Fighters and their fables

Anjali didn't like any of the systems prevalent for division of estates among princes in German noble families.

There was either primogeniture and appanage, where the younger sons were provided some designated property, so that they felt a stake in their family name.

There was secundogeniture, which provided the younger sons with a dependent estate and thereby established a cadet branch of the family, it had more prestige and material benefits than appanage.

"So much division and subdivision within families, it led to decline in quality," she'd say.

It implied that Anjali thought the royals in the Indian subcontinent managed things better. There were feuds and intrigues and rivalries, but there was also a sense of contributing to an Indian national identity, giving up their personal considerations for a larger national cause.

Hence, Anjali was no Prussian.

ii. Why would Murad and Papiya, of the Indian subcontinental diaspora, get so interested in German feudal politics of 300 years ago? A fire truck was parked across the road from where Antara lived, through much of the evening, and fire trucks were parked around Antara only when a neighbouring country's diaspora gathered under Murad. 

Apart from who would trip over monetary policy and who wouldn't, there was simply no scope for anyone to understand what was going on. Antara dealt with FAA blackmails and a bit of Boeing, air-crashes got her bogged down with a century's worth of aviation history. 

What was bothering the neighbouring country's diaspora? Your favourites were 'outflanked' in 2006 by Antara, she preferred not to harass them. It implied Antara was a better person, not a weaker one. 

iii. Of course, it was possible that the neighbouring country's diaspora didn't want Antara to continue writing on the American Revolutionary War or even the Battle of Long Island. George Washington's retreat was not the point, it was the presence of the Hessian soldier, lent as auxiliaries to the British Army through many wars, including the American Revolutionary War. 

The Hessian soldiers came from areas around Frankfurt, they'd know quite a bit of the origin of the Rothschild family. They'd discuss such things with the British soldiers, how many Houses were around where they came from, if they were all German, how each House felt about the Tagores.

iv. Hessian soldiers had apparently been a topic for Grigori Zinoviev as well, when he had been providing inputs to the German space travel enthusiasts, in the late 1920s. The latter had asked Zinoviev why Tripura kept a permanent contingent in Washington DC and Zinoviev had replied, "Tripura can never trust the Hessian soldiers, their informants and agent networks in the United States, given they fought in the American Revolutionary War."

June 12, 2025.