yesterday was the six month anniversary of the bombing of the world trade center. the night before yesterday they showed a special on cbs (it was watched by 39 million people),in which 2 french photographers wanted to do documentary on firefighter rookies, and how they go from rookies to trained firefighters. it appears that they started to do this around july 2001. of course they were there on september 11. it was amazing. they documented the whole thing, searching for people in the wtc, the reactions of the firefighters at seeing the chaos, the deaths, the wreckage. the reactions of the firefighters when they realized how many other firefighters died. the reactions of finding out that someone that they knew died or as they said 'missing'. it showed how hard they worked to try to recover bodies.



i had seen alot of this when it actually happened...i was glued to the tv as was everyone else...but in this documentary i learned some knew things about all that had occured. for instance, that the folks would work to recover bodies, and then would have to stop and run if they were told that more of the building was falling...and also that they would all stop working for about 5 minutes to wait and see if there were any sounds that might be coming from survivors who were buried...to see where they should dig if there were any survivors that were alive...



9 11. 3000 people dead. 2 wonderous buildings demolished. a city, new york city...destroyed...but not for forever. the attack. the numerous pregnant women whose husbands died for they worked in the building. the couple that jumped out of the building holding hands...knowing that they would die...and wanted to die together. people walking with ashes all over their body.



i hope that this never, ever, happens again.



one more thing. prior to that day, for 2 to 3 weeks, i awoke around 1:30 or 2:30...the morning before 9 11...i awoke at 1:30a...and i had this thought "today is not going to be a good day, something bad will happen today"...i had the strangest,eeriest, disgusting feeling...



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also, in response to robin's letter, dad wrote:

Dear Robin,

I am at my sisters house and my wife is at her sisters house right now. I congratulate you on the decision made regarding the marriage. We went to the shrine at Tirupathi and did a lot of prayers and in a day we luckily received a mail from you a real coincidence. We are very happy on hearing that and so are our relatives here. As far as the diamond ring , I promise you that I will give it to you directly on reaching there. Cost is not important at this time we can discuss this later. We are eager to see you all. We are scheduled to leave on the 18th of March. Unfortunately our telephones here are dead and so we were not able to meet mamatha on sunday morning. Take care.

Regards from me and Mallika

Chandra.