Costs and Benefits (23): The song of the Palanquin-bearer

Certain doubts needed clearing up, the ones causing confusion across the world:

1. Should Antara have attended JLF 2012 given one of the NS Road boys was about to foray into engineering studies in the US, 2013 onwards?

Answer: Antara's reporting and writing always brought exceptional advantages to DC and many other cities across the world. Why NS Road decided to pursue engineering was not understood, but Antara's career was following its own logic, there was simply no reason to compare Antara with anyone else. 

Even if NS Road engineers or Ghanty Gali engineers built the best fighter jets in the world, Antara's relevance would not diminish. Why was NS Road so troubled by Antara anyway, was it an SUCI problem?

2. What if John F Kennedy disliked/was against the legit lease?

Answer: Antara had spent the last several years reading the phone transcripts of President Kennedy, including phone calls at the height of the Cuban crisis. 

Antara kept thinking, "What was wrong with Kennedy? Did he not receive any intelligence briefing? What was with the hmm-ing and haw-ing, barely able to complete a thought, talking to his Soviet counterpart after all?"

Thus, Kennedy's opinion on the legit lease was not of much relevance, nor would it take Asansol AG Church very far. Antara could keep writing her blog, no Kennedy had any say in the matter. 

3. Should Antara have the right to even be a challenger, or a rival, given Asansol AG Church had expected an empty, non-competitive road to victory against the US?

Answer: Antara knew the above would be a problem. The lease was just like formal education, wide and extensive syllabi, exams round-the-clock. Preparing for the lease was like staying in Asansol, Antara kept a low-profile at school and at home, but once out of Asansol, they could all be boisterous and have fun.

After leaving Asansol, they used to dance to a popular Bengali tune, Antara, her father, her sibling, her nephew, even the dog, only Anjali kept away. The song went 'Palki choley, palki choley hey hey..."

4. On Ukraine, sometimes we wion, sorry won, and sometimes we didn't. 

If Antara had such backroom dealing success in DC, she'd have written extensively about it. But not all were willing to come out and play. 

May 20, 2025.