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MOHIT GOURISARIA: 9/11 stirs insight on our existence
by Mohit Gourisaria
Columnists | 9/18/07
Posted online at 2:06 AM EST on 9/18/07
When two airplanes hit the World Trade Center, all 800 of us in my boarding school on the border between India, Nepal and Bhutan were preparing to go to bed. It was about 7 p.m., and the lights in our dormitories would be turned off in another half hour. The next day was a Wednesday. It meant we would get chicken for lunch instead of our usual chopped vegetables.
So when all of us awoke at 4:45 the next morning for our mandatory morning run, no one had the slightest clue that catastrophe had struck another part of the globe. Access to television was rare. We watched Hollywood films in the school's own movie theater but were forbidden to watch TV in general. So we continued our morning in ignorance.
Even when the run was over and we had our 6:45 chemistry class, we had no knowledge of the attack. We all had only one thing on our minds: breakfast. That's how we kept a tab on time; since we weren't allowed to wear watches until senior year, we counted down the hours between meals.
At breakfast, finally, the rector announced that the United States had suffered an unprecedented terrorist attack and that we should remember Americans in our prayers. Naturally, the attacks sparked conversations among students about death and what it means to die unexpectedly. Some tried to make jokes about the situation, not fully comprehending that real people had died, and that despite our attempts to create a cinematic scene from 10,000 miles away, nothing about the attacks was beautiful or picturesque.
It wasn't until Sept. 13 that we got to look at newspaper articles and pictures of the attacks. Being high up on the Himalayan Mountains kept us a day behind the real world, and what had become old news to the world was still fresh to us. We took turns reading the newspaper and stayed up beyond "lights out" so we could talk about the individuals who lost their lives in this selfish act of terror. We contemplated how unfair life can be, but how mankind still valued survival above all else. I was 14 then, but I tried to imagine, for the first time in my life, what my parents would feel if I were dead and what impact my death would have on the world.
It also made me think about death and numbers. A single murder often goes unnoticed, but a massacre is given historical status. Does it mean that the death of one victim is less significant than the death of many? But like I said, I was only 14, and unaccustomed to such thoughts.
Boarding school had us so wrapped up in hunger and fear that terrorism and bloodshed seemed insignificant in the face of daily existence. Sept. 11 did, however, compel our growing minds to think beyond the portals of the school.
So when all of us awoke at 4:45 the next morning for our mandatory morning run, no one had the slightest clue that catastrophe had struck another part of the globe. Access to television was rare. We watched Hollywood films in the school's own movie theater but were forbidden to watch TV in general. So we continued our morning in ignorance.
Even when the run was over and we had our 6:45 chemistry class, we had no knowledge of the attack. We all had only one thing on our minds: breakfast. That's how we kept a tab on time; since we weren't allowed to wear watches until senior year, we counted down the hours between meals.
At breakfast, finally, the rector announced that the United States had suffered an unprecedented terrorist attack and that we should remember Americans in our prayers. Naturally, the attacks sparked conversations among students about death and what it means to die unexpectedly. Some tried to make jokes about the situation, not fully comprehending that real people had died, and that despite our attempts to create a cinematic scene from 10,000 miles away, nothing about the attacks was beautiful or picturesque.
It wasn't until Sept. 13 that we got to look at newspaper articles and pictures of the attacks. Being high up on the Himalayan Mountains kept us a day behind the real world, and what had become old news to the world was still fresh to us. We took turns reading the newspaper and stayed up beyond "lights out" so we could talk about the individuals who lost their lives in this selfish act of terror. We contemplated how unfair life can be, but how mankind still valued survival above all else. I was 14 then, but I tried to imagine, for the first time in my life, what my parents would feel if I were dead and what impact my death would have on the world.
It also made me think about death and numbers. A single murder often goes unnoticed, but a massacre is given historical status. Does it mean that the death of one victim is less significant than the death of many? But like I said, I was only 14, and unaccustomed to such thoughts.
Boarding school had us so wrapped up in hunger and fear that terrorism and bloodshed seemed insignificant in the face of daily existence. Sept. 11 did, however, compel our growing minds to think beyond the portals of the school.
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