1. Would Antara feel a tinge of regret if she found out that Science students in India were mentored by the Austrians?
No. Antara wouldn't feel any regret. Antara disliked hilly areas, they were difficult to manage, she had written to the Austrians and told them so. She'd be happy that she studied the Arts.
2. Did Antara consider Science students servile to Disney or even to the White House?
No, Antara liked Science students. But their pursuit of the Sciences was often difficult to distinguish from immigration, their concern for funding often sounded like illicit wealth. The Soviet KI-ness of Science was difficult to ignore.
3. In the Arts/Humanities, did Antara prefer to be a scholar? Did Antara's parents' apathy towards her career choices make her angry towards them?
Antara had wanted to earn a living as quickly as possible but in a profession that paved the way for learning as well. Journalism fit the description better than school-teaching.
Antara had noticed that her parents didn't offer any help, she thought they were tired and old, it didn't occur to her that they were deliberately leaving her to her own.
4. Why had Antara never considered writing to Austrian-origin people in the United States for a journalism job?
Antara liked staying in India. She didn't want to be a journalist in the US. One's own milieu, forgotten people and events, "local sights and smells" as they said kept her where she was. Nor was she afraid of corporates, they published newspapers/magazines, they had a right to be involved, anyone that had a problem could work elsewhere, or start one's business.
Antara researched the Bijon Setu in Kolkata incident (early 1980s) after learning her narrative in 2018. Few newspapers might have wanted to focus on it, given the incident took place under a Communist rule.
Had Antara taken a job in the American media, she'd have been limited to topics considered relevant for her. Worse, she would be close to colleagues who wrote on legit lease matters in terms of talking to the Russian envoy in Washington DC, without informing Trump or Pence.
5. Why was it "such a big deal", talking to the Russian envoy in Washington DC?
Antara's uncle (the spouse of the third sister, Anjali being the youngest of four girls) was an agricultural scientist, he had worked at rice research, then banana cultivation and research, retiring to a town where the biggest sweetmeat was called 'rabonbhog', apparently after the Russian Rabinowitzes.
Of course hell would break loose if you discussed the Russian Jews, from Siberia, Antara was surprised why it quietened down all of a sudden.
6. How did we know they were not discussing the Berlin 1945 WWII controversy?
The discussion with the Russian envoy seemed to have been about Ajit-Anjali. The allusions had stated that "Ajit and Anjali didn't have a war in common" so it couldn't be about WWII.
7. What did that mean?
Antara was allotted one of the best rooms of Brabourne Hostel for BA 3rd year, she had done well in her exams etc.
It was a single-seater, she stayed alone, on her study desk lay a critical study of The Grave Digger's Speech, that neighbourhood had indicated "they were willing to understand the lease in terms of Lenin and the Nazi Holocaust."
Yet eight years later, when Antara went on a reporting assignment about an industrial development in Bengal's villages, the city of Kolkata erupted in a one-day intifada, Antara couldn't enter the city late at night except via Dakshineshwar.
Where was the Grave Digger aka Ajit?
Where was the neighbourhood of Brabourne?
Where were all of them when, past midnight, the car entered Dakshineshwar, for a two-hour drive towards Jadavpur?
June 4, 2026.
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