I was at my fathers friend, the late Major Pathmanathans home on Sep 2001, having a drink with him, while watching the news on TV, when news came in that the first aircraft hit one of the twin towers. At that time, CNN India thought it was a terrible, freak accident. It didnt take long for the second aircraft to hit, and BBC jumped in, with a recurring headline America under Siege. Then came news of the Pentagon attack, and Indians slowly started calling relatives in the US while phone lines virtually melted down. A lot of people stayed up through the night, and watched the many videos that kept coming. It was a horrific spectacle, and it kept everyone focused upon the attack as only something horrific can. Politically, the attack was something that brought India and the US closer together than they had been since the Nehru years - Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was almost certainly the first political leader to openly offer President George W Bush military support in the use of all Indian Air Force bases, a privilege that India did not even offer the USSR during the Indira and Rajiv Gandhi socialist years. Even NATO, nominally US military allies, sat around discussing rules of engagement later, while news came in that the US had taken Kabul on its own. Personally, for me, this was a crucial time, as well. By February the next year, I would be in the US, never to go back.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 14:22:59 +0000
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