The Indian Connection

The Indian consulate in New York has been collecting information about Indians who have been admitted in various hospitals and posting their names on its website www.Indiacgny.org. Those seeking information are advised to check the website before calling as the telephone lines are busy.  The dedicated telephone numbers are: 212-774-0625 (Consul R K Singh) and 212-774-0604 (Consul A S Bajpai)

The Lucky Ones

• Sleep made the difference between life and death for Manu Bammi. He had overslept and was woken up by a friend, who asked him to stay at home and not to head for office. He also asked Manu to check the news on television. Manu had his office on the 93rd floor of the 110-storey North Tower which
  was first hit.
• Same was the case of Pramila Rani, a native of Hyderabad and now a resident of a New York suburb. Pramila had an interview to attend in one of the offices in the WTC, but she failed to make it as she overslept.
• The lucky streak continued for Prashant Mishra, who had his office on the 53rd floor of the WTC. While on his way to work he decided to stop midway to buy groceries. Prashant was on his way to work when he got know about the attack and was asked to turn back.
• Ravi Chander (29), working on the 87th floor of the WTC escaped getting trapped near the towers because his transit bus could not reach Manhattan on time. The Chennai IT professional, working with a legal services company, saw the tower hit by the aircraft from a tunnel approach, where traffic had piled up at 8.45 am.
• Reshma, who works for Goldman Sachs at the WTC, didn't go to work because her child was ill. And that saved her life.
• A senior software professional from the city-based Kshema Technologies, Raj Rajkumar, got off a flight at Boston, the same flight that was to continue to Los Angeles, the same flight that crashed into the WTC.
• Another former employee of Kshema Technologies also had an incredible escape because she went to work slightly late. It was her first day on the job at the WTC on Tuesday. Minutes after reporting, she heard a loud noise
  which she said sounded like a bomb. She and her colleagues headed for the exit immediately and escaped quickly as their office was located on the ground floor.
• Murali Ramaswamy, managing director of a financial firm which is based in Manhattan, skipped work so that he could celebrate his wife's birthday. His firm is just a few blocks away from what was the WTC. He was told about the incident on his cell phone by a relative in Bangalore, who was watching the incident live! Ramaswamy still didn't believe it. But he had no choice when his colleagues, who had had a narrow escape, confirmed the nightmare scenario.
  In his previous assignment, Ramaswamy was working with Solman Brothers, an office adjacent to the WTC. That building collapsed under the impact of the Towers' collapse.
• Wipro chairman, Azim Premji, was also in New York visiting a client on Tuesday but left early for New Jersey.
• Infosys, another IT major, said its 200 employees in New York were safe.
• MindTree Consulting, Bangalore, said three of its employees, who were in the collapsed building, were reported to be safe.
• After the first tower of the WTC was hit, the next 18 minutes were the most traumatic in the lives of the nine employees of the Hyderabad-based Intelli Group, working in the second tower. Following frantic calls from the police to evacuate, the engineers rushed out and scurried to safety minutes before the second jetliner crashed into the building, resulting in the collapse of the twin towers.
• For Sairam, it was a close shave with death. He works in a building bang opposite the WTC.
• Artistes and crew members of the Kannada film Seema miraculously escaped harm. They were at the WTC to shoot for the film, two hours before the attack.
• The film, which was shot at the WTC the previous evening too, is Hubli-born producer-director Shyamsunder's maiden venture. It stars newcomers Meetu, Kiran Gowda, Praveen, Sudheer Reddy and M.D. Kaushik.

The Not-So Lucky Ones

Pundi Venketeshan, Christine Acinapura, Rajkumaree Singh, Jasmatia Rupharaia, Badheeridin Lakhani, Neerja Desai, Manu Dhingra, Silvia Ramsunder and Dipin Chellani were among at least 40 people of Indian origin who were injured in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York.

Mistaken Identity

Sikhs came under fire for no fault of theirs. In Richmond Hill on Tuesday, a gurdwara was attacked when miscreants in a car fired at the building. India's Consul General in New York Shashi Tripathi said that one of the miscreants had been arrested when the group came back on Wednesday morning for another attack.

In a more gruesome incident, an elderly Sikh was attacked with baseball bats and seriously injured as he walked down the street. According to a member of the Richmond Hill gurdwara management, instructions have been sent out to the Sikh community to stay indoors as much as possible and not take any "unnecessary risks". To the lay American, the Sikh with his turban and flowing beard looks verymuch like Saudi millionaire turned terrorist Osama bin Laden, who is suspected of being behind the attacks.

Ms Tripathi said she has spoken to the New York police department, and Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to sensitise them to the Indian community's vulnerability. "Ideally, they should stay home for a couple of days, or if they have to go out, carry some ID with them," she said. "We are also considering asking Indian women to wear a bindi as a distinguishing mark. Right now, everybody should be careful," she said.

On Tenterhooks

• Computer software giant, Wipro Ltd. had 50 of its personnel were working in the office of a client company, Morgan Stanley, at the time of the attack. Wipro officials in Santa Clara launched a crisis centre to contact its employees but were able to contact 46 employees, who were said to be safe. Information about the remaining four was awaited.The latest information would be posted on the Wipro website www.wipro.com.
• For relatives of the over 500 Gujaratis who either own businesses or worked at the WTC, the hours pass in anxiety as nothing has been heard and there are fears among the NRI Gujarati Foundation here that they may be among the casualties.
• Gujarati Samaj leaders in New York and New Jersey said most of the community is safe "but there is no news of at least 500 Gujaratis who work or own shops there", NRG Foundation chairman Hari Desai said.
• Pooja Sofat, studying in the second professional year of MBBS at Dayanand Medical College, said that her family lives in Buffalo which is 8 hours away from New York. She had been trying to call them up but could not get through so she asked her uncle in Chandigarh to contact them. She heard from her family but she added she was still shocked.
• Kanwalbir, whose family lives very close to New York, had still not been able to contact her family and she's worried.
• Gurman, who has come from California, said her family is safe but her friend's sister, who used to work in the WTC is missing.