The first time I was on top of the World Trade Center was in March 1998. My mother was giving concerts in east coast and I had joined her for a few days. We went around Washington, New York and Philadelphia. There was a tourist guide inside the elevator when we were going up. According to him, New York was the most romantic city in the World. That made me smile. He also had an excellent knowledge of several different World languages and spoke to us in many different languages. That made me smile broader. We got out of the elevator and we were literally on top of the world. It was a pleasant spring with a light breeze. There were at least hundred people looking down at Manhattan. And, there was this young pair sitting on a long stone, right in the center. They didn’t mind or care that there were so many people around them. The two of them were so busy kissing and hugging each other, occasionally staring at the blue sky.
The next time I went to the World Trade Center was in September 2001. A week before September 11th. My friends R, S, S’ wife A and I drove all the way from Boston and spent a couple of days in New York. We bought tickets at the ticket kiosk at the ground level and headed towards the line for the elevators. Almost near the elevator, there was this annoying “photo spot”, which is there at almost all the tourist attractions in America. There was this guy, who was my age, standing with a camera and a tripod. There was this big picture of World Trade Center, leaning on the wall and people would stand in front of it and give their biggest smiles. The guy would click his camera and a girl standing next to him would give some kind of a token with a number, so that people can go to the top of the World Trade Center and collect the photograph, for a ridiculous price. The whole photograph was so artificial. When our turn came, I politely declined to be photographed since none of us were interested in it anyway. The cameraman gave us a shy smile and told us that he gets some commission for just taking photographs, irrespective of whether anyone buys them or not. He had a heavy eastern European accent. Well, none of us saw any harm in helping someone. So, we decided to take two pictures – R and I posed for one, and S and A posed for the second. Not to mention, we gave our biggest smiles as well. The cameraman and the girl next to him were extremely happy with us.
We moved forward and were very close to the elevator. There was a Sikh gentleman standing right next to the elevator door. His job was to greet people and send them into the elevator. Right next to him was an African American lady, who was probably in charge of the security. Both of them must have been in their early 40’s. The Sikh gentleman was openly flirting with her and she thoroughly enjoyed it. After a few minutes he kept on saying “ILU ILU” to her. She didn’t know what it meant. She saw us Indians standing in the line. She came near me and asked me what “ILU ILU” meant. Sure, ‘Saudagar’ was a big hit. But, until then I hadn’t realized that Subhash Ghai’s patented “ILU ILU” would touch Americans’ hearts as well. I smiled at the African American lady and told her that it meant “I Love You”. You could see the sparkle in her eyes. She gave the sweetest of her smiles to the Sikh gentleman. It was our turn to board the elevator and we walked in.
We spent quite some time on top of the world. While coming down, we passed through the photo shop which had our artificial picture. People paid a vulgar amount to buy those pictures. Even though we had no intention of buying the photograph, we were curious to see how big our smiles were. We stared at the photo for quite some time and decided that it was our best smiles. So, both R and I ended up paying the hefty amount for the artificial picture.
Barely a week after I was on top of the world, a rude phone call woke me up at around 6:15 in the morning. It was S from Boston, asking me to switch on the television. He also mentioned that a plane hit the World Trade Center. The rest, as they say, is history.
I occasionally stare at my “artificial” World Trade Center photograph. I wonder whatever happened to that eastern European cameraman. And the girl who was giving tokens, was she his sister? girlfriend? wife? or not related at all ? Did the Sikh gentleman propose to the African American lady? Did they get married? Are they all alive? I still wonder. I will never find out their stories. Now, whenever I go to any tourist spot in America, I always make it a point to give my biggest smile to the “artificial” photograph. I try to convince myself that the eastern European cameraman is still alive. He probably has a different job, that’s all!!!
A Paradise for Dreamers 
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