Reporter's Diary

OTHER REPORTER'S DIARY STORIES Indo-Pak Summit Royal Massacre Coke Tales India Fashion Week 11 September The War In Afghanistan Kumbha Mela To Sri Ravi Shankar The No Ministers Gujarat Earthquake Ball Tampering

In the summer of 2001 I reached the United States for a four-month fellowship programme. Almost instantly I was introduced to Congressman Gary Condit. It was difficult to miss him. A Democratic legislator from California, he had been accused of an extramarital relationship with Chandra Levy, an intern half his age who had subsequently gone missing. There was the usual outrage, the simulated frenzy, the calls for impeachment and loud questions about whether Condit would stand for re-election. Wall Street Journal even carried an editorial on Chandra's "Sanskrit name".

Condit was beginning to bore me. Unfortunately channel surfing, from Fox to CNN to NBC to Whatyoumaykalit TV had become a habit. One morning in Chicago it led me to turn on the TV while I was brushing my teeth. What I saw changed my day-and everybody's year.

AN ICON RUINED: The remains of the WTC

When I smelt the acrid emptiness that was once the Twin Towers, I didn't feel the passion I had thought I would.

September 11 was crazy. The orderly certitude of a First World society was sucked into the whirlpool of imponderables that so many of us Indians call home. I didn't need a boss barking orders on the telephone to figure out I had to get to New York and pronto. I called airports, airline offices, bus service companies, Amtrak train stations, car rental agencies. It was all to no avail. New York was tottering; the rest of America was at a standstill.

As I drove through the suddenly empty, suddenly silent streets of midday Chicago-"Everybody's home watching TV" mumbled an associate-about the only engines whirring were those of USAF fighters patrolling the skies overhead.

A few days later, I did finally get to New York. Either La Guardia airport had half a dozen passengers around or I had lost the ability to count. The streets of New York seemed busy enough, even if the first hotel I walked into had every single room free.

I went to the still smouldering remains of the World Trade Center. Perhaps it was the cynicism that is every Indian reporter's lot, perhaps it was simply many hours of TV viewing. Whatever it was, as I stared into and smelt the acrid emptiness that was once the Twin Towers, I didn't feel the horror, the passion, the emotion I had thought I would. I took a train to Midtown Manhattan, still coming to terms with what I'd seen but hadn't felt. A friend advised me to go to the New York State Armoury on Lexington Avenue, where "families of victims hang around".

In many ways, the armoury had become a shrine for a grieving city. Pasted on its walls were pictures of the missing, with a name, a description, a phone number and an anguished family's message. I saw one picture and moved to the next, I saw the second and moved to the third, the fourth, fifth, 500th, 4,000th. They just didn't stop. There were all sorts of faces, ethnicities, nationalities. In death as in life, New York had established itself as the world city.

India's perennially paranoid intelligentsia didn't see it that way. Nor did its kindred souls in New York's hyperactive NRI NGO circuit, dominated, I couldn't help but note, by old Calcuttans like this reporter. There were stories of racial crimes against Indians and others. I was asked to find the evidence. I'm afraid I failed. Coming from a country that often pretends the Sikh pogrom of November 1984 never happened, it was difficult not to be impressed by America.

A judge unilaterally postponed the trial of a black Muslim-for a crime completely unrelated to 9/11-because she felt the jury wouldn't be fair. Just after Balbir Singh Sodhi was killed at his gas station in Mesa, Arizona, a Sikh colleague working at the india today office in New York was stopped on the streets by a wizened white woman. "Are you a Seekh?" she demanded. Our man nodded. "Well," came the mellowed response, "I'm sorry for what my people are doing to your people. Please don't worry."

A few weeks later, I flew out of America. The easygoing society I had landed in was now at war; Anthrax had replaced higher taxes as public fear No. 1; an unsure president had become the steely commander-in-chief. The world had become scary.

Postscript Ten days ago, as the last of the Taliban's bastions fell, a friend from St Paul, Minnesota, sent me an e-mail captioned "Earth-shaking news from America". "Gary Condit has filed for re-election," he said, "with just 45 minutes to go for nominations. I just thought you'd like to know."

Sneaky fellows-Condit and my friend; and all those other Americans. Somehow, I'm glad they're back in business.