It was a way to discuss the Great Game?

You mention Bruno Kreisky and watch the world convulse.

Would Antara get it right or would she make mistakes?

Well, the news, good or bad, was that Antara didn't seem to have spent a day in her life without some Bruno Kreisky thrown at her. Antara liked such challenges, why she loved India.

One of these seemed to indicate that the Austrian politicians and their closeness to the White House in Washington DC wouldn't have been possible without the DoJ and Defense Intelligence having a dedicated team for Austrian matters, always backed by financiers' support.

The desire to take away from Antara what should have been hers was thus racing through the corridors of endless government offices in Washington DC, it was fortunate that some NRI holiday was coming up next week in the United States.

ii. It was envy, of course. US officials hadn't realised the urgent need to be part of the Great Game, whereas the Ajit-Anjali household would have several ways to remain involved in it. Anjali had even suggested a chickpea/kabuli chana salad for Antara's Class 10 Board Exams (they taught Home Science at Asansol AG Church), so there was probably enough Great Game information for the legit lease to bid farewell to Washington DC and its NRI mania.

Antara, hmm, well, since 2013, she made her chickpea salad with grilled eggplant, so she had made it worse for herself. If she understood the Nazi occupation of France (WWII) in terms of the Great Game, wonder how Austria would manage to survive? Oh, there were the Obamas and US official support. Phew!

iii. Apparently, the torture-surveillance had been assigned by the residents of Salt Lake (a suburb of Kolkata) to find out what Antara intended to do about the Great Game. Not one of the 'minders' brought it up over the last decade of torture, it was probably meant to be a decade of torture followed by another decade of Great Game-related questions.

Pune, Salt Lake, so much hurt and agony for Antara and her spouse over the last decade. 

What do you think, should Antara ever visit Batanagar again? 

Now that it was known what Antara would do with the Great Game, would the torture-surveillance cease?

iv. That left the Agency in a strange situation. From 1915 onwards, it had been anticipating the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as a way to grab the lease. If it hadn't done enough work on the Great Game, if it sent inexperienced personnel into the War on Terror in Afghanistan, if its most significant asset was a casualty of the Abbottabad raid, how would it survive the rest of the 21st century?

Move to Vienna, find a place there to hide?

November 21, 2025.