two-days holiday instead of the usual one-day for certain religious festivals, it surely didn't mean that the Middle East would turn out to support the lease. 

However, vermicelli sold in India often came in different colours but when cooked, "the vermicelli kheer was always white". That was from Antara's childhood, not Brabourne or Kolkata.

March 26, 2025. 

Do we even know...

 ...let's say about Germany in the 1930s?

There was a joke going around, "The Third Reich must have been a 'democratic' place where regional governors/gauleiters passed on information to the US (for later use by immigrants from Kolkata) even as Nazi Germany fought the US all over the world. No one knew what the regional governors/gauleiters were doing, no one ever found out." (Sarcasm alert: It meant people found out.)

March 26, 2025.  

History lessons

This one was a guest post, not Antara's own. "The world has become prosperous, people often have leisure, let them try and solve it." 

Apparently, it was also necessary to prove to Jadavpur that there were other Simon and Garfunkel songs than 'The Sound of Silence'.  

"What I dream I had pressed in organdy

Clothed in crinoline of smoky burgundy

Softer than the rain

I wandered empty streets down, past the shop displays

I heard cathedral bells, tripping down the alleyways

As I walked on

And when you ran to me, your cheeks flushed with the night

We walked on frosted fields of juniper and lamplight

I held your hand

And when I awoke and felt you warm and near

I kissed your honey hair with my grateful tears

Oh, I love you, girl

Oh, I love you."

(From 'For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her' by Simon and Garfunkel)

Photo: Antara's mother, Jharkhand.

See-saw, hurry up and down (9)

Certain groups in Bangalore had always been huge stakeholders in the London-based PR firm. Pity Asansol's boys and girls, rushing to Bangalore to study from the 1990s, thinking Asansol was unsafe for those opposed to the Nazi Holocaust. 

March 25, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (8)

Everyone knew that Larry's 1980-Mykolaiv arrangement was apparently about DoD. Turns out, it was also about England. 

March 25, 2025.

See-saw, hurry up and down (7)

If Mr Summers and Mr Nobel were late entrants to the London-based PR firm, then the collapse of Communism in eastern Europe (late 1980s) was not on their terms. Let that be as of now.

By late-1980s, that Antara would not be able to complete even her primary school education/or reach middle school was known to her classmates. Some of it made its way back to Antara, she was expected to leave Asansol AG and join a local Bengali-medium school. The rest she was finding out in the present day, that she was supposed to stay at home and remain an uneducated, near-illiterate person, because Communism in Europe didn't end on her terms. France, it was then? To France Europe should remain grateful for escaping the Iron Curtain?

As the late-1980s gave way to 1990-91, Prominent Personality remained surprised by Antara's presence in class. To keep her engaged, the London-based PR firm asked her to check how the schoolteachers were treating Antara, there might be a clue as to why Antara was still being allowed to attend school. Prominent Personality reported back, "Antara reads well in class, pauses for punctuation, some effect but not loud enough. Regardless, the teachers never remark on her reading at all, except occasionally asking her to read louder."

All hell broke loose in the London-based PR firm. "Didn't remark on Reading? What else was Reading about, if not WW1? That's what we had considered all along, Fergie has the House so WW2 was safe, and then there was WW1? What was it about then, what did Reading do during the Weimar Republic?"

This was right before 1991. 

March 25, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (6)

Asansol AG Church's responsibility was apparently to make sure Russia didn't get involved in the so-called contact-corroboration. It would make sure that all attacks on Antara came from within the United States, such that when someone took pity on her, she'd be allowed a free run, a few trips to Kolkata, eating at restaurants of her choice. (This was Jan-Feb-March 2025, approved by Chetla.)

Once the above bonanza was over, punishment planned by Chetla would set in. This began on March 18, 2025, with Antara's mobile phone being damaged, what followed through the week (and was ongoing) would require detailed analysis, maybe later. Antara has not lived through a week like the one that just went past. 

The 'surprise' that Chetla had planned for Antara was done with the connivance of a handful of Austrian officials. The peak of that 'surprise' was apparently slated for March 25-26. Chetla and the Austrian officials would argue with DoD, "An ageing woman like Antara, incapable of being employed, hated by her relatives and all Indians, being punished by nasty US officials, how would she survive the rest of her life?"

At such point, DoD would have to explain to Chetla and the London-based PR firm whether it was involved in Yeltsin's 1991 Russian coup, what was the purpose of it, and whether the likes of Chetla might have to face such a situation ever again, given the global prominence they were enjoying, thanks to the London-based PR firm.

March 25, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (5)

It was possible that the London-based PR firm had been altogether responsible for the lack of coherence that ensued Antara learning her narrative in 2018, that it intended to make gains from it, that it had indeed made gains from it but was waiting it out to realise those gains. 

For example, Antara had come across the allusion that it was Joe Biden's idea for "contact-corroboration", then to create a frenzy around it, then to deny it. Otherwise, learning one's narrative should never be followed by "contact-corroboration". Biden introduced the idea and unsteadied the world. 

It seemed to Antara that it was the London-based PR firm's idea to introduce the names of major DC agencies and to leave it at that. "There's a high wall, there's a wide moat around it, there were crocs in that moat" and that was it. There were no further instructions, it was status quo ante and a continuing torture-surveillance immediately got far worse. Humiliation, parody, ridicule, of oneself and one's past life, were added to what had been merely physical torture, till 2018. 

There ought to have been a designated way, whose idea was it, in the US or India, to hold it back? "On learning your narrative, you write to the travel desk of this-and-that department, introduce yourself, they'll take it forward, they'll tell you what to do". Kolkata had feared that the moment Antara learnt her narrative, a group of Pentagon honchos would hook up with Silicon Valley to prevent any further action. Why was Kolkata wrong? Did it not know about Chetla, a woman deliberately planted in the US only to be a hindrance, at no personal cost?

No wonder, the endless rhetoric around Donald Trump--what Putin thought of him and how Japan was enjoying the anarchy--was just not ending. The more Trump and Biden, the more Gaddes and Vaddis in every US department. How could anyone take any work forward, how would democracy survive the assault of what was merely one London-based PR firm?

March 25, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (4)

About a decade back, Antara had written a short story about a brewer/brewing company and submitted it for a Canadian short story contest. Hence, she could sometimes work out references to Philby and Sam Pope-Brewer. 

March 24, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (3)

The problem with the Palestinian diaspora managing anti-heroes like Mr Starlink (if Larry was the hero of 1980-Mykolaiv arrangement) was that there was no awareness that Antara might adopt British methods—it was unavoidable in India which had remained subjugated to the British for two centuries—but had otherwise nothing to do with the British establishment or society. 

There was no business interest involved in adopting such methods, Antara’s work wouldn’t expand along commercial lines but even if the lease remained lost forever, its lingering troubles would need Antara’s constant attention. Even if Wolfowitz-Dershowitz prevailed (unlikely), the legit lease would never recede. 

Such, for example, was her recent work on the Oświęcim bankers, it always saved the situation for someone or the other. 

Nor could anyone argue against the 'penetrative gaze', unless one was trying to hide something sinister beneath genuine victimhood.

March 24, 2025. 

See-saw, hurry up and down (2)

The idea for the London-based PR firm came from the worthies, Microsoft Honcho, the Sage of Somewhere-or-the-other and the New Republic team. 

"We have the House, was it possible that Agit was not getting what we were about? What did he learn from the House?" 

(By 1987, Coffs Harbour had started doing well in class, somewhat beating back Weather-Shirdi. Coff's Harbour also got her myopia in 1987.)

Thus it was that the setting up of the London-based PR firm in 1987 also coincided with the First Palestinian Intifada, which began on December 9, 1987 at the Jabalia refugee camp after an Israeli truck driver collided with parked vehicles, killing four Palestinian workers. 

By the time Mr Summers was talking about why his girls didn't play with trucks and preferred dolls, it was already the 1990s, the London-based PR firm was fully operational and the world was being divided, Vienna for the females and Pentagon for the sons. 

It was possible Mr Summers and Mr Nobel were late entrants to the London-based PR firm, or they had never been intended to be that prominent. 

March 24, 2025.

See-saw, hurry up and down

Beginning March 24, 2025, we would be looking deeper into certain intrigues that created the present impasse. For example, if Japanese trading houses had renewed/initiated certain blackmails as soon as Antara got married in 2006, how could she survive the next decade, work with several employers, have a certain amount of freedom to move around and meet friends and relatives? Why was there less scrutiny of news media, which had greater freedom to publish/provide coverage than it had had since 2017? 

In the course of Antara's work, she had come across the allusion that "if Antara and her sibling didn't have good relations", there might as well be no Treasury. Thus, we have a motive for certain kinds of repetitive behaviour that have become common across the world. 

As Antara researched further, the above led to a particular PR firm based in London. Founded in 1987, the year the lease was apparently lost to Japan, it served the who's who of the world and had one task: to manage Antara's relation with her sibling. As one could understand, the PR firm neither intended to help Antara nor her sibling. 

The first question in the series: if you already occupied the White House or 10 Downing or the Palace, why did you need a London-based PR firm? Why couldn't you get your work done from your own workplace?

March 24, 2025. 

In the Land of Dhrubo 2

It was not till 2005-06 that under the guise of imminent Communist Terror, Pentagon honchos started cooperating with former East German personalities like Angela Merkel about a comprehensive Ukraine policy. 

A policy where there had never been a crisis?

By 2010, the East German factionalism within German intelligence had turned Ukraine into an annoying burden, more relevant to early 20^th century New York than modern-day Europe. 

By 2013, Putin was at the Donbas.

In the Land of Dhrubo

 

Antara grew up almost exclusively in Indian Government accommodations. At home, the rest of India was what was known as 'civilian life' or 'civilian quarters'. "Civilian quarters after retirement," Antara's mother would say. 

Next to the housing society, the neighbourhood was called Dhrubodanga or the Land of Dhrubo. "How do they live there? How will I manage at such places?" Antara would think to herself. "Not all House owners, some were tenants as well."

So 'renterias' or Morgan Stanley was quite apart from Antara's existence nor was it thwarting her life. Till her marriage in 2006? What was entrusted to Morgan Stanley around 2006 that was coming in so useful? What Walter Model and the Swiss thought of India and its struggle for independence?

Asansol, 1995. Still leaning against that huge but mildewed water tank.

What Oleg knew

 

Antara joined school in 1984, her class had been studying together since the previous year. A dark, dingy classroom, crammed with around 70-75 students, extremely noisy and ill-behaved; on the second day, Antara had been shoved off the bench she was sitting on by a group of girls, those that find regular mention nowadays. It was dirty as well, food and water strewn all around the classroom. The most prominent personality was one called 'Weather-Shirdi' by the teachers. 

You might wonder, this was Antara's personal blog, if she posted her photos, was there any necessity to invoke Roswell? Everyone's life was not the same; for example, the photo above was the first known photograph of Antara and her mother together in the same frame, in early 1992!! What happened through Antara's childhood and the 1980s that there was not even an occasion for 'her mother and Antara' photo? 

How could it be an open-and-close case Mr Summers, as you were going around telling Global Communists?

Massanjore, Dumka district, Jharkhand, Jan 1992.

Morgan

Since the 1980 arrangement, it was possible that there was no longer any official involvement in India with the intelligence of the RMS Titanic, what was known as the Morgan intelligence. 

"Whatever Indian women decided was the RMS Titanic narrative was fine with everyone in India, regardless of whether it was true or not."

Antara would request that those living close to railway stations in India stopped further impeding her RMS Titanic research. You have decided on a course of action, why not persist with it? 

Everyone knew you secured Chetla in the US around 2013-14, with endless references to Lord Trend. Some might wonder why you felt closer to Chetla than your own. 

March 21, 2025. New Delhi. 

C'est Purse Strings

 

...La Vie Wild Goose Chase.

Europe did become a 'cheap' option after the 1992 Exchange Rate Crisis had taken Fleece away to Britain. For example, the photograph above was a picnic at a temple complex just outside town, arranged by employee contributions.

When it came to personalities, Antara was quite predictable as well: docile for Asansol AG Church, a diva at home and the occasional tomboy, as above. 

Wearing a thick Wool jacket, she'd often go looking for Yemenis where they didn't exist. Mount Lebanon, for example.

Ghagor Buri, Asansol, 1992. 

Who backs Whom?

 

Let's say an Indian couldn't approach Summers' territory. It might explain why Summers' friends in Britain could destroy Antara's career, or why his friends in India could hold back her citizenship papers. 

What about Fleece, taken to Britain after the 1992 exchange rate crisis? Surely Nagpur and Jamshedpur didn't control that as well?

The House that Antara's Father Built, Purulia, 1998.

Who was Larry?

1. One explanation for Oświęcim to return to Poland in 1918 was probably because Kolkata wanted the House to be associated with Holocaust disrepute, which would be difficult had it stayed within Galicia/Austria, given the latter's long and prominent ruling history.

2. Another would be to disgrace the banking profession itself, that the Oświęcim bankers were of no consequence when it came to preventing major human tragedies and that it needed a strong monarchical hand to prevent a Holocaust. (This was thereby an argument against the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the buorgeois middle-class, hence Who was Larry?)

3. The third would be punish the Oświęcim bankers through the allegation that it was Austria that had helped during the Sannyasi Rebellion in Bengal of the 1770s, not the bankers themselves. Thus, Oświęcim bankers would be forever attacked for the Sannyasi Rebellion but not get any credit for it. 

4. However, the worst attack from Kolkata was that the Oświęcim bankers wouldn't be able to prove any financing activity of theirs. This was a bad one, since central Europe had used subterfuge when it came to the US Govt and blackmails against it. 

Kolkata, on the other hand, could easily prove how it influenced the US Govt through the 19th century. Even in 2025, Kolkata apparently managed the US Govt. 

Abbey Gate 2

 

In a Bengali avant-garde movie of the 1960s-70s, an unemployed young man, low on resources, asks another, "How many stovetops cook in this city every day?" If there was widespread unemployment and thereby resentment in Kolkata of the 1960s-70, it didn't seem that Sogo Shosha/Japanese trading houses had learnt to use Nagasaki to the Orient's advantage, two decades after the outrage. 

Why didn't we find out why Nagasaki happened and thereby put an end to Sogo Shosha/Japanese trading houses' advantage in Washington DC?

Radhaballavi-alur dom at Antara's wedding reception, 2006, Asansol. 

Abbey Gate 1

 

Before Jamshedpur arrived on the scene in 2011, it was possible, in Delhi, to order a birthday cake (by the kilo) and in case it was a working couple, the cake box would be left deposited by the door-side, one could pick it up when one returned from work. The one in the photograph was collected in that manner, "Leaving it by the door-side then?", the delivery guy had called Antara at work and told her. 

Antara came to her narrative late, but when did Sogo Shosha/Japanese trading houses decide that Nazi camps in Austria would become such a crippling blackmail against Europe? Was it after Antara moved to Delhi? Was Nagpur and Jamshedpur both involved?

Birthday cake with Coca Cola, New Delhi, August-September 2008.

Those unheard are sweeter...

 

And while Normandy heroes wouldn't be discussed when Sogo Shosha/Japanese trading houses visited the White House in DC, do remember to put Yemeni elections on the agenda. 

JU convocation, Kolkata, Dec 2002.

Heard mentality

 

So Asansol AG took assignments from Voices. Well, Asansol AG took a strident anti-Antara stance in 1991 when the Soviet Union dissolved, thinking STAVKA was gone forever.

And what was so great about Voices anyway? Every single member apparently from families that made illicit financing gains during WWII, having gone back to the United States to haunt the Normandy heroes through Trump and Co. 

Akbar's tomb Sikandra, Jan 2009. 

Once the Germans had been called up...

 

...they were likely to be asked that when Britain introduced football to South America in the 19th century, who were the British working for? Not for Franz and Sophie and such families, for example? Chetla wouldn't like to plan an empire in the US with a continent of 'plants' close by, nor would Chetla like to think that when Agency served her, it actually had the agenda of the 'plants' in mind. 

Same with Canada.

The House that Antara's father built, Purulia, 1997. 

The Co-President system demands...

 

...that the moment Treasury was publicly mentioned, enhanced German support would be pulled in, whether Starlink himself had German affiliation or not. The only purpose for such German support was to control the Nambiars. 

The House that Antara's father built, 1997-98, Purulia (with a BPL-Sanyo two-in-one at the far table).  

Untold Stories 2

 

What a strange year 1991-92 was, "Nowadays you don't have to knit a sweater, it comes out of a machine. Let's buy one for your father," Antara's mother declared. Now who would have known that when Britain exited Europe over an exchange rate crisis in 1992, it took Fleece away with it?

'Sundar' man in machine-knit sweater, Saraswati Pujo day, Jan 1992, Asansol. 

Untold stories 1

 

Later that year, Antara's mother suggested, "Why not organise the annual Saraswati Pujo at home, that way you don't have to visit other people's Houses to participate?"

Those not in the know: Antara's mother had once employed a nanny called Saraswati, it apparently implied the "nanny state" and for Antara's parents, 'instability' started immediately on BoP and First Gulf War.

The British were indeed smitten with those colliery girls!!

Asansol, Saraswati Pujo day, Jan 1992

The hills are alive...

 

...with the sound of half-truths. The 1991 trip to Darjeeling and Gangtok was so costly, it was almost equal to a government officer's salary, "what will we eat if you go on this trip?" Antara's mother had asked. Bengali girls didn't go at all, this was the Balance of Payments crisis/First Gulf War year. 

Nilgiri Hills, Tamil Nadu, 2005, Antara at the right-end of the frame. 

Kassel dreams

It used to be fun in Kolkata, the neighbour was recently told, younger daughters as moronic financiers. But alternative leaders in Yemen? 

Antara's parents' place. 2007. 

And if it wasn't for real...

 

...what had the Cs promised Coffee?

Delhi. 2013. After HT. 

Wake up and smell the coffee...

...and had you known your narrative, you should have asked, was it for real, the MSC thing, or was it a spoof? That purse on the table should have asked, find out if it was for real. 

Goa, 2012. After HT. 

What was visible till Munich...

 

...has stayed in Munich?

2007. West Bengal

"I have made mistakes in my life...

...that I just can't hide". Some visible in the photo, others otherwise known.

A House under Construction. Purulia, West Bengal. BA second year. 

Whither the Kaiser?

 

A sea thriving on a withered garden? Saving Wool for the harshest winter? Too much Darrel S Cole with Garia-Narendrapur thanks to Wool? Hence Latakia, Tartus, "rokkokh-bhokkok", the protector was the betrayer? Oh, those Trade Deal days! 

Puri, Orissa, 2007. 

It had always been the neighbour...

 

...Antara reminded for years, "Jeshob jinish khete mana, cheye cheye khachhe"/Getting what it was not supposed to have...

"How did your father build these Houses, decades pass, not a spot of damp?" Antara's mother had said. 

Agra, January 2009. 

When Starlink gets upset...

 

...Ukraine pays. So here goes: In later years, Antara's father had a work desk at the residence as well. During her prep leave for exams, when she was not in Kolkata but at home, Antara would sometimes study there. She skipped lunch at times, after arguing with her mother. Towards evening, Antara would get a glass of milk from her mother, even get tickled. 

Purulia, West Bengal. Brabourne Junior College days.   

And that's all the Britain you'd get...

...Or how to conquer the world in a few easy steps.

New Delhi, 2013.

A House with a View

 

What does the House see?

The view from Antara's place, New Delhi, 2008. 

The geek might inherit the earth...

 ...but who determines whether one is a geek or not?

And if you finalise deals about the House around 2010, then for sure, you're neither serious about the lease nor about Europe.

Aloo paratha-toast breakfast, Rajasthan, 2010

Her Ironside

 

Purulia, 1998. 

That impending Summers storm...

When one spoke of China in 'Ukraine', it usually meant that beyond Moscow's influence was Europe, and after Europe, the Treasury was all China. But Chinese influence had become visible over the last few years, and the War was just not ending.

Purulia, 1996, Junior College Brabourne days.

No plant in the pot...

 

Those Bengali men and women, they really loved their country, wanted it to be free and independent, Mr Starlink...

The House that Antara's Father Built, 1997-98, Purulia, West Bengal

Have you seen anyone 160-years-old?

 

Have you seen anyone top Bengali Language and Literature in her class through middle and high school and then up with '80', at the lower end of the class, for her Class X Boards? Bengal, Ukraine, Starlink...and how Silicon Valley talks.

That 90s show...

That 80's show...

 

Laski went for a visit because he didn't understand the 'chair'.

Antara's parents' place in Purulia, West Bengal, 1996, Brabourne junior college days.

Puri 2

 

However, many derelict Houses along Juno, Sword, Omaha, what Ray had written about in a Feluda novel based in Puri

Puri, Orissa, 2007 

Puri 1

 

The fault...is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings: Facing the (Morgan) brother across the Atlantic Wall

With Ma, Puri, Orissa, 1990

Long way home...

 

So tanned from the reporting days in Kolkata.

(Antara's parents' place, Asansol, Oct 2007)

Before another storm

 

Jharkhand, December 2000

Before the storm

 

Jodhpur. Oct 2015