Battle Games

It was beginning to seem that these write-ups, accounts, blogposts would not end anytime soon. Antara's life had become so restricted for over a decade that she had genuinely hoped that the blogposts would cause some kind of a global stir, bringing some changes in her life for the better.

Instead, certain groups chose to flaunt their clout, their high levels of infiltration into sensitive workplaces and rest assured, Antara was not about to get any reprieve. (That ought not to apply to her medication, given she had established that she was being illegally pursued and persecuted, but we'd discuss that later.)

It seemed that large groups of financiers wanted the write-ups and blogposts to continue as well. It bode ill for the global (or any other) economy if there were too many rags-to-riches narratives coming out of Asansol, Durgapur, Kolkata and similar places. The element of mystery created instabilities, it made people withdraw finances, raise interest rates for lending. 

As Antara had suggested in her June 10 blogpost on Hackney Jews, write something about yourself. It was not that easy, all of you know each other, had remained connected even if you grew up in different cities and towns, and could therefore invade Washington DC as a group. 

(Antara recently found out that the connections were through dance schools, music academies, and auditions for television programmes in Kolkata. We had been misled into thinking that The Statesman Voices Coordinators was the only interest group we were looking at. 

Imagine what would happen if similar networking existed in the United States, suddenly all piano academies and ballet schools would be marching down DC, demanding an end to the Poland-Ukraine connections and the legit lease.)

Back in Kolkata of the late 1980s, the television studio was located in a neighbourhood called Golf Green, and those who auditioned there, including half of Antara's school and much of West Bengal, believed that as soon as the golf-loving Trump would take the White House, Jesus Green/British defence firms would start their work against Poland and Ukraine and the legit lease. 

Celebrated ACJ students wrote investigative stories on golf courses, to remind the British of the cushy jobs and assignments that were due to them in Washington DC.

Who created such hopes, dreams and aspirations? Why did parents, taking their children for an audition to a Kolkata studio, think about Ukraine and Poland at all? These countries were never mentioned in Kolkata's newspapers or magazines. 

What would happen to the rest of us? What would happen to Antara? That was no dance form telecast on Bengali television channels, it was merely stomping one's feet or doing turns. For that, there was a British defence firm assignment in Washington DC the moment Donald Trump became US President?

When Antara's peers were dancing/stomping or singing 'vocals' in 1990-91, Antara was actually trying to learn/understand the global discourse on defence and warfare. There was no applause for her, that Antara was committed to the mainstream news while her batchmates were chasing conspiracy theories?

An Indian editor had once told Antara, "All the news was in the first two paragraphs, the rest of the story was repeat and expansion of the same". It implied all blackmails were from the two World Wars, everything since 1945 repeated and expanded on the same.

If the above had been true, Antara's peer generation wouldn't have been taught that the Battle of Long Island (1776) in the American Revolutionary War was their make-or-break moment, when George Washington had been 'outflanked' and made to retreat to Manhattan. If you had been 'outflanked', your right to declare independence (earlier on July 4) was gone. 

That same strategy was apparently being applied to Antara (with backing from Kolkata 'officials'.)

Antara didn't know about George Washington but had she been 'outflanked'? Let's go back to 2006, Antara was married and working as a news bureau reporter in Kolkata and lived with her spouse at a rented apartment. Most of her NRI friends were still in India, either not married, working low jobs or not working at all. They were waiting for the two breakthrough events of 2007: the Wolfowitz-Dershowitz lease and Putin at the Munich Security Conference. Then their lives would change.

What if Antara had declared in 2006 that both Asansol AG Church and Brabourne had been 'outflanked' by her, that they should be brought to the station and asked how the Taliban rose, 1992 onwards, once the Golf Green auditions had stopped?

June 11, 2025.