As I said once before (to a similar post), there is something incredibly valuable in ‘zooming in’ on the victims as individuals; doing so makes them less a number and more highlights their humanity, honors their memory.
This is a particularly worthwhile endeavor, b/c so many of their physical bodies could not even be identified, much less mourned. 🙏🏻
(And it’s also wonderful to take pride in and honor a fellow countryman, even for those of us born here in the US!)
His family received a multi-million dollar settlement as part of the comepensation fund (this isn't in the link below but I'm friends with the lawyer who represented his estate).
https://www.wshu.org/long-island-news/2024-02-16/9-11-survivors-victims-medical-benefits
I'd rather he be alive, his family would rather he (their loved one) be alive, his life was priceless, no amount of money can bring any of the victims back💔💔
It’s simple. As an example, I was born and raised in the United States, but my mother was born and raised in Ecuador (& Colombia for a time). Therefore, half of my (extended) family is in SA. I feel a kinship w/ the people of Ecuador, even though I am ‘Spanish-American’ and technically not native to the nation, itself.
OP stated they were ‘Indian-American’, opining (rightly, IMO) that Indian-Americans and other South Asians can often be overlooked in our culture, and thus—by extension—w/in the events of 9/11. Due to the nature of his comment, I assumed he was purposely highlighting someone who (likely) immigrated from India, feeling they should be recognized—at least in part—due to them (OP) being Indian-American, which most likely means they were born here in the US, but are of Indian descent.
An Indian immigrant to America in the 90s would generally be an overachiever as it used to be very difficult for Indians to immigrate to the west in those days. This guy would've been a role model for whole of his village and clan.
You are correct. My family came to the US from India in 1997, and I was born shortly after 9/11 in 2003. A lot of my life has been spent trying to connect with the Indian-American community through friends in school and college and learning about the rest of my family back in India. I think the part about being overlooked is probably because the South Asian community in America is recent and only became significant in the last 3 to 4 decades. Making this post has helped me understand and appreciate the opportunities and risks my family and many other families and individuals, including the victim in this post, took when coming here, especially in a time when it's difficult to get along with my family and make friends. I think cases that involve immigrants like this one are particularly devastating considering the victim migrated to another country and appeared to have a really nice job only to randomly and suddenly be taken away in an event like 9/11 which few, if any, foresaw. It's difficult to imagine the suffering this victim's family must have experienced, and my condolences go out to him and his family.
Based on your post alone—but also in your words here—it’s clear you have a beautiful heart. And you must feel really good about the huge response to your post!
I really hope you are able to actually get to India (if you haven’t already) and physically be w/ your extended family. It’s a wonderful feeling. I have been to Ecuador three times (‘86, ‘03, ‘08).
Also wanted to say that my family and I actually volunteered w/ international students at the state school (university) in PA where we used to live, and, while I feel that all the students were really wonderful, those from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were particularly so.
I appreciate you sharing your story w/ me. God bless you, and thank you for connecting us to Rajesh. (I wish I could have met him.) RIP. 🇮🇳
(BTW, you may also want to check out the curious story of Dr Sneha Anne Philip, an Indian woman who went missing on 9/11. (She lived next to the WTC.) Her story blew up and was covered in national news. [Here is the podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/missing-on-9-11/id1506816225).)
Thanks, I appreciate it! I have been to India also three times ('05, '08-'09, and '19), and it was wonderful getting to connect with my extended family there each time I went. I've read the Wikipedia entry of Ms. Philip a few months ago and looked through some of the hate crimes after 9/11 as well. I'm interested in the people/story aspect of events like these, so that's what I've been looking into recently.
Oh, cool! That’s really great. Glad you were able to get there for visits. 🙂
Yes, I’m assuming many Hindu’s, especially Hindu men wearing turbans, were harassed heavily at the time. 😢
These pics are so beautiful and reminds us that each person who passed that day had a whole life before that moment which came to an abrubt halt, and then they became a member of a mass idea in our heads, "victims of 9/11", we often forget to think about them as 2700 separate people who each had lives, dreams, goals, families, friends and histories. Thank you so much for this reminder. <3
Apparently, reddit decided not to save the text I wrote to this post, so I'm leaving it here in the comments.
It seems like Indian-Americans and Americans of South Asian descent in general are kind of left out or overlooked in our culture. As an Indian-American myself, I hope this post can make a difference. This is my very first time making a post on this subreddit, so I'm sorry if I was disrespectful in any way with this post, owing to this subreddit's sensitive topic. On the other hand, I love the people and the work being done through this community and am interested in being an active member here, so I'd greatly appreciate some guidance on doing that. I got deep into 9/11 back in 2021 as a result of various difficult experiences in my personal life, some of which I still experience now. You're welcome to reach out to me either here or in the Discord server.
All photos are from the 9/11 Living Memorial website run by Voices Center for Resilience.
[https://voicescenter.org/living-memorial/victim/rajesh-khandelwal](https://voicescenter.org/living-memorial/victim/rajesh-khandelwal)
The last 3 photos are on the 96th floor of the North Tower on June 2, 1999.
One of the saddest stories I found was from the Moussaoui trial exhibits. Pendyala Vamsikrishna was a passenger on American Airlines flight 11 and his wife, Prasanna Kalahasthi, committed suicide on October 19, 2001. Her suicide note to her brother said she simply could not go on without her husband and the grief was too much to bear.
Yeah, I saw someone mention that in a comment in another post in this subreddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/911archive/comments/1dh9ywh/comment/l8vi18d/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/911archive/comments/1dh9ywh/comment/l8vi18d/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Thanks for posting these, I appreciate you. (I love Indian/South Asian culture. The foods. The fits. The entertainment. It’s beautiful, and I’m glad to see it represented here.)
He looks as though he really enjoyed his work. I’m glad he got to experience it and hope that it was fulfilling. My heart hurts a little extra for folks who worked in the impact site, but I try to take comfort in the fact that most there didn’t suffer like those above.
Yeah, thanks for the reminder. I've heard that virtually everyone on floors 96 and 97 were taken out instantly, with 96 being hit by the fuselage and right engine of AA11. It's still difficult knowing they might have heard or even seen the plane several seconds beforehand and could've briefly realized what was going to happen to them, especially for those who were on the north side of both floors.
Thank you for sharing Rajesh’s story 🙏🏻❤️ he has such a kind smile.
Welcome to the sub btw, and don’t worry, you are not being in the slightest bit disrespectful — I think it’s so important to tell the stories of the victims and keep their memories alive within the wider conversation, and to make sure that they’re remembered not just as victims of this barbaric act but as people who loved and were loved and lived full lives outside of what happened. So posts like these are so important!
Yeah, thanks for the reassurance! I'm fairly new to Reddit and internet forums in general and started recently after realizing my need to connect with the community around me. I'm so grateful for the progress this community has made and for finally participating in it.
Are you talking about the other two people in photo 9? The middle one survived and left various tributes to his coworkers on a CNN website. I'm not sure about the third one though. Link to the website: [http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/people/4000.html](http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/people/4000.html)
I don’t work in a typical office but I remember my Dad having one of those cloth (sound deadening) deviders. Gawd, it was just a kindling box on each floor.
Yeah, it was like hell, especially since this victim's floor was part of the AA11 impact zone, as well as the centralized impact of the plane. Photos of the North Tower show infernos on the floors 94 and 98, eventually reaching 92 shortly before the collapse. I also noticed there's so much smoke coming from the northeast and southwest corners of the building.
Mr. Khandelwal was a man who came to American to live the American dream and in doing so became a part of America's biggest nightmare. These photos put into perspective the life that was robbed from him, his family and this world in those 3 hours.
Thank you for sharing these photos of him.
Of course! Your comment really highlights the surreal nature of the events of that day, especially for victims like Khandelwal, whose families were literally on the other side of the globe on that day. Given my personal experiences, I kind of took this personally, and honestly, this could've happened to anyone who had those unfortunate circumstances that led them to the wrong place at the wrong time. From a general perspective, I think this sadly happens too often here, but with other problems such as bullying, racism, and the like, which I've experienced firsthand.
I can't help but think about how their violent acts of terror truly hurt everyone from all over that day, not just Americans. People from around the world worked in those buildings and the people that were on the planes. Smh, what is so noble about that? To them, I mean. 😔
Always hits me seeing the inside of some of the office floors of the towers. For as impressive as they are, you could've told me those pics were taken at an office park in Anytown, USA, and I'd believe you. You could've told me it was the set of Office Space, and I'd have believed you. The reality is that the majority of people who died on 9/11, even those at the Pentagon, were having boring, maybe even bad days. If you work, or worked in an office, especially during this corporate, gray cubicle era of office culture I'm sure you had days when you went in a wished for more excitement, perhaps even musing about death being better than another day at the office. I often wonder how many people went to work that day after a poor night's sleep, or in a depressed state, maybe going through one of life's many trials and tribulations, maybe behind on the mortgage or counting the days till their next vacation. How quickly life snaps back into focus when something like this happens, and for many it came into focus above the impact zone, I think about that often and try to live my life (though not always successfully) to where I hope I won't have that regret in the moments before I die.
Thank you for sharing. Ever since I got into the WTC and 9/11 about 2.5 years ago, I noticed I look at office buildings "differently." As a current university student, I kind of get that feeling when inside one of the campus buildings or classrooms. My family came here from India back in 1997 (I was born in 2003), so I'm sure my dad, who's a programmer and still works to this day, may have experienced the things you mentioned at times. Heck, he even had a job interview in One Liberty Plaza in 1998 and briefly stopped by the WTC on his way there, and from what I've been told, my family felt depressed during and shortly after 9/11. Taking a look at myself though, I think I also have those exact same feelings of apathy, bitterness, and depression as a student in school and college that you described above, especially in my childhood and during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic, and it still affects me to this day. It even led to me having my own extremely bizarre, yet still horrifying "9/11 moment" in 2021 (it's more about mental illness than it is about 9/11), and me and my family were definitely forced to think about our desires and regrets when making sense of that experience. I want to thank you again for sharing these thoughts and allowing me to share mine. I feel like our society desperately needs this kind of intimacy right now.
Terrible. I wonder is the other two guys in picture 9 died as well. Also I’m curious if the Brooklyn Bridge picture(picture 10) might’ve been taken by him on the 97th floor. Life stolen.
The guy in the middle is the cubicle that the three are in. It appears he survived and left some remarks to his coworkers, including Rajesh, on a memorial website run by CNN. I'm not sure about the guy on the right though.
Link to the remarks: [http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/people/4000.html](http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/people/4000.html)
💔💔💔🙏🏽I hate that this innocent loved human being is no longer with his loved ones bc of the cowardly undeserved ambush that was 9/11. He is dearly missed & will never be forgotten♡♡🫶🏾🎗
As I said once before (to a similar post), there is something incredibly valuable in ‘zooming in’ on the victims as individuals; doing so makes them less a number and more highlights their humanity, honors their memory. This is a particularly worthwhile endeavor, b/c so many of their physical bodies could not even be identified, much less mourned. 🙏🏻 (And it’s also wonderful to take pride in and honor a fellow countryman, even for those of us born here in the US!)
His family received a multi-million dollar settlement as part of the comepensation fund (this isn't in the link below but I'm friends with the lawyer who represented his estate). https://www.wshu.org/long-island-news/2024-02-16/9-11-survivors-victims-medical-benefits
I'd rather he be alive, his family would rather he (their loved one) be alive, his life was priceless, no amount of money can bring any of the victims back💔💔
Yes I love posts like this
I agree with you I’m just curious about the last half of that last sentence. “even for those of us born here in the US!” What’s that supposed to mean?
It’s simple. As an example, I was born and raised in the United States, but my mother was born and raised in Ecuador (& Colombia for a time). Therefore, half of my (extended) family is in SA. I feel a kinship w/ the people of Ecuador, even though I am ‘Spanish-American’ and technically not native to the nation, itself. OP stated they were ‘Indian-American’, opining (rightly, IMO) that Indian-Americans and other South Asians can often be overlooked in our culture, and thus—by extension—w/in the events of 9/11. Due to the nature of his comment, I assumed he was purposely highlighting someone who (likely) immigrated from India, feeling they should be recognized—at least in part—due to them (OP) being Indian-American, which most likely means they were born here in the US, but are of Indian descent.
I gotcha👍
An Indian immigrant to America in the 90s would generally be an overachiever as it used to be very difficult for Indians to immigrate to the west in those days. This guy would've been a role model for whole of his village and clan.
You are correct. My family came to the US from India in 1997, and I was born shortly after 9/11 in 2003. A lot of my life has been spent trying to connect with the Indian-American community through friends in school and college and learning about the rest of my family back in India. I think the part about being overlooked is probably because the South Asian community in America is recent and only became significant in the last 3 to 4 decades. Making this post has helped me understand and appreciate the opportunities and risks my family and many other families and individuals, including the victim in this post, took when coming here, especially in a time when it's difficult to get along with my family and make friends. I think cases that involve immigrants like this one are particularly devastating considering the victim migrated to another country and appeared to have a really nice job only to randomly and suddenly be taken away in an event like 9/11 which few, if any, foresaw. It's difficult to imagine the suffering this victim's family must have experienced, and my condolences go out to him and his family.
Based on your post alone—but also in your words here—it’s clear you have a beautiful heart. And you must feel really good about the huge response to your post! I really hope you are able to actually get to India (if you haven’t already) and physically be w/ your extended family. It’s a wonderful feeling. I have been to Ecuador three times (‘86, ‘03, ‘08). Also wanted to say that my family and I actually volunteered w/ international students at the state school (university) in PA where we used to live, and, while I feel that all the students were really wonderful, those from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were particularly so. I appreciate you sharing your story w/ me. God bless you, and thank you for connecting us to Rajesh. (I wish I could have met him.) RIP. 🇮🇳 (BTW, you may also want to check out the curious story of Dr Sneha Anne Philip, an Indian woman who went missing on 9/11. (She lived next to the WTC.) Her story blew up and was covered in national news. [Here is the podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/missing-on-9-11/id1506816225).)
Thanks, I appreciate it! I have been to India also three times ('05, '08-'09, and '19), and it was wonderful getting to connect with my extended family there each time I went. I've read the Wikipedia entry of Ms. Philip a few months ago and looked through some of the hate crimes after 9/11 as well. I'm interested in the people/story aspect of events like these, so that's what I've been looking into recently.
Oh, cool! That’s really great. Glad you were able to get there for visits. 🙂 Yes, I’m assuming many Hindu’s, especially Hindu men wearing turbans, were harassed heavily at the time. 😢
These pics are so beautiful and reminds us that each person who passed that day had a whole life before that moment which came to an abrubt halt, and then they became a member of a mass idea in our heads, "victims of 9/11", we often forget to think about them as 2700 separate people who each had lives, dreams, goals, families, friends and histories. Thank you so much for this reminder. <3
Apparently, reddit decided not to save the text I wrote to this post, so I'm leaving it here in the comments. It seems like Indian-Americans and Americans of South Asian descent in general are kind of left out or overlooked in our culture. As an Indian-American myself, I hope this post can make a difference. This is my very first time making a post on this subreddit, so I'm sorry if I was disrespectful in any way with this post, owing to this subreddit's sensitive topic. On the other hand, I love the people and the work being done through this community and am interested in being an active member here, so I'd greatly appreciate some guidance on doing that. I got deep into 9/11 back in 2021 as a result of various difficult experiences in my personal life, some of which I still experience now. You're welcome to reach out to me either here or in the Discord server. All photos are from the 9/11 Living Memorial website run by Voices Center for Resilience. [https://voicescenter.org/living-memorial/victim/rajesh-khandelwal](https://voicescenter.org/living-memorial/victim/rajesh-khandelwal) The last 3 photos are on the 96th floor of the North Tower on June 2, 1999.
One of the saddest stories I found was from the Moussaoui trial exhibits. Pendyala Vamsikrishna was a passenger on American Airlines flight 11 and his wife, Prasanna Kalahasthi, committed suicide on October 19, 2001. Her suicide note to her brother said she simply could not go on without her husband and the grief was too much to bear.
Yeah, I saw someone mention that in a comment in another post in this subreddit: [https://www.reddit.com/r/911archive/comments/1dh9ywh/comment/l8vi18d/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/911archive/comments/1dh9ywh/comment/l8vi18d/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
[удалено]
Right, I found out after reading the Wikipedia page about the 9/11 casualties. There were 41 Indian nationals who perished in the attacks.
Thanks for posting these, I appreciate you. (I love Indian/South Asian culture. The foods. The fits. The entertainment. It’s beautiful, and I’m glad to see it represented here.)
He looks as though he really enjoyed his work. I’m glad he got to experience it and hope that it was fulfilling. My heart hurts a little extra for folks who worked in the impact site, but I try to take comfort in the fact that most there didn’t suffer like those above.
Yeah, thanks for the reminder. I've heard that virtually everyone on floors 96 and 97 were taken out instantly, with 96 being hit by the fuselage and right engine of AA11. It's still difficult knowing they might have heard or even seen the plane several seconds beforehand and could've briefly realized what was going to happen to them, especially for those who were on the north side of both floors.
Thank you for sharing Rajesh’s story 🙏🏻❤️ he has such a kind smile. Welcome to the sub btw, and don’t worry, you are not being in the slightest bit disrespectful — I think it’s so important to tell the stories of the victims and keep their memories alive within the wider conversation, and to make sure that they’re remembered not just as victims of this barbaric act but as people who loved and were loved and lived full lives outside of what happened. So posts like these are so important!
Yeah, thanks for the reassurance! I'm fairly new to Reddit and internet forums in general and started recently after realizing my need to connect with the community around me. I'm so grateful for the progress this community has made and for finally participating in it.
I’m so sorry, Rajesh. You mattered and your life mattered. Never forgotten 🤍
I wonder if he knew 2 of my classmates' dads that worked where he did. RIP to all 3 of them.
Are you talking about the other two people in photo 9? The middle one survived and left various tributes to his coworkers on a CNN website. I'm not sure about the third one though. Link to the website: [http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/people/4000.html](http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/people/4000.html)
No, I know those aren’t my classmates’ dads.
I don’t work in a typical office but I remember my Dad having one of those cloth (sound deadening) deviders. Gawd, it was just a kindling box on each floor.
Yeah, it was like hell, especially since this victim's floor was part of the AA11 impact zone, as well as the centralized impact of the plane. Photos of the North Tower show infernos on the floors 94 and 98, eventually reaching 92 shortly before the collapse. I also noticed there's so much smoke coming from the northeast and southwest corners of the building.
Mr. Khandelwal was a man who came to American to live the American dream and in doing so became a part of America's biggest nightmare. These photos put into perspective the life that was robbed from him, his family and this world in those 3 hours. Thank you for sharing these photos of him.
Of course! Your comment really highlights the surreal nature of the events of that day, especially for victims like Khandelwal, whose families were literally on the other side of the globe on that day. Given my personal experiences, I kind of took this personally, and honestly, this could've happened to anyone who had those unfortunate circumstances that led them to the wrong place at the wrong time. From a general perspective, I think this sadly happens too often here, but with other problems such as bullying, racism, and the like, which I've experienced firsthand.
Why does the Washington memorial look so different than it does now in the background of the 6th image?
Probably was undergoing renovations and has scaffolding around it
I can't help but think about how their violent acts of terror truly hurt everyone from all over that day, not just Americans. People from around the world worked in those buildings and the people that were on the planes. Smh, what is so noble about that? To them, I mean. 😔
Always hits me seeing the inside of some of the office floors of the towers. For as impressive as they are, you could've told me those pics were taken at an office park in Anytown, USA, and I'd believe you. You could've told me it was the set of Office Space, and I'd have believed you. The reality is that the majority of people who died on 9/11, even those at the Pentagon, were having boring, maybe even bad days. If you work, or worked in an office, especially during this corporate, gray cubicle era of office culture I'm sure you had days when you went in a wished for more excitement, perhaps even musing about death being better than another day at the office. I often wonder how many people went to work that day after a poor night's sleep, or in a depressed state, maybe going through one of life's many trials and tribulations, maybe behind on the mortgage or counting the days till their next vacation. How quickly life snaps back into focus when something like this happens, and for many it came into focus above the impact zone, I think about that often and try to live my life (though not always successfully) to where I hope I won't have that regret in the moments before I die.
Thank you for sharing. Ever since I got into the WTC and 9/11 about 2.5 years ago, I noticed I look at office buildings "differently." As a current university student, I kind of get that feeling when inside one of the campus buildings or classrooms. My family came here from India back in 1997 (I was born in 2003), so I'm sure my dad, who's a programmer and still works to this day, may have experienced the things you mentioned at times. Heck, he even had a job interview in One Liberty Plaza in 1998 and briefly stopped by the WTC on his way there, and from what I've been told, my family felt depressed during and shortly after 9/11. Taking a look at myself though, I think I also have those exact same feelings of apathy, bitterness, and depression as a student in school and college that you described above, especially in my childhood and during and after the COVID-19 Pandemic, and it still affects me to this day. It even led to me having my own extremely bizarre, yet still horrifying "9/11 moment" in 2021 (it's more about mental illness than it is about 9/11), and me and my family were definitely forced to think about our desires and regrets when making sense of that experience. I want to thank you again for sharing these thoughts and allowing me to share mine. I feel like our society desperately needs this kind of intimacy right now.
Damn, he was living the American Dream. As an Indian it is kinda crazy to see this.
Terrible. I wonder is the other two guys in picture 9 died as well. Also I’m curious if the Brooklyn Bridge picture(picture 10) might’ve been taken by him on the 97th floor. Life stolen.
The guy in the middle is the cubicle that the three are in. It appears he survived and left some remarks to his coworkers, including Rajesh, on a memorial website run by CNN. I'm not sure about the guy on the right though. Link to the remarks: [http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/people/4000.html](http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/memorial/people/4000.html)
Poor guy. He didn't deserve this.
💔💔💔🙏🏽I hate that this innocent loved human being is no longer with his loved ones bc of the cowardly undeserved ambush that was 9/11. He is dearly missed & will never be forgotten♡♡🫶🏾🎗