Okay, it was a bad situation.
Antara had actually believed that the Ajit-Anjali household was her home.
Even when they shifted to Purulia, in April 1996, she didn't have any doubts.
Government officials were transferred, Ajit had requested for a posting in Purulia (his home district), Antara didn't have her narrative, how would she know that it implied 'Austria was comfortable with The Return (presumably of Palestinian refugees)'?
Antara was not there when they shifted to Purulia, she was at her junior college/Brabourne hostel. Anjali had described the situation over the phone, "Surely people have shifted before but the sibling was bringing the House down, burning garbage, it was ash all around".
(This was a couple of years after India's successful streak in global beauty pageants began, which brought it closer to Donald Trump and the Sun City-luxury resort-South Africa value system.)
Antara talked to Anjali once the latter had shifted into govt accommodations in Purulia. "Large, spacious rooms, you'd like it, nothing like where we've been before."
Why would Antara like such things? Was she an Indian girl of high intellect, on her charpoy, gazing into the skies and planning celestial journeys? Antara was a humble, law-abiding citizen, wrote short stories, hoping it would be considered good enough for the high literary skills of the Indian publishing industry.
It followed that the television with its cable line, in that spacious living room, was also for the Ajit-Anjali household, not meant for Antara, the cable offered unlimited channels, especially foreign ones, what Asansol didn't have, was it Purulia or Utopia or Perfectia?
Berlin Tunnel? Washington DC? Moscow? The world at their feet? Austria too? What happened on Sept 11, 2001? How did that dream run end? Who did it to them?
No, not the sportspersons, the Palestinian soccer team had been recognised by FIFA in 1998.
Not Bollywood, which closely followed Swedish music group ABBA's songs, trying to understand how Antara would falter and fail under Tagore excesses, as her generation of females led lives beyond her ability to achieve ('Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! A Man after Midnight').
Not even the world of business, it wouldn't have allowed ESPN Magazine to be launched on March 11, 1998, good heavens, it was the first issue, its cover said 'NEXT', it was no longer a puzzle.
An asset management firm, global leaders attend the inauguration of the Palestinian State in the late 1990s, and they would have walked away to glory, leaving Antara in India.
Antara wouldn't have been surprised, she had heard all her life, "You were not related to us, you were not even adopted, we just picked you up from the streets and fed you."
A British OTT firm was offering hints, formed by the merger of Premium TV and Inform Group, now called 'Perform'.
"It was important that Antara's academic studies continue, that it was not disrupted while she was an undergraduate at Brabourne. Her allusions would later serve a purpose."
April 20, 2026
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