When All That's Left of a Pressure Cooker are Fragments and Hurt

As an intern at a communications consulting company many years ago, I had to get familiar with the firm's documents and their various formats and templates. The resident tech guru pointed to the computer screen and said, "Click on that icon." Try as I might, I couldn't see an image of Jesus, Mary or any other religious figure. I turned to him and shook my head. "The icon. Here." He pointed to a very specific spot on the screen. I clicked on what looked like a folder and we were on our way.

That was the first time I had heard the word 'icon' used in that context. I had taught myself basic word processing at my grad school's library a few months earlier and was a neophyte when it came to tech jargon. It was not long before the list of words whose original meanings slowly merged with the meanings they acquired in the tech industry grew longer and longer. Mouse. Drive. Memory. Bug. Virus. Chip. File. Folder. Save. Recycle Bin. It was discombobulating at the beginning but not by the time Link, Tag, Navigate, Cloud and Friend came along.

It is only natural that this sort of co-opting of existing words and giving them new meanings must occur every time a new industry tries to find its footing. My favorite example is of the use of the word 'broadcasting' in the radio and TV industries. It originally referred to the way seeds were sown on farms - they were either 'broadcast', i.e., cast over a large area, or 'narrowcast'. These days, however, one hardly ever thinks of agriculture when that word is used.

Over the last few years, a newer enterprise - the terror industry - has been busy usurping words and their meanings. And it is accomplishing this feat not by using the words differently, but by commandeering mundane objects for its lethal purposes and wresting control of how we view those objects and the words we use to denote them.

Ordinary, everyday implements have always come in handy in committing crimes on a small scale - kitchen knives, arsenic, baseball (or cricket) bats, hockey sticks, pillows, etc. For acts of terror the tools of choice have expanded to cover fertilizers, nails, batteries, ball bearings, bleach, nail polish removers and cold packs. The original meanings of these words have not changed much, but a new, somewhat discomfiting connotation has layered itself on top of the original meaning. Belts, shoes, loose change in pant pockets, jackets, watches, lotions, gels, nail clippers - memories of security lines at airports attach themselves to thoughts of dressing up to go out. I can never think of box cutters (a term I'd not heard before) without also thinking of 9/11.

While our awareness has expanded to accommodate the understanding that some of these objects may be deployed to cause large-scale destruction, they hardly evoke the sort of memories that the latest entrant to this rather ignominious list - the pressure cooker - does.

To most people who've ever used it, the pressure cooker comes packaged with good, warm memories of the sights and sounds of home, of family, and of home-cooked food. Home cooks hold on to their pressure cookers for as long as they can because once they have mastered the nuances unique to each unit, it's hard to want to let go and start all over with a new one. The whistles of the cooker blend into a family's early morning rhythms. The aroma of steamed vegetables, rice and pulses is a harbinger of meals to follow.

Until a few years ago, a shiny new pressure cooker (along with detailed recipes) occupied a large portion of suitcases when kids in South Asia left home to go away to college abroad. It was too expensive an item to purchase on a student's (non-existent) budget. These days it is more widely available here in the US, and with people willing to try their hand at a variety of cuisines, it's not a rare item on wedding registries either. And it is not the sort of thing that would trigger a thorough sweep of your luggage at airports.

That was then.

Kitchen disasters with pressure cookers are not uncommon, usually due to faulty gaskets or weights. But there is an unbridgeable gulf between accidents and wanton acts designed to kill and maim other human beings. Many more words in our vocabulary have now mutated to acquire a slightly different shape and have settled somewhat uneasily in our collective memories. Marathon. Boston. Finish Line. Pressure Cooker. They trigger sad thoughts for lives lost and pain suffered; they bring thoughts of good human beings, of a situation that could have been worse but for many kind-hearted people; they call up anger at the senseless attacks on innocent lives. But no matter what, they trigger thoughts that never were before.

This is now.

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Update - April 29, 2013

This essay was published at The Aerogram.
 

The Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers as Seen From the Air

ABC News has obtained aerial photographs of the collapse of the Twin Towers taken in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. They were taken by Det. Greg Semendinger of the NY Police Aviation Unit, the only photographer allowed in the airspace around that time, according to the NY Times.

They make for stunning visuals. All of my visual memory of that day seems to contain images of the towers seen from the bottom up, of debris falling all around the people fleeing the carnage of building parts falling, of ash falling.

These pictures offer an entirely new perspective, especially when grouped together as aerial pictures - the ash looks like it's spreading sideways and up, not falling.

Mumbai Terrorist Attacks: Anatomy of a Siege

Nearly a year ago now, we went on a road trip to Asheville, North Carolina, for the Thanksgiving holiday. We had about an hour left on the nine-hour drive when a friend called us from Chicago with the news that Mumbai was under attack. "Are you close to a TV?" he asked. Two hours later we turned on the TV in our apartment and saw the horror unfolding right in front of television cameras.

The rampage, the deaths, the agony, the chaos and the destruction - they were all there, the images constantly and relentlessly flitting across our screens, the cameras documenting the mayhem minute by painful minute. We had questions. Why did it take so long for the military forces to reach the hotels and the hospitals? Why were reporters not cautioned about broadcasting the tactics of security forces? Could the attacks have been avoided in the first place? Could the damage have been minimized?

In an article titled Anatomy of a Siege, Marie Brenner weaves in the numerous strands of the events that transpired that day in a gripping essay for the November '09 issue of Vanity Fair:

The city’s rage had narrowed down to one issue: long into the night a squad of police and a contingent from the army had stood outside the Taj while terrorists roamed the floors above, taking hostages. The police were waiting for orders from a commissioner of noble lineage who stayed put in his car at the nearby Oberoi hotel and for the arrival of commandos and anti-terror forces from New Delhi. From his station a few blocks away, A. N. Roy, the head of the state police, screamed at his men, “Why can’t they go in? Why are they standing there?” But powerful as he was, Roy could not directly command the local police. India is a top-down society of entrenched bureaucrats, with appallingly inadequate communication among agencies.

[...]

One of those trapped was Dr. Mangeshikar, who had started her evening declaring that she would stay at the wedding one hour tops. The hotel staff passed trays of sandwiches and drinks at Chambers. “Leave this kitchen right now—the terrorists are on the way,” Kang ordered. “They refused to leave,” Kang told me. “They said, 'We are preparing food and drinks for the guests.’” Kang ordered them again, “Leave! Your lives are in danger.” Dattatrey Chaskar, a waiter, begged Kang, “Save my son!” No one could find the young man. Later he would be discovered huddled among stacks of lamb chops in a cold-storage cabinet.

Parts of the story leave you shaken, you look at some of the survivors and wonder what you'd have done in their situation. Would it have occurred to me to conjure up a make-shift toilet out of sheets in a corner of the room for hotel guests holed up in a room - as it did to Mallika Jagad, who happened to be in charge of a banquet that day?

The entire story is available by clicking here: Anatomy of a Siege.

Related posts: Volunteerism vs. Terrorism

Memories of 9/11

We have two pictures* of the Twin Towers around the house. One was taken from a boat as it sped away from the city toward the Statue of Liberty. The other from the ground as I lay on my back at the foot of the towers and snapped a photograph from a quirky angle. In that shot the towers seem to be leaning toward each other.

I don't go to New York that often, but when I do these days, my eyes scan the fast-approaching skyline. The Twin Towers were hard to miss when they were there. Their absence is hard not to miss now that they no longer straddle the horizon.

In Washington, D.C., I have driven by the Pentagon countless times since 9/11. Every single time, I turn and look over to where the third plane ploughed into what I thought was a fortress. New concrete, new glass, new paint and a brand new memorial have more than managed to smooth over the terrible scars inflicted on the building that day. Whether the scars inflicted in the human beings have smoothed over is quite another matter.

The minutes may have merged into one another, no longer distinct, clear; the day itself making its presence felt, and not just on anniversaries, as a vague, anxious feeling, amorphous, floating in the air. It makes its presence felt every time a loved one gets on a plane and I refresh news pages on my computer until I know the plane has landed; when I get into a large building in a large city and look around trying to ... I don't know what; when tunnels and bridges don't seem as enjoyable anymore.

This year, particularly, I've noticed that small flags are lining lawn edges and plant borders in the homes around me. The memorial tree in my neighborhood in remembrance of my neighbors who died in the Pentagon on 9/11 is lined with flags.

Every year there is a new way of remembering. But there is remembering. It is difficult not to remember.

Some of you may have noticed a link to a post in the side bar to the right - 9/11 Remembered. What appears below is that essay I wrote four years ago.

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A generation ago, the question was, "Where were you when President Kennedy was shot?"

For my generation, there are too many questions. Tragedies and calamities abound in our collective memories, but one question that will be asked again and again is, "Where were you on 9/11?"

At this time of year, that question doesn't even have to be asked.

I was at home in northern Virginia with a cup of tea and a newspaper in my hand, standing in the breakfast room and looking out into the backyard through the bay windows. N** was already at the baby sitter's and V was on his way to work.

Three days ago, N and I had returned home from a six-week trip to India.

I savored all the little things I had taken for granted, but had missed sorely when I was away from home.

Outside, the sky was blue, cloudless, bright with that early fall sunshine that was not too hot on the skin. A slight breeze ruffled only the tops of the tall trees in the backyard. Everything looked fresh, clean.

Inside, Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson's easy, morning talk show banter filled the silence in an otherwise quiet house.

Then, confusion.

In Diane Sawyer's voice. In Charlie Gibson's voice. The banter was gone. Replaced by broken sentences, words that were coming out staccato. Too many pauses in between. They were searching for words, for understanding, for any information that would explain what has just happened. I turned to look at the TV screen.

There were no video shots yet. Just two lines repeated over and over - the Vice-President of CNN had seen a plane crashing into the Twin Towers. His office had a direct view of the World Trade Center.

I flipped furiously to the other channels - NBC, CBS, CNN.

The first images that replaced the Good Morning America studio scene were shots of the Twin Towers, smoke billowing out of a gaping hole near the top of one of them.

None of the TV channels had any confirmation of the news that a plane had crashed into one of the towers, yet. The discussion focused on whether there was an explosion in the building. Or speculation that may be it was a helicopter or one of those chartered planes. They are known to fly low, staying just above the Manhattan skyline, sometimes even seeming to dip in between the buildings. At this point, there was no thought (at least none that was voiced) that it was anything but an accident.

I called V, who was still on the road, on his way to his office about eight miles away.

I watched the TV screen, describing the scene to him. Then I saw a plane entering the screen from the center-right side. My first reaction was, "God, how stupid is he? He's too close to the buildings!"

Within a few seconds the plane rammed into the other tower. A ball of fire followed by an inferno, black smoke.

The TV anchors were just repeating what I had said to V when describing the second plane. The theory of the pilot's stupidity now duelling with the theory that may be, it was not an accident. Compounded by the shock that this was happening twice within the space of a few minutes.

There was no other way of reporting it. They had no more information than I did. The pictures were there for all to see.

There were no background file photos. No fillers. There was no script.

This was not pre-meditated war. This was not a natural disaster. This was not a multi-car pile-up on some icy interstate.

This was the story of two planes that came out of the clear blue skies that sunny September morning and crashed into the Twin Towers, those pillars of American achievement.

This was as real as TV could get.

I wanted all three of us to be home. Right away.

There was a deep sense of foreboding. Something was not right. I could not explain what I was seeing on TV. The people that were supposed to be able to explain could not, did not, explain what I was seeing on TV.

I wanted V to turn around wherever he was and come right back. I wanted to get N back from the baby sitter.

I could not. I was stuck at home. One of the cars was in the garage for maintenance. V had taken the other. He told me not to worry, that he would be back home as soon as he could and pick up N on the way back.

I'd been standing all this time. As I sat down on the sofa, remote in hand, I heard a loud thud. The windows rattled, the house trembled. Blasting at a construction site, I thought.

Without warning, the the television screens switched to Washington, DC. Claire Shipman was on TV, mike in hand, her back to the Vice-President's office, plumes of smoke rising from a building behind her.

From one angle, the building behind the Vice-President's office is the White House. No one was certain what this meant. May be a fire in one of the buildings? At this point, no one, least of all me, was connecting the loud thud with the smoke.

A few minutes later, the connection was clear. A plane's tail was sticking out of the side of the Pentagon that faces Arlington.

I called V. The cell phone circuits were jammed. I called all of my family that's in the US, made sure everyone was fine. I called India, told my parents and in-laws we were all fine. Everyone was trying to call everyone else. It took us all a few minutes to reach each other.

I still could not reach V. He managed to call me.

Washington, D.C. was being evacuated. He was turning back. But there was no place to turn. By this time, the morning rush hour had mushroomed into a monster. Two-way roads were switched to one ways, vehicles were going around in circles. Rush hour that was usually uni-directional was becoming bi-directional. All the bridges coming out of Washington, DC into Virginia were choking with the overload.

As V would say later, the evacuees were sitting ducks for anyone wanting to target huge numbers of people with nowhere to go. That evacuation was anything but orderly. It was an unmitigated disaster. It took V three hours to cover the distance that would normally take 30 minutes, to get home.

Still no information on what was happening. I don't know, may be because of the movies, or may be it is what I was getting used to, may be getting spoiled even - what with all the news channels, all that information, the idea that the nation should know what is going on, the images of Presidents addressing the nation - but I kept thinking, ok, the President will be on any minute. There will be something someone at the White House will say that I want to listen to.

Everyone had their two cents in. Everyone except the people I wanted to hear from. I was waiting for an answer to a simple question, "What is going on?"

The thing is these thoughts rolled through my mind right then. They were not the result of some post-mortem of the events that transpired that day. That day, I realized for the first time that I was looking for something from the government, something other than services or social security programs or budgets, or low interest rates.

The image of David Bloom - with ash, debris on his hair, his voice hoarse, his face gaunt, his eyes red from the dust, from hours of standing on his feet, his back to the falling towers - is the strongest in my mind from all the hours of TV coverage we watched, compulsively.

Then news of Flight 93 crashing in Pennsylvania. By this time, the shock was gone. There was the dull realization that whatever this thing was, it was relentless.

Hours, days, later, the stories.

Of bodies flying out of the windows of the towers, a desperate attempt to escape the fire and heat inside. Of policemen and firemen and dogs risking their lives to save others'. Of Todd Beamer and Lisa, the telephone operator who connected him to his pregnant wife, also Lisa, for a final few words before going to meet his death.

Of people trudging home on foot for hours. Of firms losing all their employees in a span of minutes. Of a six-month old baby waiting for her mother to come home and wailing every time the door opened but the mother did not come. Of rows and rows of cars waiting in vain at metro stations in New Jersey for their owners to come drive them home. Of my own neighbors who work at the Pentagon (two of whom died in that attack), coming home shaken, unable to eat for days.

Of depression among the people living around the World Trade Center because they are no longer in the shadow of the Twin Towers.

Their view outside their windows and our view of the world inexorably altered.

~~~~~~
* I will try to scan the pictures and put them up.
** C was known as N then on my blog. D wasn't born yet.

Volunteerism vs. Terrorism

It has been a week since a handful of terrorists brazenly attacked Mumbai and mowed down innocent people going about their lives. A twisted ideology, a few guns and hand-grenades caused enough mayhem and destruction over a span of two and half days to roil already sensitive relations between two neighboring countries and evoke anger, rage, sadness, anxiety and fear in a whole lot of people, as many Indians as non-Indians.

Since then we have heard from commentators, politicians, policy-makers, victims, reporters, activists, writers, bloggers and ordinary citizens the world over.

Some of these reactions assess how we got where we are - helpless, at the mercy of a few youngsters who take it upon themselves to end human lives while giving birth to chaos. They don't hesitate to point fingers at a whole host of reasons - bad intelligence, a government asleep at the wheel, police and army branches stymied by hierarchy and politics, inadequate security in public places, a down-trodden Muslim population in India, a two-faced Pakistan saying one thing on the world stage but doing something entirely different in the dark corners within its borders. Some ask, frustration and desperation oozing from their words, what do we do going forward? What is the solution to this vexing problem?

Here's Amitav Ghosh ("If India takes a hard line modeled on the actions of the Bush administration, the consequences are sure to be equally disastrous."), and Suketu Mehta ("But the best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever."), and Thomas Friedman ("The best defense against this kind of murderous violence is to limit the pool of recruits, and the only way to do that is for the home society to isolate, condemn and denounce publicly and repeatedly the murderers — and not amplify, ignore, glorify, justify or “explain” their activities."), and Pankaj Mishra ("Indeed, the outrage in Mumbai is the latest and clearest sign that the price of India’s uncompromising stance on Kashmir has become too high, imperiling its economy as well as its security."), and Manjeet Kripalani ("Lists of suggestions are being posted on the Internet on how to rebel, from tax revolts to shifting corporate headquarters out of Bombay to other Indian cities with better governance. Additional ideas include starting a Better India Fund for security infrastructure and running it privately without political input, sealing the coastline, starting policy institutes, getting Bombay to secede from Maharashtra state (where the city is located), creating a chief executive for the city, and going back to calling the metropolis Bombay, not Mumbai."), and Jack and Suzy Welch ("Because the attack in Mumbai, striking as it did at India's financial heart, showed just how risky doing business in India may become."), and scores of others who also mourn the repeated assaults on their beloved Mumbai.

Every point of view expressed by these and other commentators has been dissected, criticized, commended as the right thing to do or dismissed as being totally the wrong approach to take at this time. Frequently, these opposite points of view appear as comments on the same article. In response to the attacks, there have been candlelight vigils, marches and protests.

But the sentiment that it's time to do something more than show up at a vigil is also strong.

The spectre of terrorism doesn't seem to be going away any time soon, and it is obvious that certain aspects of the necessary steps to be taken at this point are beyond the ken of the average citizen. We need a strong and responsive government. We need well-equipped armed forces and police. We need intelligence services. There are things we can do to exert some influence, of course. Get engaged and stay engaged in the public affairs of whatever place we live in - become aware of the issues and vote, for instance.

There are, however, other things that we can do, as individual citizens.

Over the last week, I've been reminded a lot about Noor Ayesha, the young woman who opened her home to the little children in her poor neighborhood in Bangalore so they could have a place to learn. She saw a need - there were no nursery schools in her community and the children suffered when they started in first grade with no prior exposure to any type of learning - and she got involved. She got the training and support she needed and is now running a school out of her home.

The same is true of my neighborhood here. The public schools, the sports teams, the community services, nothing would be the same without the tens of residents who give countless hours voluntarily to their cause of choice. The swim team reps spend more than 60 hours a week running the summer league competitions. That's in addition to their day jobs. The PTA at our school is manned by a number of mothers that volunteer in the class rooms, in the cafeteria, in the library and raise funds for the school. The neighbors care enough to shovel snow off of each other's driveways when they know someone or the other can't do it for some reason.

This is how I remember the neighborhoods I grew up in in India even though we moved a lot. There were no formal volunteer programs and very rarely did an entire neighborhood's problems get solved, but neighbors knew each other and they cared enough to step in when a neighbor needed help.

Volunteering and getting engaged in your neighborhood and with your neighbors, stepping up fill in the gaps in services (of that we know there are a lot) where necessary, might seem like a drop in the ocean in the face of the power and ruthlessness of global terrorism. But if we look around in our communities and band together, I firmly believe we can have some impact.

Produced by Westinghouse for the War Production.

Created by J. Howard Miller.

Modifications © Jone Lewis 2001.

For one, we'll get to know our neighbors and this seems especially important given that many of us are migrants - across countries, across cities, across neighborhoods. Strangers and strange goings-on are more likely to be noticed in such communities (on a facetious note, what we need are bands of aunties and uncles on every street poking their noses in each others' business). In communities already working together, it is easier to accomplish this next step - form volunteer cells of our own. Not only can these cells be the eyes and ears of the community, but can also be on the front lines of the response to a terror attack, not the military kind, but organizing emergency care, food, water and medical supplies, housing those people in need of temporary shelter, etc., be responsible for disseminating information. Growing up, we had youth clubs in our neighborhood with energetic teenagers organizing contests, festival celebrations, parties. Could we not channel that same energy toward preparedness?

As I'm typing this, I can think of a few reasons for not doing any of this - no matter what happens at the neighborhood level, you still need the police and the intelligence services to listen to you if you go to them with tips and they may not as was the case with the fishermen who tipped off the police(?) about the strange goings-on off the coast of Mumbai; the scale of the attacks might be such that no matter how large the band of volunteers, they might still be overwhelmed and ineffective; there may be instances in which suspicions could easily degenerate into witch-hunts; all terrorist attacks will not be prevented just because of volunteer groups forming in various communities. I'm sure there are ten other reasons.

But, why not start somewhere? What if at least one terror attack were prevented because neighborhoods decided to live up to their name? What if the impact was at least 10% lower than it could have been because well-organized groups stepped up to respond to the needs in the immediate aftermath of the attacks? What if this just lead us to being more aware of what is going on around us?

There seems to be no magic bullet (no pun intended) to solve the problem of terrorism once and for all. For the long term, there are excellent suggestions for secular schools, for better outreach to the marginalized communities, for better dialogue among the South Asian nations. But in the short term - as in tomorrow - looking inward into our own neighborhoods and engaging in some grass-roots organizing is something we can all do.

As the saying goes, Think global, act local. If each of us worked to protect our neighborhoods, surely, it would add up to something.

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December 9, 2008

Updated to add two links:

• To the IndiaHelps website. Kiran (who describes herself as "Just another mom") and her band of blogger pals (Rohini, kbpm, Chandni and Parul) are doing something. From their About section:

This blog is an effort to help. Help India, help ourselves to help ourselves. Because if we dont do it, no one will. Anyone with an urge to do more than just be a bystander to the carnage and mayhem that wrecks the parts of our country everytime we have a disaster causes by external elements or through natural causes, can help. We will maintain a database of people who are in a position and are willing to be of assistance, either immediately during the crisis itself, or later in relief and rehabilitation. We will put people wanting to contribute financially to victims in direct contact with NGOs doing the same or the victims directly. We will look for good samaritans who are willing to contribute towards medical expenses, post traumatic therapy requirements, and prosthesis requirements for those rendered disabled in such situations. We will attempt to sponsor the education of the bereaved children by putting dedicated and serious citizens who wish to do so in direct contact with the bereaved family. We have many hopes. And need all the help we can. And we need all the people who can help out to write in. We need people with only a desire to help. We're looking for those who can contribute skills at the times of crisis: Doctors, medically trained personnel, ex-army personnel, even anyone who has a vehicle and is willing to drive critically injured people to hospitals or ferry people from danger spots to safe zones. Anyone with a space that can be used as a refuge area for people stuck in times of natural calamities like floods or total power blackouts which renders the local train service dead, please do write in. Write in to indiahelps@gmail.com if you would like to help in anyway, or have any suggestions.

Good luck and godspeed.

• To 6 AM Pacific (via DesiPundit), who's looking for An Indian "Yes We Can"

How did Obama make that happen? Not just by carrying the black, and the young college educated voters. But by galvanizing a vast volunteer base that became a force multiplier. This volunteer base contributed to his campaign with money, but most importantly with their time. They went to phone banks and called undecided voters to explain Obama’s positions. They never tired of talking to their friends about why Obama was the right choice. And calling in to radio talk shows on politics. And of course the bumper stickers. If each one of them got two others to change their vote, that would have been enough to ensure victory.

In India we need our own political revolution. This has to be led by educated voters who are more discerning, wherever they are. They need to roll up their trousers (or sarees) and wade into the murky waters of Indian politics. They don’t have to become politicians but they must become more engaged. Politics is a contact sport. You can’t bring about change by shouting advice from the stands.

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December 15, 2008

Updated to add two links:

1. To Kids For Mumbai (also at http://kidsformumbai.blogspot.com), started by Maryland-based 8 year-old Priyanka (via Conversations With Dina). Whether you donate or not is your personal decision, but kudos to Priyanka.

2. To Known Turf's commentary on staying engaged in the business of running a nation:

We are, politically speaking, such an ignorant country that it makes me cringe to think of it. Forget elections. Many of us cannot even name our own prime minister and president and the local councillor or MLA. The vast majority of this country simply does not know! A lot of this has to do with illiteracy, yes, but a lot of it also has to do with not wanting to know. And it’s not just the poor and the illiterate. It is because anyone who can afford to takes pride in saying ‘Oh, but I am not a political person’. We want to cut ourselves off from the business of running a nation, or a city. We want the government to function like some sort of sub-contractual service provider. We don’t have leaders because we don’t want leaders. We wanted thekedaars; we got thekedaars!

9/11: Six Years Later

For months after the hijacked jet liner ploughed into the west side of the Pentagon six years ago, try as I might, I could not avoid looking at the massive gash that had wounded this America icon. It was morbid but mesmerizing.

Six years later, driving by the Pentagon on Interstate 395 from Virginia into Washington, D.C., I still turn to look, eyes flitting over the facade, remembering. But now the walls are smooth again; the windows shiny. There is not a trace of the pulverized concrete, the shattered glass, the mangled plane, or the soot that stained the walls of America's defense head quarters for weeks after the 9/11 attack. From a distance, five years after it was rebuilt, nothing betrays the horror of that day - not even the newness of the edifice.

If only human beings were as easy to rebuild.

On TV, the woman walks across the swath of land across from this side of the Pentagon that is pock-marked with square slabs of concrete - 184 to be exact. The concrete slabs will eventually be a memorial to the 184 people who lost their lives that day. Cameras and reporters trail her. Some days are good, some days are bad, she says. The loss of her husband seems to have etched itself on her face. A man talks about his wife who died on the second day of her job which also happened to be her birthday.

In my neighborhood, the sapling planted to remember two of my fellow residents who died in the Pentagon that day is now a full-grown tree, standing strong and tall. Every so often, I see people on their daily runs or walks taking a breather under its lush, vibrant foliage.

This year, more than in the previous years, I read and see reports of people tiring of the incessant coverage of the 9/11 anniversary. For sure, there is the predictable news coverage of hunting down survivors and surviving families and checking up on them; ceremonies in which politicians give self-important speeches and read out "moving" poems; reporters tracking the progress of the various planned memorials and recounting the behind-the-scenes bickering about the plans and the funding; and article upon article about the war on terror and the interminable analyses of whether it has actually made America safer.

But the alternative - not talking about it at all - is as impractical as it is unthinkable.

For even someone who did not lose a loved one in the carnage of that day, it is impossible to escape the fact that, in many ways big and small, 9/11 inexorably changed our view of the world. There is something different in the air, as if someone grabbed the molecules and rearranged them.

Just driving into Washington, D.C. after a gap of three years of living in India is enough to bring on the sad realization that the city has changed even more than right after the attack. Where cars drove freely and parked freely, there are now lane closures and barricades every where you look. Unencumbered views of the monuments on the National Mall, all along Constitution Avenue, were the order of the day. No more. Ugly cement blocks and walls rise from the ground to mar the visual real estate. Long lines of people wait patiently to go through the security check to enter museums and federal buildings.

The staccato sounds of helicopters and steady drones of fighter jets, which earlier evoked thoughts of air shows or Presidential arrivals or departures now lead you to wonder what's going on. One day a couple of years after 9/11, as my son and I were coming out of the library in our neighborhood we noticed about four or five helicopters circling the area. It was disconcerting to say the least. I saw a police car parked outside the library and I asked one of the officers what was going on. He smiled broadly and said it was, perhaps, just a military exercise. He ducked into his car and fished out a coupon for ice creams and gave them to my son. Enjoy, he said. May be he saw the concern on my face and felt sorry.

The clear blue September skies and the crisp, slightly chilly air of the beginning of autumn in this part of world are themselves enough to evoke memories of where I was that day and what I was doing. Enough to remind me of the panic of not having either my husband or my son at home; of seeing the second plane ramming into the second tower on live television; of hearing the loud thud of the plane hitting the Pentagon and feeling the house shake and my windows rattle; of seeing my neighbors coming back home from work at the Pentagon, shaken and unable to eat for days; of not knowing what was going on, but knowing, by the time the fourth plane hit the field in Pennsylvania, that whatever this was, it was relentless.

When loved ones get on a plane to fly these days I notice that I unwittingly keep an eye on the news. I think twice about my husband and I leaving the children at home with a babysitter and going out by ourselves even for a couple hours. What if?

I can only imagine what someone who lived through 9/11 and felt its impact more closely than I did must go through every year. After all, memories don't have sell-by dates. What must they feel when personal events or external goings-on trigger flashbacks? What do they remember when Osama Bin Laden comes on the airwaves, well groomed (I wonder if he used plain old boot polish or an American brand of hair dye that promised to last through twenty-four shampoos and provide complete gray coverage) and obviously aware of world events? What must they do when memories come unbidden and demand to be countenanced?

Image Courtesy: The Pentagon Memorial Site

Update:

Sepia Munity on 9/11

9/11 Remembered

A generation ago, the question was, "Where were you when President Kennedy was shot?"

For my generation, there are too many questions. Tragedies and calamities abound in our collective memories, but one question that will be asked again and again is, "Where were you on 9/11?"

At this time of year, that question doesn't even have to be asked.

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I was at home in northern Virginia with a cup of tea and a newspaper in my hand, standing in the breakfast room and looking out into the backyard through the bay windows. N was already at the baby sitter's and V was on his way to work.

Three days ago, N and I had returned home from a six-week trip to India.

I savored all the little things I had taken for granted, but had missed sorely when I was away from home.

Outside, the sky was blue, cloudless, bright with that early fall sunshine that was not too hot on the skin. A slight breeze ruffled only the tops of the tall trees in the backyard. Everything looked fresh, clean.

Inside, Diane Sawyer and Charlie Gibson's easy, morning talk show banter filled the silence in an otherwise quiet house.

Then, confusion.

In Diane Sawyer's voice. In Charlie Gibson's voice. The banter was gone. Replaced by broken sentences, words that were coming out staccato. Too many pauses in between. They were searching for words, for understanding, for any information that would explain what has just happened. I turned to look at the TV screen.

There were no video shots yet. Just two lines repeated over and over - the Vice-President of CNN had seen a plane crashing into the Twin Towers. His office had a direct view of the World Trade Center.

I flipped furiously to the other channels - NBC, CBS, CNN.

The first images that replaced the Good Morning America studio scene were shots of the Twin Towers, smoke billowing out of a gaping hole near the top of one of them.

None of the TV channels had any confirmation of the news that a plane had crashed into one of the towers, yet. The discussion focussed on whether there was an explosion in the building. Or speculation that may be it was a helicopter or one of those chartered planes. They are known to fly low, staying just above the Manhattan skyline, sometimes even seeming to dip in between the buildings. At this point, there was no thought (at least none that was voiced) that it was anything but an accident.

I called V, who was still on the road, on his way to his office about eight miles away.

I watched the TV screen, describing the scene to him. Then I saw a plane entering the screen from the center-right side. My first reaction was, "God, how stupid is he? He's too close to the buildings!"

Within a few seconds the plane rammed into the other tower. A ball of fire followed by an inferno, black smoke.

The TV anchors were just repeating what I had said to V when describing the second plane. The theory of the pilot's stupidity now duelling with the theory that may be, it was not an accident. Compounded by the shock that this was happening twice within the space of a few minutes.

There was no other way of reporting it. They had no more information than I did. The pictures were there for all to see.

There were no backround file photos. No fillers. There was no script.

This was not pre-meditated war. This was not a natural disaster. This was not a multi-car pile-up on some icy interstate.

This was the story of two planes that came out of the clear blue skies that sunny September morning and crashed into the Twin Towers, those pillars of American achievement.

This was as real as TV could get.

I wanted all three of us to be home. Right away.

There was a deep sense of foreboding. Something was not right. I could not explain what I was seeing on TV. The people that were supposed to be able to explain could not, did not, explain what I was seeing on TV.

I wanted V to turn around wherever he was and come right back. I wanted to get N back from the baby sitter.

I could not. I was stuck at home. One of the cars was in the garage for maintenance. V had taken the other. He told me not to worry, that he would be back home as soon as he could and pick up N on the way back.

I'd been standing all this time. As I sat down on the sofa, remote in hand, I heard a loud thud. The windows rattled, the house trembled. Blasting at a construction site, I thought.

Without warning, the the television screens switched to Washington, DC. Claire Shipman was on TV, mike in hand, her back to the Vice-President's office, plumes of smoke rising from a building behind her.

From one angle, the building behind the Vice-President's office is the White House. No one was certain what this meant. May be a fire in one of the buildings? At this point, no one, least of all me, was connecting the loud thud with the smoke.

A few minutes later, the connection was clear. A plane's tail was sticking out of the side of the Pentagon that faces Arlington.

I called V. The cell phone circuits were jammed. I called all of my family that's in the US, made sure everyone was fine. I called India, told my parents and in-laws we were all fine. Everyone was trying to call everyone else. It took us all a few minutes to reach each other.

I still could not reach V. He managed to call me.

Washington, D.C. was being evacuated. He was turning back. But there was no place to turn. By this time, the morning rush hour had mushroomed into a monster. Two-way roads were switched to one ways, vehicles were going around in circles. Rush hour that was usually uni-directional was becoming bi-directional. All the bridges coming out of Washington, DC into Virginia were choking with the overload.

As V would say later, the evacuees were sitting ducks for anyone wanting to target huge numbers of people with nowhere to go. That evacucation was anything but orderly. It was an unmitigated disaster. It took V three hours to cover the distance that would normally take 30 minutes, to get home.

Still no information on what was happening. I don't know, may be because of the movies, or may be it is what I was getting used to, may be getting spoiled even - what with all the news channels, all that information, the idea that the nation should know what is going on, the images of Presidents addressing the nation - but I kept thinking, ok, the President will be on any minute. There will be something someone at the White House will say that I want to listen to.

Everyone had their two cents in. Everyone except the people I wanted to hear from. I was waiting for an answer to a simple question, "What is going on?"

The thing is these thoughts rolled through my mind right then. They were not the result of some post-mortem of the events that transpired that day. That day, I realized for the first time that I was looking for something from the government, something other than services or social security programs or budgets, or low interest rates.

The image of David Bloom - with ash, debris on his hair, his voice hoarse, his face gaunt, his eyes red from the dust, from hours of standing on his feet, his back to the falling towers - is the strongest in my mind from all the hours of TV coverage we watched, compulsively.

Then news of Flight 93 crashing in Pennsylvania. By this time, the shock was gone. There was the dull realization that whatever this thing was, it was relentless.

Hours, days, later, the stories.

Of bodies flying out of the windows of the towers, a desperate attempt to escape the fire and heat inside. Of policemen and firemen and dogs risking their lives to save others'. Of Todd Beamer and Lisa, the telephone operator who connected him to his pregnant wife, also Lisa, for a final few words before going to meet his death.

Of people trudging home on foot for hours. Of firms losing all their employees in a span of minutes. Of a six-month old baby waiting for her mother to come home and wailing every time the door opened but the mother did not come. Of rows and rows of cars waiting in vain at metro stations in New Jersey for their owners to come drive them home. Of my own neighbors who work at the Pentagon (two of whom died in that attack), coming home shaken, unable to eat for days.

Of depression among the people living around the World Trade Center because they are no longer in the shadow of the Twin Towers.

Their view outside their windows and our view of the world inexorably altered.