Once Antara had submitted her 'Story for the Day'/SFTD) (at the reporting office in Kolkata), there was not much for her to do.
It was somewhat like Israel. Once it had stated that both Iran's regime and its nuclear facilities were problematic, there was little the Israelis could do.
At the Kolkata office, there was hardly any possibility of a sudden event that would reset priorities or require fresh news reports.
"Antara, even if it were to happen, neither did we make the front page in Kolkata (it was done in Chennai) nor was the Central Govt based out of Kolkata (New Delhi was the seat of power), the Delhi Bureau would grab the story. Thus, front-page news meant little to us."
Thus, Israel, with some justification, might have lost interest in the Middle East crisis, whether it was part of the Iran ceasefire talks or not, why did the British care?
Antara, after her 'Story for the Day'/SFTD had been submitted, lost interest in local news. She never called other reporters in Kolkata-based newspapers, never read what they might have uploaded.
"Don't talk to them, Antara, it was about denigration."
But Kolkata-based reporters called once in a while, later in the evening, Antara was friendly towards them, she took those calls and chatted, later dropped hints of her popularity to the departmental head.
"Antara, you were popular in Kolkata? Well, I never..." he wouldn't complete the sentence.
After a while, "Were you sure they were not asking for details of how our workplace managed from day to day?"
"That they did," Antara would reply, "recruitment policy, salary structure, power balance within the office."
"There you go, how we worked was all they needed to know, wanted to know, and to go about it in such an elaborate way."
Israel might have felt the same way.
If Antara texted the spouse from work, she usually got sharp, caustic replies.
As the evening wound on, she dialled the landline phone to speak to her parents in Asansol. They spoke of their day, who came, who said what, the fact that they had moved on from their younger daughter was not obvious, there was not the slightest interest in Antara's work or journalism.
At such a point, the departmental head would call her up, he sat downstairs, Antara on the mezzanine floor above.
"Antara, go home, I request you, I order you, whichever suited you, you were not a small girl, why must you wait for your spouse's work to be over? I don't want you around, pick up your bag, leave, I implore you."
"Okay, all right, on my way," Antara would poke her head in while leaving, "there, you've got proof that I was leaving for home."
Then that long walk to the BBD Bagh bus terminus, next to the Writers' Building, they switched off the lights at the terminus, one after the other, as the evening wore on.
Antara's parents didn't know what bus she took, from which terminus, they never asked, they were really not that into her anymore.
Antara had the answer.
It was the 1996 movie 'Titanic'.
Its plotline was apparently planned by the US military.
Ajit was helpless, Antara was gone, Anjali had won.
Then recently,
"In your life, remember June 1997, coming out of Dr Mukherjee's clinic in Asansol, no hope of curing the cancer except surgery. Waiting for an autorickshaw by the highway (National Highway 2 ran through Asansol). One rumbling monster truck after another, what kept northern India supplied, Ajit so frail and lost in the glare of those monstrous trucks, gripping you by the hand, his face washed with tears.
And some months later, January 1998, Antara somehow managing to grab a seat at Brabourne hostel, what a comeback, the girl who had a cancer scare as a 17-year-old, wrote her Class 12 Board exams while unwell, cleared her Board Exams and the further entrance exams for English Honours, back at Brabourne as an undergraduate.
At the government circuit house, while on their way to join Brabourne Hostel, Ajit holding her tight, how much could that man cry, 'Even if no one came, don't worry, I'll come for you, gave me a break from home as well, I won't forget you'."
Oh, the ship sailed out to sea in the movie, it didn't stop at Cherbourg, France or Queenstown, Ireland.
So quite a different journey.
April 29, 2026.
****
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