Swarna Chalasani was the quintessential work-hard-play-hard New Yorker. Somehow she managed to squeeze extensive travel and humanitarian pursuits into her 80-100 hour workweeks at the Fiduciary Trust International, where she was a research analyst. If she wasn’t jaunting off to Thailand or rafting in whitewater rapids, she was counselling victims of domestic abuse or teaching English at Hunter College.

But for her mother, Lakshmi, sitting in her son Rao’s Manhattan apartment, the conversation repeatedly returns to a maroon silk sari. Lakshmi bought the sari on a trip to Madras, thinking it would be ideal in the event of her daughter meeting a prospective groom. Maroon was her daughter’s favourite colour. Lakshmi was extremely careful about not buying anything too heavy, knowing fully well how her 33-year-old daughter would respond to it.

When Lakshmi returned to New York, she called up Swarna and described the colour, the border and the design of the sari. "She thought it was much better than those zari saris," says Lakshmi, as her son sits nearby. "She was very good at wearing saris. She carried herself very well, though she didn’t have many chances."

The doorbell rings. It’s Swarna’s sister, Sandhya. She considers joining her mother and brother in the discussion, but on second thoughts, moves silently into the bedroom. "Anytime the family’s together, it’s painful," says Rao.

He speaks at length about the madness of terrorism, and the government’s equal absurdity of responding to violence with violence. He and his family struggled, he says, to find comfort together, considering that they had to perform Swarna’s last rites with just one bone. Perhaps, he feels, there is merit in the trillion-dollar lawsuit filed by the families of some victims against the members of the Saudi royal family.

As a teacher in Queens, Lakshmi found occasional relief in her work, but this being the summer break, too much free time brings back dark memories. "If I sleep, I wake up in two minutes because I feel guilty at not thinking about her," she confesses. Dreams about Swarna frequently invade her sleep. In one, Lakshmi can’t tell whether it’s night or day. In another, she speaks to Swarna over the phone. And Swarna tells her that she’s fine, and that she can hear everything going through her mother’s mind.

A week after the towers fell, Lakshmi was ferreting through Swarna’s apartment in Jersey City, New Jersey, when she came across a greeting card. No one knows whether Swarna had bought it or received it, as it remains unsigned, but they like to believe those were her last words to the family. The card shows a young lady with a suitcase in each hand, and on the back, a small airplane flying over a hill. The card reads:

I am safe. It’s only change.
I cross all bridges with ease and joy.
The old unfolds into wonderful new experiences.
My life gets better all the time.