Past and present

Antara's parents had a strange way of tormenting her in her early childhood.

As might be known, Antara hardly read children's books but those meant for grownups. The poems she memorised were either long, narrative poems (usually by Rabindranath Tagore), insightful but complicated or they were political allegories about the dynastic rule of the INC.

All of that by the time she was three or four years old. Recorded versions of her reciting those poems exist, probably with others, in case proof was required. 

Why did Indians agree to this strange struggle with Antara?

Around the same time, when Antara was four or five years old, she was taken to watch a Satyajit Ray movie called Kapurush-Mahapurush (The Coward and the Holy Man). It was a double-bill, two feature films shown together, involving complex topics like adultery and religious fraud, respectively. 

Antara was beside herself through that interminable movie. "Wait, a train would come soon enough," her mother kept telling her. Antara didn't even remember whether the train finally came or it didn't.

Then there was that pantomime show from Kolkata, one of Bengal's celebrated mime artists. Mime in Bengal was always political satire, not merely comedy. Antara was in kindergarten, what did she understand about the political points being made? Another evening without end, a lithe man in a black body suit with face painted white, doing strange acrobatics all over the stage.

There were poetry recitations, again artists from Kolkata, one that turned out to be somewhat memorable than the other events, being about Turkey. Its resounding refrain, 'Kemal, tuney kemal kiya bhai' (it was about Kemal Pasha, saying he had pulled off a wondrous achievement.)

ii. Antara had been unemployed for a disturbing amount of time. She had been illegally dismissed from service, she was yet to be compensated. She was told envious women from Kolkata had destroyed her journalism career, she had been made to write about Chetla.

Why did the above scenario make British intelligence descend incognito in New Delhi? What was it trying to ascertain? The Obamas had been severely criticised over the past decade, it didn't bring forth such covert ops. Kolkata was speculating that a particular resource grab scheduled for Nov-Dec 2024 had been disrupted. 

It seemed more likely that given the paucity of information on the legit lease, British intelligence had descended to check if local shops were selling RMS Titanic intelligence. Why would they be selling it only in Delhi?

iii. On a trip to Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, more than a decade ago, Antara had visited a local museum with a colleague. As in DC, there were few takers for historical research, the museum was empty, the gift shop had the model of a sailing ship inside a glass bottle lying horizontally on its side. Antara had considered buying it, but it was expensive and difficult to take home.  

What did it indicate? That the Agency was felled around two decades ago, by the weight of the RMS Titanic intelligence? Wasn't Chetla familiar with the Agency? Why was she looking for Titanic intelligence in Delhi's shops?

iv. No one prepped a city for Antara's arrival, she was not that big a deal. But city-dwellers liked it if you took interest in the place where they lived. In 2011, Antara had got a review copy of a collection of ghost stories based in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. The author had called Antara, over the phone, at HT as well, Antara couldn't promise a review of the book, given the sheer number of volumes that arrived every week.

"Not a problem, just wanted you to read the stories, in case you ever visited Shimla," the woman had replied. Most of the ghost stories were from the British era, and later that year, when Antara and her husband actually visited Shimla, it had seemed to them that they had seen an apparition in front of Shimla's historic theatre.

Tricks of the mind for sure, hard to tell. Antara had been taught to endure interminable waits, but was DC's past catching up with it?

May 13, 2025.