Antara's journey to New Delhi was a complicated one.
Most of her relatives were trusted by the British or so it seemed in the present day.
During weekends, Anjali would give her raw vegetables to eat, as a snack between breakfast and lunch, while Antara was studying or completing her weekend homework.
Typically, it consisted of a tomato, some sliced carrots and green peas.
The green peas apparently referred to an English astronomer, called George Airy, he was quite the favourite in the schools of West Bengal, 'Kasam yaari ki/Airy ki' meant "I promise/swear by George Airy".
George Airy was born in 1801. While at school, he had invented the 'peashooter', a tube for releasing projectiles like dried peas. It would seem Anjali was asking, "So what was the purpose of the prolonged stay in Asansol, surely not for pea-shooting?"
Almost by chance, though Antara never played with glass marbles, a couple of these ended up with her. Antara preserved these, she couldn't remember who had given these glass marbles to her, she took them out and admired them but you couldn't play with glass marbles by yourself.
Ajit had apparently been a champion marbles player in his childhood but he wouldn't agree to play with Antara.
By the time Antara was working as a news reporter in the BBD Bagh area of Kolkata, she'd occasionally have the lime soda, on warm days, from a kiosk next to her workplace.
She had jumped when she heard a familiar voice one day, "What were you doing, all of Dalhousie drank out of that glass?"
Antara had turned to find her spouse headed to his workplace, he had shouted out at her, suggesting a paper cup rather than the tall glasses of lime soda.
We knew that silica and lime soda (in solid granules) were used to lend colour to glass marbles, thus she couldn't be based in Kolkata's BBD Bagh area, where everyone had already had their fun and entertainment with glass marbles.
Hence, Antara came to New Delhi, Anjali and her spouse used to talk to each other a lot in those days, probably some unfinished agenda of astronomer George Airy.
Anjali's motives were not difficult to find.
In Asansol, the railways meant little except as a source of information, the railway station apparently divided the town along religious lines but it actually helped hide the fact that Asansol was close to the Bangladeshis, that Asansol frequently used their help.
At home, Anjali showed a lack of tolerance for Bangladeshis, calling them 'Germans', Antara imbibed it and shared it with her then bf, later spouse.
"They didn't tell her that Asansol was close to Bangladeshis, Antara was not an important member of her family, I don't have to take this marriage seriously," the spouse might have thought to himself.
(Asansol had a neighbourhood called 'Railpar' or Railways Bank so its attitude towards railroads was quite forthright.)
Where did people get the courage for such forthright behaviour?
Let's say that those who could possibly have protected Antara (from within Europe) had become known to the railways by the 1960s, the information went from Washington DC to San Francisco, where the Italian Navy agents cleared the information, then it went straight to Nepal, from there the plains of northern India, where Antara had relatives, many working in the railways.
Thus, Antara was vulnerable to the hostile aspirations of Washington DC from before she was born, people were aggressive accordingly.
However, the above didn't explain the origin of several females who had positioned themselves as Antara's adversaries. Around 200 years ago, they had apparently witnessed European ferocity while based in Turkish Sudan. Could Europeans show such ferocity again?
The answer was 'no', Antara would advise against it, if some of the Turkish-Sudanese had also been recruited as US officials or were high office-holders, they might not like European ferocity.
Thus, technological and computer-related developments helped Antara survive and grow up during the 1980s and 1990s.
"Less use of Treasury instruments meant less relevance for Egypt and Sudan, there were no 19th century blackmails against the computers industry."
Going to Vietnam. Taking a cruise-ship ride. Someone locking the boy inside the bathroom. Crying and begging for help from the partying passengers.
It summed up the situation, controlled by imposter bankers, on a US Navy ride, with Vietnam War blackmails, AAP all around.
Who was crying and begging for help?
Theresa? Boris? Liz? Rishi? Keir? Did they not like Astronomer Airy?
May 11, 2026.
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