Not very ship-shape

One would have to assume that Chetla grew fond of the Agency because it was lying on its side, under the weight of the RMS Titanic intelligence.

You couldn't blame her, it was like walking into a stadium-sized hair salon, except that there was no one getting their hair done or their nails painted, only the gossip magazines, thousands of them, were there to be devoured.

What were the rest of us doing in the last two decades as Chetla was getting updated on Titanic intelligence? Let's see, we moved around Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk, then we moved back to India to see why it was easy for Headley and Rana to recce sensitive sites and why they spared us the most sensitive ones, then we went back to north Africa where we found Gaddafi in a hole while Chetla was reading what would sell its worth in gold to the Vladimir Putins and Xi Jinpings: gossip about famed western capitalists.

Smart moves, Chetla, no wonder you considered it the easiest thing to spin what was Jha's attack on Rewa, Madhya Pradesh as an attack on the United States Govt, ongoing since Jan 20, 2025. It must be some city that threw up a desperado like you.

ii. The problem with German intelligence was that when the likes of Chetla informed them that every Indian girl admired Klaus Barbie, the Germans didn't bother to check if it was true, if the purchase of a Barbie doll was a status symbol in an upcoming Indian middle-class or if it was the same as an NSDAP membership. 

Antara still had some faith left in her country, nor was she a collaborator with former colonisers, she wouldn't believe that every Indian girl who had a Barbie doll wanted to partake in a genocide or even distort the narrative of a former Holocaust.

Chetla was too wrong a person, the likes of her were not easily seen in India.

There was a well-known anecdote about a Satyajit Ray movie 'Charulata' (1964). The movie was based on a Tagore novel, its topic was adultery, it was a box-office success and had been showing for months in Kolkata movie halls. 

"Charulata was no longer showing, 'lata gachh hoye gachhe'," passers-by had quipped, meaning what was once a sapling/'lata' in Bengali, had become a tree.

Of course, you need to know how to think to understand that things change, and not always favourable to the Obamas.

iii. Now Donald Trump, we never got the names of those NRIs who had suggested that Antara started researching the 9/11 attacks because of the 'Friends' sitcom and the Warner Bros studio. 

It was high time, therefore, that you knew what attracted Antara the most about the United States: it was the possibility of being a realtor.

Antara would love to move around, check Houses that have not been handled well, have a chat with the owner, write down her offer on a scrap of paper, put up the 'For Sale' sign on the front lawn, organise an Open House even if the large-ish family inside was refusing to leave, bring over some samosa-jalebis for the guests and once a deal was struck, 'flip' the House and show the previous owner how to manage it.

Was that American enough for you?

May 13, 2025.