Take any word, scramble the letters and pose it to seven-year-old Amish, and he willdecipher it. This he does without the aid of pen and paper. All Amish needs is themotivation. "Ammu, I-I-O-O-A-N-M-F-R-T," his father, Kumar Sattaluri, reads theletters off a newspaper.
Amish pretends not to hear his father, and walks over to a stack of toys in the livingroom, then changes his mind to run into the kitchen for ice-cream. Kumar repeats theletters, and when that doesn’t elicit a response, he resorts to the ultimatebargaining chip of the American parent. "You tell me this, and I’ll give youChicken Nuggets for dinner." Without pause, Amish responds correctly,"Information."
Amish’s mother Deepika was a 33-year-old Wipro accountant who worked for MarshMcLennan on the 92nd floor of the first tower. Before his mother died, Amish’s gradeswere outstanding. At the age of four he was completing crossword puzzles and solvingmathematical problems meant for nine-year-olds.
Post-September 11, he stopped reading, failed all his classes and rapidly lost weight.He finally started seeing a psychiatrist, who placed him on medication, and meeting with atherapist, Joan. The two talk and play games like checkers. Kumar checks to see the time.They have a seven o’clock appointment with Joan today, he reminds his son.
"Oh, I thought it was on the 26th," says Amish.
To see what Amish looked like before his weight loss, you only have to glance up at thewalls of the Sattaluri home. An image of Amish with his mother lies just inside theentrance to the apartment. Deepika, smiling, stands behind a chubby Amish who’ssitting in front of his birthday cake. The same image is stuck to the wall of the livingroom, to a sliding glass door that leads to the balcony, and pasted on a kitchen cabinet.The photo is of Amish celebrating his seventh birthday, just two weeks before the attackson the WTC. It was ostensibly the last occasion the family celebrated before their worldcame crashing down.
This time round, Amish’s birthday is a small matter of debate between father andson. Kumar quietly refuses Amish’s repeated requests for a party. He doesn’tneed to explain why—Amish obviously knows the territory well.
The phone rings, and Amish rushes to pick it up. It’s another survivor, someonewho lost her husband. The survivor network has for some become a surrogate family, oftenmeeting and spending time together. "We don’t need to say anything," saysKumar, taking the phone from his son’s hands.
Ultimately, we hear, Kumar relented to the pressure of other survivors. Amish had hisbirthday party on August 24.
