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Musings on Manhattan - By- Shubhra Krishan Shubhra Krishan is a television and print journalist from India, now based in Colorado Springs. Steeped from head to toe in the love of the English word, she is always writing poems and stories in her head. Firmly, passionately believes that "it's the life in your years that matters, and not the years in your life..."

I've just about settled at my desk, when my husband barges in, breathless.

Have you heard the latest? The World Trade Center in New York has been rammed by a plane. Another plane has crashed into the Pentagon. His face is flushed, his voice is unnaturally high-pitched.

I'm trying to soak in what he's saying. My first thought is, this is an April Fool's joke. But then it isn't April.

Soon enough, the headlines begin to scream on the internet: America Under Attack, Pearl Harbor in America, Mayhem at midmorning in Manhattan.Through the haze of shock,I surf the web for details. But most major sites are choc-a-block with traffic and refuse to open.

At home, we sink in front of the television set, staring with utter disbelief at the horror of the live pictures. They're repeating that image on every network-the plane crashing into the second tower. By evening, I've seen it at least fifty times. The focus has shifted steadily from shock to anger to analysis: defence experts, military analysts, former officials are being interviewed on every channel. George .and yet, it's refusing to feel real.

So many people, so much death.I wish I could rewind those visuals...put those towers back straight up...

President Bush comes on the screen and makes his most important speech of the day: we will punish not only those who did this but also those who harbored the people who did it." or something to that effect. Is war in the offing? More horror, more bloodshed, more death? Where is it all headed?

I know I should be turning off the TV now, for tomorrow is a working day-but my body is gummed to the sofa set. And the thoughts are crawling like like insects in my mind.

As I watch the new headlines, "Massive FBI hunt launched for killers", new emotions take over. I'm suddenly thinking of the hunted: were they also not little innocents at birth, those terrorists who did this today? But then who knows, who knows what time and place and people and stars do to a person later in life? What happened? And with it comes the realization that I never even thought about them the whole day. Never thought about these dozen-odd people who got into those planes, knowing they would kill and die.

My husband is on another track. He is standing back to analyze the whole perspective. Vaguely, I hear him talk about America's relationship with Serbs, Palestinians, Russians, Talibaan etc. etc. And I am thinking: who really started it? Did anybody ever really start it all? How easy or difficult is it to pin the balme? How far back should we start to look?

I am sure the analysts and historians have definite answers to that. But right now, it's not really a concrete question in my mind. It's more philosophical. At the end of this horrible, depressing day, I want to rethink Richard Bach who said life is our blank paper and we are free to fill it with whatever text we like.

Are we free? Do we ever become the people we would have been, had life itself not come in the way of our development? Are all our actions original actions or are they reactions to someone or something else? If yes, then am I the me I should have been? Are you the you you want to be? If not, then where do we start the damage repair?

Perhaps by starting with one original action a day: one good deed toward one person. Howsoever small, one gesture of kindness. That way, perhaps, we can write our own footnotes at least-- if not all the pages. And that should be something.

Credits

World Trade Center attack picture courtesy AP

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