Published in Deccan Herald, Bangalore, September 26, 2001.


Songs of sorrow and hope

These last few days have been intense, emotional and overpowering. At first, it seemed unreal, almost impossible to believe the vivid, raw images of the catastrophe as it unfolded at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania. No one could do something like this; it was too terrible to comprehend. But the tragedy is very real and dearly intimate. From my window, I can see the gaping hole in the heart of Manhattan where the twin towers used to stand. It looks more like a warzone than the center of a metropolis. New York City is a city I knew well; now it almost seems foreign to me with the collapse of those great buildings and the death of thousands of men and women who fell with it.

My next-door neighbor, a woman I knew for fourteen years, is among the missing from the WTC, and her husband is torn between pain-filled grief and desperate hope for her survival. He is among the thousands who still cling to hope, praying that somehow his wife is alive, away from the smoldering rubble and shattered glass. He stands with the relatives and friends of the missing who hold vigil on the streets of New York. They gather in small groups, showing each other pictures of their beloved, sharing stories and hoping that by some miracle their loved ones are only lost among the injured, perhaps somewhere safe in a hospital. These people are not simply white Americans, but are of all ethnicity and race, and they stand together holding hands, strangers hugging and comforting each other.

The street corners close to what was the WTC are thick with these gatherings; it is humanity reaching out for comfort in their fellow men. Some quietly, others in tears, they have waited through the nights, watching the recovery efforts and waiting endlessly for some news, any news that might bring an end to this terrible chapter. When their legs give in, they sit down by the street side, and as if inspired, someone starts to sing a sad melody. One by one, with tears flowing, the rest join in. To me their music is the purest statement of their dedication and love for the fallen souls, and their gentle voices must surely resonate through the heap of rubble of stone and steel. Gods must hear their cry, and the rest of humanity must share their sorrow.

Abraham George, New York
The George Foundation


Rising From The Ashes

The smoke and dust are finally settling at ground zero where the World Trade Center towers once stood. But the nation is unsettled, awash with anxiety, sorrow, anger and determination. Something terrible happened that fateful Tuesday and it is still difficult to comprehend. In an age of incredible imagination, this kind of attack and destruction was the realm of Hollywood and the fantastical images of the silver screen. Seeing it before our eyes, in flesh and blood, brings us to the amorphous zones of reality, of sorrow and grief. When the dust settles and the rubble is cleared, many will be left with broken hearts filled with pain and loneliness for those they have lost.

Each time I look across the Hudson River from my condo to where the twin towers once stood, defining both New York City's grandeur and America's economic success, I feel a terrible sense of sadness and loss. It is that gaping hole in the heart of Manhattan where the island makes its turn that brings all of us to the reality of what has occurred just a few days back. For the past thirty years, I would pass through that familiar complex on my way to the financial district. From my office on the twenty ninth floor of the first tower, I had worked with companies there until the bombing of 1993. It was my neighborhood, the place I knew more than any other. For me, the towers were a symbol of man's ingenuity, perseverance, and achievement. Sometimes I would stop on my way to the towers and look up, straining my neck to see their magnificent heights often hidden within the clouds, as though they were reaching for the heavens. But hardly did I ever think of it as a marvel; I had taken it for granted and went about my business there as if it was just my favorite street corner in the city. Today, my past is no longer in my present, and what was preciously mine, a part of my living, is robbed from me. New York is no longer the same, and all of America is wounded. But the pain of this tragedy cannot break our will and as a nation, our determination and hope is greater than before. I know that from the ruins will soon rise another architectural wonder, perhaps different from the original, but even more memorable -- a tribute for all those innocent lives lost.

Like most other Americans of Indian origin, I too share my loyalty between America and India. I try to look upon both nations from the knowledge I have gained from my shared heritage. In this sad hour, I think of Americans as a humane people who restored the devastated economies of even its worst enemies after World War II, and who have since made similar efforts all around the world to relieve poverty and misery. Most Americans cannot understand why anyone would hate them so much, why anyone would bring murder and destruction upon their brothers and sisters. There must be some reason, they argued in their own minds, out of a self-inflicted sense of guilt. Some of my close white American friends turned to me for an explanation, blaming themselves for their financial success, and accepting the shame of racial guilt at home and the human suffering of poverty abroad as natural explanations as to why America must be hated so much. I try to reason with them, pointing out that American historic imperfections are not sufficient justifications for this evil. We are a people of big hearts and great generosity, I told them, who value innocent human lives everywhere, and we should never accept any such collective blame.

The outpouring of kindness and concern for those whose lives have been directly affected by this tragedy has shown none of the class, gender or racial distinctions that have often preoccupied society. People lined up for hours in every city across America to donate blood, shipments of packages containing clothing and food poured in from ordinary citizens, and flowers and candles brightened up the doors in front of police and fire stations. Each day, the roadside to the disaster site was filled with citizens who cheered and encouraged the volunteers as they went to work at ground zero. The nation is in mourning, you can see the sorrow on the faces of her citizens in every walk of life, but beneath that there is an unspoken resolve to set things right at home, and to make the necessary sacrifice for a safer world.

In the initial days following the devastation, there was still hope that the missing were trapped somewhere in the four levels below ground. On the first day, my neighbor Roger whose wife Angela was missing from the tower, spoke of all the possibilities for her escape. It was only a matter of time before rescuers would reach her; maybe she was already safe in a hospital. He would call her on her mobile phone and let it ring three times and only three times so as to conserve the battery of her phone. Roger would repeat the process every two hours, around the clock, to let her know that help was on the way. To give her hope, to give himself hope. He thought of ideas of how to find her; he wanted all the rescue work to be stopped for two minutes so that everyone could call on their mobile phones, and hear where the rings came from within the rubble. There was no reply from her, but that didn't matter, as there were many explanations he could think of for her lack of response, and I did not have the courage to talk about other grim possibilities. Yesterday, after ten days, a police car came by to see Roger and tell him the news that he dreaded; that there was very little hope left of finding Angela. Silently, with tears flowing, Roger handed over her toothbrush and comb for DNA testing, if and when her body is found.

Only a month back, my son Vivek started college at New York University, not too far from the World Trade Center. The first night following the terror, he went from one hospital to another volunteering to help where he could. Our phone rang at 2 am that night, and with my heart pounding with fear, I took the handset to hear my son's voice. "Where are you?" I screamed. "At the hospital," he responded, and after a pause that seemed endless, he said, "I am looking for Angela. There is a list here, but how do you spell her last name?" I replied to him, and then told him how proud I was for what he was doing, and asked him to be careful. I was afraid of what else could happen in the city that night, but it didn't matter, and now it was his turn to help.

New Yorkers are known for being brash, and many visitors think of them as a tough and uncaring people who have no time for others. I guess there is something different about all of us in this big city; we really don't have the time for small things. But on that day, there were many heroes among the dead and the living in this disaster. By its very nature, true heroism is the province of the few. Hundreds of firemen climbed up the stairs through the thick smoke, moving from floor to floor toward the top of the towers, urging people to hurry down, only to be among the last to be left behind when it all collapsed. And there were ordinary citizens who took the time to carry those who were too terrified and numb to even walk and who continued to return to help even more. In their last desperate seconds when confronted with death, many took those precious moments left to call their loved ones. One man phoned his wife to tell her that he loved her very much, and asked her not to be sad and to care for their daughter. Another looked beyond his death, telling his beloved to make the best of life and to be happy. "I don't think I'm going to get out," one wrote in a final email to a companion, "You have been really a good friend." A young woman called her boyfriend to tell him that she hoped to somehow see him again, if not now, then some day. Even in their own moments of anguish, the urge to comfort their loved ones was no less evident among those "uncaring" people.

In the name of God, an unthinkable crime was committed on September 11th. It was one of the bloodiest days on American soil. It will take us months, if not years, to comprehend what has happened, and life will never be the same again in America. It is easy to get lost in Manhattan, so say many outsiders. For now we are lost, not in our sense of purpose, but in our unbearable shared grief.

Abraham George, New York
The George Foundation


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