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Memories of New York - By- Sunny Singh SUNNY SINGH was born in Varanasi. She received her education in various parts of India and the world. She has worked as a journalist, teacher, and as a management executive for multinationals in Mexico, Chile and South Africa. For the last four years, she has been writing full-time. She is also a playwright. Her first play, Birthing Athena, focussed on evolving relationships and the price of ambition in post-liberalisation India. The Times of India described the play as "an intensely cathartic experience." Her first novel, Nani's Book of Suicides, had been published by Harper Collins Publishers India. Described by the Hindustan Times as a "first novel of rare scope and power," the novel explores the cultural identity of an Indian woman through a fund of myths, family lore and contemporary reality. Her second book, Single in the City: The independent woman's handbook was released on Dec 22, 2000 by Penguin India.

Back in my teens, I had just one dream: I wanted to go live in New York City. From the other end of the world, New York seemed more a mythical land, with tall shiny towers, crowded raucous streets, and people of every possible description. Of course, reaching New York was a distant dream, something to be achieved when I grew older (and made more money).

Then, amazingly, miraculously, on my sixteenth birthday, my mother announced that we were moving to the Big Apple itself. My parents were baffled by the government's decision to post them to New York, especially since my father was a pro for the country's border regions and the nation's immediate neighbourhood. There were rumours in the government that he was being rewarded for his output (perhaps). His colleagues asked him if he had major "jack" in the political/bureaucratic circles (he didn't).

My explanation, much simpler and definitely more attractive, was that New York wanted us: with its cool street wear, even cooler artists and poets, and all wrapped up in the glitziest gift-paper in the world. And that was enough of a miracle when you are sixteen years old.

New York City - Central Park - Wollman Memorial Rink (© Stephan Edelbroich)

When we reached New York, the miracle seemed to continue. From the first instant, I could feel the city breathe. There was a pulsating rhythm from deep within its sky-scrapered core, like a heartbeat. It was a rhythm that my own heartbeat quickly learned to echo as I walked every inch of that fabled island, crisscrossing uptown, downtown and cross-town, with all the joy of a three-year-old let loose in FAO Schwartz. I spoke to everyone: the bus-drivers (including one on the 102 who would let me ride for free); the bag-people who pan-handled near the Central Park; the graffiti artists on Amsterdam Avenue; and to the poets who seemed to be everywhere.

For those who have been gifted with a secret, magical experience, the best view of the city, of the island of Manhattan, is from across the river, from a forest park in New Jersey. There, from the lost ruins of an ancient custom house on the Hudson river, Manhattan shimmers up from the waters like a mythical dream, a place that beckons legendary heroes and promises rewards beyond all imagination. I spent hours sitting in those ruins, watching the city spread itself before me, gleaming and glistening, just feeling its heartbeat reach out across the water and synchronize with mine.

So when the WTC towers came down on September 11, 2001, like many people around the world, I felt the horror and the loss. The terrorists had struck not only on the financial nerve center of the USA, or even on the symbol of a world that rejoiced in diversity, they had also attacked a dream-place. And dreams, like all other acutely personal psychic possessions are supposed to be sacrosanct, immune to the horrors of real life.

And that is what makes September 11 attacks more shocking than all the attacks on Red Fort or the Srinagar Assembly. Over the years, most of us in India have learned to cope with sudden death and random violence. When our national symbols are attacked, we pull ourselves together and move on. When our bourses and financial institutions are bombed (as happened in Mumbai), the stock exchange re-opens with record highs. And through it all, there is a historically weary understanding that the world is a cruel place, that all the atrocities of man must be fought back with impartial determination and passionless dedication.

As the Bhagvad Gita explains: sukha-duhkhe same krtva labhalabhau jayajayau tato yuddhaya yujyasava nalvam papam avapsyasi. (If you think of joy, sorrow, loss, gain, victory and defeat as one, and fight with determination, there is no sin). This philosophy states one basic principle that has been overlooked in the current war against terrorism, and in many past wars: To fight for justice, revenge, or hatred defeats the purpose of the warrior. A true warrior of dharma (of righteousness and balance, and not dharma with its narrow translation of faith or religion) fights because it is the righteous path. There is no hate, no anger, and often the warrior must destroy what he loves most. This is a philosophy of an aged culture, a culture that has seen much destruction and horror, and yet managed to survive.

You may well wonder what this idea has to do with the attacks on USA. Well, it is contained in the contradiction that I perceived vaguely as a teenager in New York, and have managed to articulate as an adult many years later. Rooted in an ancient, tolerant (many would say too tolerant), stoic culture, I was struck by the innocence (some would term it naivete) of the Americans.

The Americans I met were completely convinced of their own righteous stance, without a twinge of doubt or a sense of historic irony. And these were the intellectual elite of the nation. With all the academic, financial and scholarly resources at their disposal, they could not fathom a mind (or a culture) that did not think like them. As a result, they could not understand how I (as many Indians) could negotiate between two completely contradictory realities: of a feudal, agricultural society in India and a contemporary, market economy of the US. This paradox, that so many of us manage with ease, made little sense to my American friends.

Of course, this cultural innocence has its dangerous side - as the world has learned in the past decades. The American innocence has also meant an inability to see far into the future, something that older cultures (including Europe and Asia) have learned from bitter experience. We know - in Europe and Asia - that a monster you birth and suckle will inevitably grow to turn on you. We also know that money or logically worked out "national interest" does not always explain the way people and countries act. Many times, feudal loyalties, cultural proclivities, and even historical memories are more powerful motivators of people and armies.

As a teenager in New York, I envied my American friends who lived in an innocent world. My family, on the other hand, lived continuously under the threat of terrorist violence. After all, this was the 1980s, and an Indian diplomat had been kidnapped and killed in Britain. Punjab militancy was at its peak and US harboured many of the accused terrorists, denying all requests for extradition. Many of these men walked freely in the streets of New York and threatened not only Indian officials, but their families, with complete impunity.

One of my most frightening moments in New York occurred in front of the United Nations building (and we were especially inured to the threat of violence, having lived in Pakistan and various other high-risk places). A man accused of massacring a bus-load of travellers in Punjab (and then fighting extradition with the help of one of America's finest criminal lawyers) confronted me with threats. As he followed me down the street, I looked around and found that the usual plain-clothes US security personnel were not in the least interested. Finally, it took the intervention of a New York city cop, the so called "New York's finest" to send my persecutor packing.

At such moments, of frustration and anger (when yet another threat would put our nerves on edge), I wished that something would burst through the bubble that the Americans had created around themselves. I wished that something would make them understand the fear and horror of living with terrorism. That sanity would prevail when the US chose to harbour terrorists from all parts of the world and called them "freedom fighters." That wisdom would win when the US funded and armed terrorists who killed and maimed women and children in far away lands. That some understanding of the pain, fear and loss resulting from an act of terror would reach the US shores.

Nearly fifteen years later, it seems my wish has been granted. I should have remembered the Chinese proverb about being careful for what we wish for. But I had wished for just a gentle realization of what we in India have known for long. I did not wish for such horror and destruction, especially to be wrought upon a city that has lived in my dreams for so many years.

For me, the September 11 attacks on New York were an assault on my dream of an innocent world. For the New Yorkers, and the Americans, they hit closer home, hurting the psyche and rending that shimmering cloak of innocence that protected them from the buffeting winds of history.

Each culture learns from its disasters and catastrophes. Sometimes those lessons take a long time to become apparent. In case of America, the September 11 attacks were just such a lesson. For its sake, I hope they learn - not simply to fight back (overseas and at home) with fear, hatred and anger, but with the calm, perseverance and peace of the dharma-yoddha (righteous warrior).

More importantly, for the sake of America and the rest of the world, I hope they retain some core of innocence that has marked them for their short history. Because beyond my irritation at their naove arrogance, I hold a deep fondness for their never-say-die child-like spirit. The US may act often as a spoilt brat and enfant terrible (which many in the world believe justified the acts of terrors it has faced) but it is also the bright child in the cradle of an ancient, cynical world. Its mind untainted by the horrors of history and the terrors of humanity, America is the infant, believing still in tooth-fairies, the distinctions of black-and-white, and in what is good (and improveable) in humanity. For this alone, we - the world's cynical, aging crones, bent with age and experience - need to act together to shield this child. So that America may grow older and wiser, but not corrupt and cynical like many amongst us.

Until we connect again....

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