DoD Suggestion Box: Iraq, UNIX

Antara found out that there was considerable delight in America's provinces that Bengali culture and values would now face an existential threat.

Had the provinces in America depended a little less on hearsay, it would have known that The Otter had a small toothbrush-like moustache in his youth.

Well, kind of took the joy away from laughing at the misfortunes of others, didn't it?

Now, don't get upset, The Otter ate his dinner alone, he came home late, usually close to 11 pm.

Who was to say that better days were not ahead for those neighbours/college mates/colleagues picked up while living the provincial life in the US?

Go, tell them, the American provinces would see them through their troubles.

It was clever to have elaborate business conferences in the US over the last few months, leading up to May 2026. 

It was clever to keep as wide a berth as possible with the SS Californian and Captain Lord.

Hmm, nothing that reminded Antara that while May the Fourth (be with you) was a Monday, May the Eleventh (a week later) was also a Monday.

What on earth? 

Antara wasn't invested in stock markets? 

She wasn't worried about meltdowns? 

Did something happen at Brabourne on May 11, 1999? 

Probably the university exams for BA/BSc were being written? Did the neighbours/college mates/colleagues claim that the exams brought Antara and the Alamo Girl closer?

What about all the other girls at Brabourne? Why were they constantly losing to the Alamo Girl?

Such great hopes on the SS Californian? 

All that the American provinces needed was the Alamo Girl on their side, the rest of Brabourne didn't matter?

As Moral of the Story, how did it read, "The business conferences in the US, over the last few months, had considered the possibility of denying there was ever an ocean liner called the RMS Titanic."

These US-based conferences had taken for granted the Alamo Girl's support. It might have influenced the West Bengal election outcomes.

How about this? Captain Lord had become compromised because of his closeness to the Paris bankers. An alert was sent out by American provinces to the US military, whether Captain Lord's situation could be used to empower the Ukrainians against the legit lease family?

Pure patriotism, eh?

If atrocities were committed against the legit lease family in Ukraine, the latter would rush to the US military, they'd obviously get no help, since the US military had apparently agreed to the use of Captain Lord against the lease.

In 2026, the entire arrangement was being rejigged, with an elaborate cover of being under attack and follow-up action, whereas it was still the same-old Captain Lord, his banker friends in Paris, the editorial page editors (on Elisson pay) and a humiliated Antara.

How was it that all of Brabourne didn't cooperate with that cruel entertainment emanating from the provinces of America?

One possibility was that Brabourne students of the late-1990s didn't realise how backward and sloppy they were expected to be for the Captain Lord games being planned in American towns and cities. 

There was that thin, fair girl, always in cotton shorts and T-shirt, she was from one of the steel towns, she joined Brabourne hostel in January 1998 and stayed only for a few weeks, before quitting both college and hostel. 

She had brown bobbed hair, she'd keep shaking her head, "I cannot tolerate this place (Brabourne Hostel), I cannot, I want to go home right away, I'd rather study at my hometown."

Then she'd turn to Antara and say, "Antara, do you think you could survive this horror, this unrelenting drudgery of our lives, without any freedom?"

When Antara and her then-roommate tried to reason with her, she'd say, "Oh, gosh, you two were actually going to stay here at Brabourne, let me go back to my room and cry my heart out."

These happened on Sundays, when they met that girl later at the dining room, during evening tea, that brown-haired girl would have her eyes all puffed up and red, "I had cried myself to sleep, I couldn't look at the books."

Provincial America? 

Why didn't you write it on a slip of paper and drop it at the Suggestion Box at the DoD in the late-1990s, "Our new neighbours/college mates/colleagues, those who cook so deliciously, wanted the US military to go back to Iraq." 

Why did you use Captain Lord?

Why did you use Ukraine, to make your point?

Oh, you watched the 1996 movie 'Titanic', did you?

It left out Cherbourg (France) and Queenstown (Ireland) and no one protested?

Had you not depended on hearsay and actually visited India, if you had come to Antara's university, you would have found one of her classmates saying, 

"DiCaprio was my favourite actor, Winslet was my favourite actress. 'Titanic' was the best-acted movie in the world. I have no other favourite actor than DiCaprio, I like no actress but Winslet. 'Titanic' was the greatest movie of all times."

You've got to move out of your comfort zone to find out who cared for the RMS Titanic narrative.

Lavish tent, one stainless steel vat after another on the tables, steaming curries, that's not how reality worked.

(Fyi: The headline has been amended to indicate that UNIX-based operating systems often bothered female students living in Kolkata hostels 

TSS/370 and Reagan-Kriesky of 1983-84 had not been connected by the US State Department allusions, probably to make sure Antara didn't find out about the arrangements of 1998 that excluded her or how it modified 1980-Mykolaiv, then in Japan, with no arrangements for Antara's security. 

The allusions provided to Antara were not complete.) 

May 4, 2026.

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We tested Taiwan. It was wired. Not live yet.

The Ukrainian politician who suggested that Ajit have only one descendant, the elder girl, was born in Luhansk, matriculated from Donetsk, and came from a family of railway workers.

That was all there was to the Russia-Ukraine War, Mr Oleksandr Liashko and his supposed opinion that "merely losing the legit lease (1987) was not enough for so-and-so, she had to rise above the WWII narrative".

It seemed that the Trumps had immediately agreed with Liashko, it was around 1986.

Thus, within the Russia-Ukraine War, "denazification" had implied BT.

Leave it, lose it, win it, at least the Russia-Ukraine War didn't end on Communist terms, we managed to prevail.

Some of the obvious implications of the above would be

i. The gradual and diminishing importance of Asansol AG in global affairs. Once Liashko-Trump had been discussed, there was little left for it to do.

ii. Diminishing importance of Brabourne Junior College dorm, which had considered itself ahead of Antara because of Asansol AG and Ukraine.

Why Brabourne Junior College dorm couldn't identify a federal agency remained a mystery.

Antara didn't share her food with anyone, her fruits, her sweets, packed in the side pocket of her duffel bag, kept under her study table, from which she surreptitiously ate after dinner, while pretending to study.

(Antara: "The dorm girls didn't pay attention to her.")

Nor did Antara offer any food to the dorm girls except biscuits and chanachur/mixture, surely they'd understand who offered Austria and Ajit-Anjali to them? That those wouldn't be taken away from them either?

(Antara: "They didn't care for such details.")

Nor did Antara host any 'muri-makha' on her dorm bed (atop a newspaper), puffed rice, mustard oil, cucumbers, green chillies, Antara did provide the occasional pickle though. Why would there be an Allusions Conference or Competition in Washington DC?

(Antara: "Because Washington DC surely had hospitals, physicians, surgeons, nurses?")

iii. With the Russia-Ukraine War resolved, it would be a good time to investigate the Ukrainian People's Republic-in-exile, from 1920-21 to 1992, initially based in Paris and later in Munich, but never in the United States?

Why was it that Ukraine managed its Treasury responsibilities and its moral integrity better within Europe than in the US?

In case it seemed that the Ukrainian People's Republic-in-exile guided Ajit-Anjali on how to keep Antara away from the US Navy, the 2012 Military Sealift episode would take on proportions which couldn't be assuaged by Taiwan and its supposed control over "Himmler, Bose the politician, litfests across the world including JLF 2012".

May 1, 2026

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Banished to, wait, not Net Zero, not Jet Zero (defunct) but Base Office Berlin!

Decades ago, someone had suggested that there should have been an accompanying gallery with the classrooms at school, "That way, our parents would understand what school life was like, how gruelling and exacting (in the 1980s and 1990s), they wouldn't have these unreasonable demands of us back at home."

Antara didn't mind the above because she was one of the hapless in class, clever and good in studies but hapless, she knew her parents lived in their own world, they had little idea of how schools had evolved and changed, they had never considered whether it was a good thing or not. 

They were paying fees. You had to perform. The end of story.

'Those of us who had faced problems akin to Communism' would imply the United Kingdom, the United States, Europe after Bismarck, coming together. The Jews, of course, had disappeared, by the 1940s, the Palace didn't have to factor them in.

But the strangeness of the situation was that it was a decades-old idea from the Cold War-era, if 'those of us who were together from 1870-1950 came up with our own club', we could exclude the US intelligence community, Antara, her batchmates, a handful of young people might be included for running errands.

Having come up with that plan, the next one was a tease, "By the way, what would you (Antara, outside the 1870-1950 club) use for information/allusions?"

What were you trying to say, you didn't want people to know the reality behind the Cold War-era defections, if the defections were about the Nazi Holocaust?

Or were you not willing to admit that the Cold War defection drama over, you needed to manage the intelligence, with around 100+ junior college students, some were your favourites and others were not, some would be part of a glorious American existence while others were left in India to manage the British muck, Antara would be the imbecile who'd 'underscore' the above arrangement?

Antara as the imbecile?

How could the cleverest girl in class be the imbecile?

Did you not hear yourself when you spoke out?

"We were so afraid of you but when you spoke to us, we realised you were one of us."

That was Brabourne Junior College dorm, 1995.

No one had briefed Antara's dorm mates that she was meant to 'underscore' as they cleaned up British intelligence?

What kind of ops were these?

The girls from the hills,

"Antara, you were so fair, so good-looking."

"No, I was ugly and unattractive." 

"Who says so?"

"Everyone, relatives, neighbours."

"Antara, you were so fair, the fairest of them all."

You didn't brief the NRIs on the above? Don't be annoyed at the Golden Fleece blogposts, they thought differently at the Brabourne Junior College dorm?

The cleverness in arranging a generation of women to clean up Cold War-related problems was that 'cleaning' was difficult to assess, it was a typical example of abuse, "No, these ain't clean enough, go clean them again."

They were posted across the world, UK and US were their typical addresses.

Keep Antara unemployed for decades, she'd be raging at a group of 'former-dormmates-now-cleaners'.

After the 1985 burglary at the Aaguri Para house in Asansol, the cops had visited to inventory the missing belongings, Ajit and Bimal were there, everyone else was at NS Road.

"They showed a lot of interest, took detailed inventory, probably for their own needs, the possibility of our recovering the stolen goods didn't seem to exist," Ajit had said once the cops went away.

What kind of a place was Queenstown, Ireland that it took interest in RMS Titanic passengers that disembarked there but never protested about the 1996 'Titanic' movie?

They had no opinion at all about the missing passengers?

April 30, 2026

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All grace? No (harmonium) reeds for Pratibha from the Church?

Once Antara had submitted her 'Story for the Day'/SFTD) (at the reporting office in Kolkata), there was not much for her to do.

It was somewhat like Israel. Once it had stated that both Iran's regime and its nuclear facilities were problematic, there was little the Israelis could do.  

At the Kolkata office, there was hardly any possibility of a sudden event that would reset priorities or require fresh news reports.

"Antara, even if it were to happen, neither did we make the front page in Kolkata (it was done in Chennai) nor was the Central Govt based out of Kolkata (New Delhi was the seat of power), the Delhi Bureau would grab the story. Thus, front-page news meant little to us."

Thus, Israel, with some justification, might have lost interest in the Middle East crisis, whether it was part of the Iran ceasefire talks or not, why did the British care?

Antara, after her 'Story for the Day'/SFTD had been submitted, lost interest in local news. She never called other reporters in Kolkata-based newspapers, never read what they might have uploaded. 

"Don't talk to them, Antara, it was about denigration."

But Kolkata-based reporters called once in a while, later in the evening, Antara was friendly towards them, she took those calls and chatted, later dropped hints of her popularity to the departmental head.

"Antara, you were popular in Kolkata? Well, I never..." he wouldn't complete the sentence.

After a while, "Were you sure they were not asking for details of how our workplace managed from day to day?"

"That they did," Antara would reply, "recruitment policy, salary structure, power balance within the office."

"There you go, how we worked was all they needed to know, wanted to know, and to go about it in such an elaborate way."

Israel might have felt the same way.

If Antara texted the spouse from work, she usually got sharp, caustic replies. 

As the evening wound on, she dialled the landline phone to speak to her parents in Asansol. They spoke of their day, who came, who said what, the fact that they had moved on from their younger daughter was not obvious, there was not the slightest interest in Antara's work or journalism.

At such a point, the departmental head would call her up, he sat downstairs, Antara on the mezzanine floor above. 

"Antara, go home, I request you, I order you, whichever suited you, you were not a small girl, why must you wait for your spouse's work to be over? I don't want you around, pick up your bag, leave, I implore you."

"Okay, all right, on my way," Antara would poke her head in while leaving, "there, you've got proof that I was leaving for home."

Then that long walk to the BBD Bagh bus terminus, next to the Writers' Building, they switched off the lights at the terminus, one after the other, as the evening wore on. 

Antara's parents didn't know what bus she took, from which terminus, they never asked, they were really not that into her anymore.

Antara had the answer.

It was the 1996 movie 'Titanic'.

Its plotline was apparently planned by the US military.

Ajit was helpless, Antara was gone, Anjali had won.

Then recently,

"In your life, remember June 1997, coming out of Dr Mukherjee's clinic in Asansol, no hope of curing the cancer except surgery. Waiting for an autorickshaw by the highway (National Highway 2 ran through Asansol).  One rumbling monster truck after another, what kept northern India supplied, Ajit so frail and lost in the glare of those monstrous trucks, gripping you by the hand, his face washed with tears.

And some months later, January 1998, Antara somehow managing to grab a seat at Brabourne hostel, what a comeback, the girl who had a cancer scare as a 17-year-old, wrote her Class 12 Board exams while unwell, cleared her Board Exams and the further entrance exams for English Honours, back at Brabourne as an undergraduate.

At the government circuit house, while on their way to join Brabourne Hostel, Ajit holding her tight, how much could that man cry, 'Even if no one came, don't worry, I'll come for you, gave me a break from home as well, I won't forget you'."

Oh, the ship sailed out to sea in the movie, it didn't stop at Cherbourg, France or Queenstown, Ireland. 

So quite a different journey.

April 29, 2026.

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The chairs were upturned on the tables, the restaurant must be closed

 "The way the Treasury worked, Antara, you needed to damage the legit lease (and therefore Jews worldwide) in significant ways in your corporate career before the Communists would allow you to lead the Treasury.

The above was followed in most countries, what made the corporate sector so competitive. The stress that the corporate sector had been under since 2014, Antara, most of your acquaintances had requested that you didn't find out how they worked, how desperate they were for intelligence, not knowing where to source it from. 

Your allusions reminded the corporate employees that they needed to solve Heydrich. 

Obviously, that had been the biggest stress in workplaces worldwide, there was no need for a reminder. Should they contact Batanagar? How did one get close to the Germans? Everyone had relatives in the United States, the urgency to secure them in the US forever was topmost. 

Yet the US intelligence community and the DoD shouldn't realise that Heydrich worries were consuming everyone. Not that those worries led to conflicts. 

The Gaudiya Math information was meant to pass to either African-American singers/musicians in the US or to Batanagar (the town). The latter was incredulous, 'On top of all the information on Batanagar town, now we had to accept Gaudiya Math as well?'

You didn't notice any monks, hermits, sadhus etc while at Batanagar, Antara, asking for alms, making their way through the town? Batanagar (the town) wouldn't allow it, yet a Baul/minstrel researcher seemed to have gotten through?

Your relatives (on the in-laws' side) had feared it, you should always stay in touch with them, 'Let's hope NS Road didn't bring BRAC (DoD) into the Gaudiya Math situation, it would imply that certain Nazi Holocaust crimes could be discussed but DoD would have to remain quiet, not react to it.'

It has been so convenient for NS Road, these last 36 years, Antara, it didn't have to think of anyone but itself.

You wouldn't believe it if we said it was Donald Trump who had ruined NS Road.

Manas-Zdenka and Ivana moved to Canada around the same time, you were not yet born but your fate had been decided, neither AT's side would acknowledge its identity ('lottery') nor would NS Road. 

As the fleeing started, well, you could guess what happened to those who had blogs but not that one essential document, even if you repeatedly submitted the biometrics.

All those school years, empty answer scripts, everything marked wrong, sullen faces quickly looking at the report card before putting it away, well, they were prosperous, influential women now. 

How weak were Purulia relatives, given the Czech Zdenka and the Czech Ivana, to get close to the Trumps, from the early 1960s? 

These two Czech women argued that once Purulia and NS Road had agreed to work together, they'd need to distinguish themselves to Indians, so varying forms of cricket (some 50 overs, some 20-20), some connected to NFL, others to MLB, NS Road and Purulia worked out the details.

Leave Kremlin politics to Kremlin people, Antara, if you were making her uncomfortable, don't refer to them as your 'relatives'.

Did Ajit like you, did he prefer having you as part of his family? NS Road estimated resources around the world, yes, it was true, it got the figures through that same nation-State it intended to disrespect.

Ajit joked about 'sitting hunched behind the chair and discussing usage and licensing fee', why did you assume Antara that you were the one sitting on the chair? 

Because he said it while you were preparing to write bureaucracy exams? 

Well, when you didn't become a bureaucrat, Ajit lived another half-decade, did he change his plans? Then what 'chair' was he talking about?

Dubey-dubey-jol-khawa? That's your Swedish submarines, the Draken-class, built between 1960 and 1962 (when the British were wrapping up in Singapore).

These Draken-class submarines were modernised between 1980 and 1982, when Abhijit immigrated to the US to ruin the Agency.

Sinking-sinking-drinking-water? The nation-State was fearful in those days, so it approached the British royals to route the Swedish support through the Royal Navy.

All mysteries solved, Antara, now would you like your aloo tikki chaat with chholey, curd or chutney?"

April 28, 2026.

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'Development intention', if 'vacant'

When we discussed railroads on the blog, it created a wrong perception, of wealth, elitism etc.

Why was it that the reorganisation/merger of the railroads, so careful and deliberate, through the 1960s and 70s, did not create the notion that railroads were an asset to be rejected in the present day, if one was to win 'prizes' from the Treasury?

Worse, what kind of Treasury assumed that given how German intelligence was 'swamped' with 9/11 warnings and tip-offs through the 1990s, the Family Lines railroad system (AT etc) was rushing to grab whatever it could, then call it a 'lottery' win, merely to survive?

At least the Treasury could have given Antara the advantage due to a 'witness', she'd understand the finances of the Family Lines railroad, before it decided who needed to be further indulged and who needed to be rejected?

It was one of those days when no one felt fond of the Treasury, even though the latter was trying to come up with answers.

"Our revenue collection was not merely direct taxes, we collected revenue from land and buildings, think of the clout of S&P Global, Scott Trust but it was South Africa...if you saw South Africa's Expropriations Act of 2024-2025, signed into law in January 2025, there was no compensation to be paid for grabbing someone else's property, if there was no 'development intention'  or if it was 'vacant'.

Hence the 'minders' had been placed, to ask crucial questions, what did currency holders do as per the Bengalis? 

Obviously they didn't have 'development intention', how could you reinvest bullion? How was it 'vacant', was it to be fondled on a daily basis? The 'minders' should have driven the torturers straight into German hands, they didn't do it, hence Antara's spouse was being tormented in a bizarre way, as were her relatives (on her side)."

What would it have achieved?

"Antara, too many Ponzi players have gathered in Washington DC. They didn't like military gatherings and discussions, including those online, they made their displeasure known over the last six months or so, through their criticism of the War on Terror operatives. 

Whether you were aware of Chinese value systems or Chinese cuisine in schools of India, were you part of India's financial system? Did any bank in India allow you to operate your account without an Aadhaar? Did any bank manager in India ever listen to you, discuss possibilities with you?

Tell the War on Terror operatives to file a formal complaint with the Treasury, that Antara was being forcefully kept out of banking by those interested in Ponzi schemes."

April 27, 2026

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We were caught in Meloni's European Webb, Aunt Bea, then there was Deepu

"Why was it that your former acquaintances and relatives kept considering that Europe would be a severe challenge for you?" the 'minders' asked.

Was that so now, Antara replied.

"Yes, Fleece was an arrogant group of individuals, we had told you that. They knew they had displeased a lot of people. In the 1980s, they had been warned by investigative agencies on behalf of Swiss spa towns that they were treading on big toes, to which they had stuck their tongues out, 'Really? Were we treading on your big feet? Wasn't it a mythic creature, Big Foot and Yeti, things no one had actually seen? Did you want to go that way as well?'"

Antara was astounded by the above anecdote, it reminded her of the people she had known in her life.

"Well, a Big Foot and Yeti-related anecdote had taken place a few days after Anjali had passed away in 2009," Antara said. Antara and the sibling had gone to a Science Fair organised in Asansol, they hadn't stepped out for several days since Anjali's passing away and had decided to visit the fair. 

"There was a Bengali publication on the Yeti and an expensive mounted telescope, as far as Antara remembered, it might indicate that sending the US Govt the way of the Yeti started from October 2009?"

What would be the implications, the 'minders' asked.

"Well, the European royals might claim that the US Govt agencies were funded with European royal funding, and if they had set their targets in decimating the US Govt 1980s onward, they'd be dogeing around."

"The US agencies were funded by European royals? Several of these royals were suspected to be the imposter line, a way to manage the aftermath of WWI."

"It might have been an idea from Kolkata," Antara suggested. "There was that Austrian astronomer, Oppenheim or something, so you thought you worked on astronomy, the Global South would reply with James Webb, it would show you what astronomy was about."

"Hmm, it didn't explain why your former acquaintances thought that Europe would be a severe challenge for you."

"They might have a different lexicon for Europe, you know, created by the Tagores or some other north Kolkata group," Antara replied. 

"While we referred to geographic names or political boundaries, they referred to Europe in terms of the Nazi Holocaust. 

In fact, we had come across Silicon Valley wanting to manage the US Govt from Berlin, only on the basis of Berlin as military districts. So, they did have a different sense of Europe, only in terms of the genocide against the Jews, it was possible the tech firms celebrated and mainstreamed the Nazi Holocaust perps, while keeping the victims under stress."

What about Meloni, would she have the alternative map of Europe, with genocide-specific place names?

"It was likely," Antara replied, "she did seem somewhat disconcerted by the reality."

Why do you think Ajit let slip things to such an abysmal level, Antara? 

"Oh, Ajit gave hints all right," Antara replied, "he enjoyed the situation as the Communists had planned it. The legit lease-related House would be under Patton, his dash across France in August-September 1944 would be blamed on narcotics, wouldn't that turn the legit lease into a narcotics lease?"

What would Patna do, how would it manage the situation, the 'minders' got worried.

"Well, Patna would know that no matter which British unit tortured on the surveillance against Antara, Deepu wouldn't be able to grab 'the rest of our lives'/the rest of the British units."

April 24, 2026.

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