Whose US was it?

Antara would like to describe a recurring nightmare of the last decade, coinciding with the torture-surveillance.

How many times did Antara have that nightmare, four or five times, more than that?

In it, Antara had been avoiding classes at Brabourne, she was quite all right in terms of health but neither attended the Bengali (Language and Literature classes) nor the Mathematics classes. 

So, it seemed to be Junior College Brabourne,

"When was the last time I went to attend these classes, I couldn't even remember, I wonder what they were teaching now?" Antara was seen thinking.

Accurately enough, Antara knew that she needed 75 percent attendance (as per Brabourne rules) to write the exams. 

In reality, she always scored above 90 percent in attendance, since if she was in Kolkata and staying at the hostel, she didn't miss any classes. 

However, in the nightmare, it was dipping towards 20 percent.

As the storm clouds loomed over the Brabourne campus, as the high wind started rising among its trees, Antara could be seen walking towards the college notice board, next to the Brabourne cafetaria. She had been allowed to sit for the exams, no questions asked.

In the distance, what looked like an IITian living as an NJ wife, the IRIS Shahid Bagheri individual, was walking past, though she had never been a Brabourne student.

The forces of Tripura were coming closer, even if it called itself Aga something-or-the-other. 

July 3, 2026.

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Whose US was it? (Not Fortune, nor Favour, nor Bold)

The 'London Station' arrangement couldn't be revisited. It had been ascertained that certain relatives of Antara were not getting any help at all. 

However, on July 2, 2026, Antara did get some scallions which she had "not paid for", Antara had never travelled to China so what was Assam indicating?

One possibility was that the "wintry day" of 1994 (Durgapur's Kumarmangalam Park visit) had reaped great benefits for Assam. 

Antara wrote up those allusions in 2021, by 2024, "wintry day", who had faced life threat for decades, was 'outed' as both Chinese and Russian agent.

Now was that a serious breach or was it still less than the horse-with-wings violation of privacy? 

What kind of Big Data workplaces helped us understand which public personality was actually being harassed and who were merely Europeans who deserved no less?

One way to look at it was to find out if your close associates had fallen/perished in similar Big Data investigations. "Wintry Day" might say he lost several of his sort between 2002 to 2004. Fortune didn't always find favour. 

You could have read what Antara was writing. 

In her early childhood, they lived close to Nepal and "Nepal had casinos, which India didn't", as Anjali would often say. The enthusiasm you felt around the 'Kathmandu arrangement' would have been less.

But then, Morocco was fielding an 'excellent team', so there was no way you, Assam, could keep the 'London Station' out of it.

(Except the last one, all photos from online sources.)

July 2, 2026.

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Whose US was it?

 Free, at last!

July 1, 2026.

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Whose US was it? (Strobe lights)

 "At their time of need, the 'baap' got the money he needed, as did the 'beti' when she needed it."

After the above, one should ask, why did the 'giver' always have funds to spare? 

The 'baap' was not getting his pension after almost four decades of govt service, why? 

The 'beti' was apparently bringing out the "best HT product ever", why was her salary stopped by Payroll while other employees were paid?

So we were not being allowed to argue. The 'better half' was already vlogging, because NRI wives "wanted to see Germans on a leash, dancing to their tunes".

Guess what? Today, June 30, 2026, 'baap' and 'beti' were repaying. Take London Station, it was all yours.

'Beti' would catch you up. For a while, London Station had been looking at MH-370 disappearance, you know, when the plane went off and was never seen again, March 8, 2014, on International Women's Day?

'Beti' alerted London Station about the 1994 picnic/visit to Durgapur's Kumarmangalam Park. When you refused to get off the car, didn't talk to 'baap' and his wife, they went for a walk around the spacious park, you sat in the car and had the packed luchi-aloor dum lunch that was brought from home. 

Now 'beti' sat with you and had the same lunch, 'beti' didn't go off with her parents, 'beti' missed the visit to the park. 

For you, surely you, all of 21 years of age, couldn't be left by yourself, on a wintry day, at a deserted parking lot. 

You didn't remember what others did for you. You don't know what would have happened if 'beti' had gone off with the parents and left you alone, maybe you would never get to be such an important person. 

But London Station wanted to know, if both had luchi-aloor dum, if both were meant to access DoD and financiers, why were you chosen and 'beti' forgotten? How did it help the Syrian Civil War?

Was it coincidence that there was a passenger from the Kumarmangalam family on MH-370, was it connected to the visit to Durgapur's Kumarmangalam Park in the 1990s?

Malaysia was just the starting point.

June 30, 2026.

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Whose US was it?

Given the stress levels before July 4, 2026, Antara was asked to avoid blogposts, check what privileges she had grabbed through her life and return them to those whose place she had forcibly taken till the Syrian Civil War (2012-2025) returned the 'correct balance within society'.

Antara would like to return Monalisa, Trina etc, they were her kindergarten classmates, their parents were either British-trained surgeons or taught medicine, Trina's mother headed the Anatomy department of a govt medical college. 

"It was the early 1980s, many families were on the run, unable to reside in West Bengal but with 'mushrooming' of engineering and management colleges since the British Houses were sold in the 1990s, these could no longer be Antara's friends, they had to be friends of successful people."

June 29, 2026.

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The Hungary court

1. Did Antara know about the political affiliations of Asansol AG batchmates?

No.

2. Did political discussions take place while at school?

It did, mostly related to news events, so relevant to what year/which class they were in.

3. Was there any coded way of discussing politics?

Yes, through lawn tennis. Steffi Graf was disliked, Gabriela Sabatini considered skillful and rugged, both these players had devoted supporters among Antara's batchmates.

4. What did Antara think?

Antara secretly liked Sabatini, she was publicly hesitant of those from Argentina. 

At the Housing society annual quiz contest in 1990, Antara had correctly answered the question about Steffi Graf's full name. However, her Asansol AG batchmates didn't know about it.

5. Did these batchmates ever desire to play lawn tennis?

They discussed tennis coaching centres, mostly located in Kolkata. 

Anjali disliked clay courts (as at the French Open etc), she thought "grass courts" was the real test, it would explain why any discussion of Asansol AG was becoming controversial.

6. And the sibling?

The sibling had only one obsession, if Ivan Lendl could win Wimbledon. She had heard that Lendl had apparently bought a castle, with several grass courts, to practice through the year.

Think of it, courting grass through the year!

7. Interesting. Of course, when we were discussing courts, the litfest would come to mind.

That was not a worry. A female editor from Delhi had warned Antara, "You and your spouse were behaving like students at the litfest, taking careful notes from the lectures". 

So JLF was not from Washington DC, it was something else.

8. The Churchill daughters?

Some kind of British admixture, while avoiding the ad-men of Madison Avenue.

9. Let's get this clear, Antara was not brooding over her parents who had passed away, nor the sibling she infrequently contacted.

"They taught me all I knew." They could've done more, probably.

10. And Lendl ought to have known that the attack on Monica Seles was not Hamburg (Germany) declaring it was ready for the 9/11 attacks against the US.

Anjali didn't like how Seles grunted when she served. 

"Was Seles in pain? Why was she playing?" Anjali would say.

It was power tennis, Antara used to reply, even the racquets were heavier.

11. Ulysses S Grant-Smith. Hungary. It was heavier than before. What had Kolkata done? What would happen to the batchmates?

They destroyed the Mir Space Station in March 2001, they were so sure, after the US military units that dealt in WWII passports had been shut down.

A space station, first of its kind, functioned from 1986 to 2001. 

If one somehow got a passport, even a WWII one, Kolkata would have to answer about Mir.

At least Kolkata would have to explain the purposes of JLF.

June 26, 2026.

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One vote: Replacing Russia at the UNSC

1. What kind of visits did Asansol AG organise for school students?

School visits were only for the sibling's batch. They were taken to a hydroelectric dam nearby, also to the manufacturing facility of a fabric whitener (Reckitt), located in Asansol's suburbs, the allusions had indicated that the latter was for indigo plantation reasons. 

Antara's batch was merely taken for a computer exhibition, it was an insult. They were already in Class 10, only a few months left for their high school days to end. They should have been offered Computer Science as a subject, which they weren't, and having denied it all, they went to a boys' school to learn computers from them.

2. Never any visit to any military exhibition, its parades and drills, its educational programmes?

No.

3. Antara didn't perceive it as strange because of her north Bengal days, where she spent her early childhood.

Yes, Antara's parents were full of anecdotes about fighter jets and recon helicopters. 

"So close to several international borders, such stress, I used to wonder that when you (Antara) were born, how would you be able to nap?" Anjali would say.

"But it was about getting used to things, even as a newborn, you slept peacefully as surveillance and recon helicopters created a racket 6 pm onwards, every evening, flying low over the locality."

There were several such anecdotes so Antara didn't feel the need for school-sponsored military discussions.

4. Why was Antara's batch treated differently?

It seemed they were considered close to railroads, so as much as could be taken away from them.

5. Why was Noida brought up for discussions?

It would have happened anyway. Both Antara and Noida were in Blue House, 1987 onwards, they were the best of Blue House, so to say, and spent considerable time together as a result, activities, House-based games etc. 

However, in the House election of 1991 (for Captain and Vice-Captain), Noida won, defeating Antara by one vote, otherwise Antara had always been Blue House Captain for her class. 

It was thereby assumed Noida would get some north Kolkata support but that's not the way the previous decade played out. 

6. And Antara knew it would be so?

Antara had consumed enough social media by 2016 to realise it was only about 'gully boyz' and 'north Kolkata boys'. 

Even when Sealdah railway station (in Kolkata) apparently got a swanky makeover, no north Kolkata person remarked on it.

7. These men would approach the lease only through hydrocarbons, railroads wouldn't be mentioned at all.

Yes, it was confirmed. 

They rode motorbikes and drove automobiles within city limits, they drove between cities in India as well, else they used aircrafts. 

"I try to avoid trains as much as possible," Antara had been told at HT.

June 25, 2026.

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