9/11: The Memories Remain Unfaded - TeluguPeople.com News

New Jersey, September 11: Ten years later, Vijay Chekuri still is unable to get past the memory of that Sunday night in September, 2001 when a casual decision perhaps saved his life and that of his family.

He had been showing his visiting parents around New York City and by the time they arrived at the World Trade Center, the group had grown a little tired.

'My parents looked exhausted with all that walking. So, I suggested that we could perhaps visit the WTC during the morning hours a couple of days later. But my father was keen to have it done with right away. So, we spent about an hour there and returned home,' says the 35-year old Jersey City resident who works in New York's Financial District.

Two days later, in the same morning hours that the family was planning to visit, the twin towers crumbled when a plane ripped through them. The photos that the Chekuris took that day at the WTC have now become family heirlooms.

On the day when the twin towers crumbled, Vijay was in his Battery Park office when the news broke. 'I had no clue as to what to make of it. It seemed too theatrical to be true. But then we switched on the television in the office and there it was, happening right before our eyes.'

Vijay was one of those who had to walk halfway home to Jersey City from lower Manhattan that day since the train services were disrupted. 'I took the WTC PATH train everyday to work then and still do. Now, when I walk past the site every morning, I am filled with a sense of disbelief that this is the same place where contemporary history was rewritten,' he muses.

Vijay's wife, Shailaja, was one among those forced to spend the night at Boston airport on the night of September 11, 2001 since all flights all over the US had been canceled.

'Until you have lived in New York at least for a while, it is difficult to understand why the WTC episode is such an intensely emotive issue for Americans. This is New York, the capital of the world, the most cosmopolitan and welcoming of cities and it was as if someone had shot a hole through the city's heart,' she says.

Then, as of now, Jersey City was the most favored residential destination for most Indians who worked in Manhattan. Many of them who TeluguPeople.com spoke to recounted the unforgettable difficulties in getting to work for weeks after the incident.

'Like Mumbai, New York is a city whose spirit is very resilient. Though our offices shut down for a few days after the attacks, they reopened soon enough and it was business as usual. But the commute to and from Manhattan to Jersey City was fraught with innumerable hardships,' remembers Vivek Surapaneni, a Vijayawada native, who has since relocated to Bangalore.

Like Chekuri, he too believes he has been spared the worst since he changed jobs in 2000. 'Earlier, I used to work for a stock broker in Vesey Street, just blocks away from the WTC. Had I still been with him, I may have been one of those caught up in the pandemonium on the streets that day. That experience would have haunted me for ever,' he adds.

For many who were witness to the history that unfolded that day, it will be a memory that will remain with them forever.