The sibling stayed and studied at that north Bengal town till Class 4.
Around 1980, she must have been in Class 3.
It was probably the reason people showed caution with the 'legit lease', except in certain provinces of India.
If the legit lease was irretrievably damaged, it might take away the history of the 21st century, its first two decades. That history was important to Communists and non-Communists alike.
Antara knew these things from the sibling.
It was 1986, they had moved into the Housing flat, and during vacations, the two of them would lie down on the floor of their bedroom, on floor mats, the room darkened to beat the afternoon heat outside.
Antara would ask her sibling to tell her a story, and the latter would say,
"Do you want to hear about river valley civilisations, for every mighty civilisation in the world was always next to a mighty river?"
When Antara agreed to hear that story, the sibling would begin,
"It was in that north Bengal school, where I was a student of Class 3, that we got our first History books, and its first chapter was called the 'Indus Valley Civilisation', what in Bengali was called 'Sindhu Shabhyata', how a highly urbanised existence had once thrived along that river valley."
Antara studied History and Geography in college (Brabourne) for her sibling, not for Wladimir Koppen (of Koppen climate classification).
"She (the sibling) had studied the Sciences to stay with her generation, but I'd study History and Geography at college, so that I could be useful as well."
For her BA first year annual exams, when Antara had gone to find out how much she had scored, the departmental head for History, an elderly lady, had said, "Why, you were the History topper, you scored 72 out of 100, well done", and had thumped Antara's back.
Koppen was important for Crimea, Russia, Austria and Germany.
Koppen was important for Antara and the sibling.
****
Topics like Wladimir Koppen didn't suggest themselves to the POTUS sorts.
These were assignments decided by the Paris bankers, the POTUS sorts pursued them with great zeal.
Such topics were useful both within Washington DC and among the Tagores. Because Antara had grown up in India familiar with both realities, she often understood POTUSes better than most people.
It was not about wealth, not about gender but about tenacity, what Kolkata might describe as "dhonyi chheler odhyaboshay", meaning 'one had to wonder at the tenacity of the boy'.
The 'tenacity' implied that there were recurring problems that required one to be tenacious, 'the political violence of West Bengal was coming from the disorderliness of Washington DC and a muted press corps in the US would cure West Bengal', well, not many people in Kolkata would agree with such a sentiment.
"Let's not sign the legit lease," Kolkata would say, "lest Bengal became just a symptom of what ailed the American media scene and newsrooms."
Of all the instances of denying WWII history in recent times, the one involving the American media had been the most worrying.
****
It was early 2009.
From a bookstore in Delhi's Khan Market, Antara had picked up a copy of Joan Didion's 'The Year of Magical Thinking', of the sudden loss of Didion's husband, who had collapsed at the dinner table and couldn't be brought around, and the challenges of loss, of not being able to throw away his belongings, lest he needed them when he returned.
Or of not being able to close the book he was reading, what if he suddenly needed to look it up?
That was the 'magical thinking', a realm where we believe our loved ones would return to us.
When Kedar-da collapsed at his dining table in 2011,
when Cousin Tamal collapsed at the dining table while having a meal in 2014,
Antara understood things had taken a strange turn indeed. She gradually moved away from the hustle of life and began her decade of thinking, and of trying to live.
July 24, 2026.
****
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