After Ken, some Krishna

Had Supriya Paul always worked for Asansol AG Church, whatever she did against the legit lease and Poland? It was generally assumed that the death of VK Krishna Menon in 1974, the year Supriya got married, brought her closer to Douglas Hurd, who was beginning his political career as a Parliamentarian in 1974, as a representative of the mid-Oxfordshire constituency.

As far as Antara knew, Asansol AG Church was not yet an affiliated high school in the early 1970s, no one wrote their Class 10 Board exams from that schools, the future of the school might have been in crisis till Supriya herself got affiliated to a Britisher who had a long, influential political career ahead of him.

Most of Antara's Asansol AG classmates were from Kolkata. They despised Asansol, somehow attending school and rushing off to Kolkata, with their school textbooks and holiday homework, the moment school gave over for a lengthy vacation. Often, their parents would wait with packed luggage, waiting for their wards to come home, change out of their school uniform and leave for Kolkata (some had other home districts.)

What Antara had not known, since her parents never alerted her to the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews, was that most of her classmates harboured those very prejudices that had caused the Holocaust in Europe. They discussed Antara with their relatives in Kolkata, those relatives forwarded the complaints to Supriya Paul (these were the 1980s and 1990s), who processed it and sent it along to Douglas Hurd. 

Prejudice often ran counter to facts. When Supriya finally met Antara (from 2000 to 2024), she saw little resemblance to the Jewish caricature, the 'demon' she had attacked all her life.

But the damage couldn't be undone. In trying to destroy a life for Antara, a future for Antara, Supriya had constantly attacked western militaries. Douglas Hurd, for his part, had a well-known distaste for the military, he had hated his days as a conscript, disparaged the life in the barracks, discouraged the restoration of National Service in Britain. 

The demonisation of Antara within Kolkata made her marriage untenable. It was obvious that the spouse would rather believe the propaganda of Kolkata's Holocaust perps, the woman he had married had become a has-been, an also-ran, defeated by the larger forces within New Delhi.    

Worse, ACJ had a fawning admiration for VK Krishna Menon, which made Antara's spouse have a much warmer relation with ACJ sorts than Antara would ever have. 

Thus, the household Antara inhabited was a marriage of Asansol AG Church, the spouse and ACJ, managed by Douglas Hurd. Antara was the extra, the unnecessary person in it.

June 18, 2025.