Back in time: My experiences post 9/11

I clearly remember the day. I worked at DoubleTwist in Oakland then. That day, like any other day, I came to office without any event whatsoever. The office looked normal too from what I could tell. Then suddenly I got a bulk email from Rob, CTO that today has been declared a holiday and we should go home.

Now the economy at that time wasn’t great, the dotcom bubble was gone. So my first thought was that the company was in the process of being shutdown. Then there was a reference to my Philadelphia team, which made me think that probably they are being retrenched without my knowledge! So I turned back to my colleague, Kim and asked her what the hell was happening.
She was taken aback - haven’t you seen the morning news? I never do. Then I came to know the full details of the gory event, at least as much as was known to people then. I remember the receptionist was crying and so were few other females. Some people were afraid that a plane may crash on the Golden Gate bridge as reportedly one plane was still missing then.
A colleague asked me few days later, when the suspect list was out, why were all terrorists Moslem? I didn’t have an answer.

I rushed back home, primarily because I knew some do-gooder would invariably inform my Mother about the incident, even though it was late at night in India. And being so far away she would be extremely worried to say the least. BART was closed. So I had to take AC transit back home. I called her in India. After several tries I finally got through. And as I expected she was really really worried as my uncle, who wasn’t in contact with us for several years, had taken enormous trouble to inform her of the gory incident late at night, knowing fully well her health condition. From India then it just looked that the whole of USA was under attack. In fact even in USA some thought the same.

Few days later things normalized and we were back in office as usual. I was taking a stroll with a fellow Indian colleague, DJ. Both of us were bearded, mine due to laziness and his due to style probably. Suddenly across the street an African-American in rather shabby dress suddenly pointed to us and started shouting - Look these people are terrorists, they have come to kill us all!

That was infuriating. Firstly we are against the terrorists as much as anyone else is. India has been suffering from Pakistan sponsored terrorism for many many years before 9/11. Secondly the gall to tell us as terrorists! Thirdly it may have turned into a potentially life-threatening situation for us. At about that time one Sikh was misidentified as a Moslem terrorist and killed somewhere up north.

We started crossing the street and walking towards him as that was our way to the office. He probably got the fear of his life, that his moronic mind could comprehend. He ran away.

Few days later, in a departmental store where I was shopping for some groceries, again another man of African-American descent started yelling - Look there is a terrorist…
So I did the same thing. I started walking towards him to give him a piece of my mind. And he became very apolegetic and ran away before I could get near him.

And then the airport security increased. By this time it dawned upon me to shave before boarding a plane, thanks to the possibility of irrational profiling. If you are brown and have a beard…