Ganesh Ladkat, a 27-year-old software professional, started a new job at the World Trade Center just two months ago, one of thousands of Indians who had set off to make their fortune in the US.
He forgot his cell-phone when he left home at 6.30am on Sept. 11 for his job at e-speed.com, on the 104th floor of Tower 1. Now he is missing and his relatives back home are frantic with worry and helplessness.
"Ganesh is very good at his job. He is a quiet, calm person and very mature for his age," said Sanjay Gawas, one of his relatives gathered together in Pune in western India. "We are all very worried. What to do ..." his voice trails off.
Gawas, a cousin of of Ladkat's wife Sonia, said that other relatives and friends had been scouring hospitals in New York without success.
"When Sonia heard the news of the WTC collapse, she broke down and had to be hospitalized for a day. She had not heard from her husband after he left the house at 6:30am," said Gawas.
Ladkat is one of several hundred Indians missing after the World Trade Center collapsed last Tuesday, creating a special kind of anguish for relatives too far away to do much and unable to get through jammed phone lines for news.
For many Indians, the US had been a safe and lucrative escape from the poverty, natural disasters and violence they saw so often at home. That dream has now been shattered.
After completing a course at one of India's leading computer education institutes, he bagged a job at e-speed.com and was posted to their Boston office over two years ago. He was transferred to the WTC office just two months ago.
From a wealthy, prominent Pune family, he came home for an arranged marriage to Sonia, also a software professional, last December and then returned with her to the US.
"I want to go there and be with Sonia but there are no flights from here. We can only keep making phone calls," Gawas said.
His family's story is repeated across India.
"It's a tragedy we can only imagine. We are so far away," said S.P. Chari, whose 29-year-old daughter-in-law Deepika Kumar is missing. She worked on the 97th floor of the WTC.
"My five-year-old grandson is not even aware of what has happened. My son has to bear it," he said, speaking from the city of Hyderabad.
Chari's son S.N. Kumar went with his wife, a chartered accountant with India's software giant Wipro, to New York in July when she was posted there as project manager.
"My son broke down on the phone when he spoke to us," said Chari. "I can imagine my son's eyes red and wet."
RSS