Twenty years later, an Indian cricket photographer recalls 9/11 horror

Dubai - Kamal Sharma’s account of shooting the tragic incident that shook the world

Graphics by: Raja Choudhury

Long before he became the most sought-after Indian sports photographer, adding a dash of glamour to cricket photography, Kamal Sharma had a rude awakening. Sharma saw the harsh realities of life in a big city after he had left his hometown, Ferozepur, Punjab, for Delhi, in search of a better life.

Sharma would sleep on a Delhi railway platform in the night after doing odd jobs under an unforgiving sun in India’s capital.

But not even the noise of the passing trains in the dead of the night nor the people that had duped him in broad daylight could have prepared Sharma for the dagger that pierced through the Big Apple’s heart on 9/11.

For a man who made up for his failure to become a professional cricketer by carving out a niche of his own as a cricket photographer, Sharma became the only Indian photojournalist to have captured the horrors of the worst terror attack in history.

So, how did one of the most renowned names in Indian sports journalism land up in Manhattan, New York, 20 years ago on that fateful day that brought down the Twin Towers (World Trade Center) and changed the course of human history?

The invitation that brought him to New York

“Of course, cricket took me to America,” Sharma recalled days before the world marks the 20th year of the attack in the American heart.

“I was invited by Wasim Akram to cover a six-nation exhibition tournament in New Jersey. After that cricket tournament, I stayed back to cover the US Open Grand Slam.”

A couple of days after an Australian upstart named Lleyton Hewitt crushed American idol Pete Sampras in the 2001 US Open final, Sharma woke up to a piece of devastating news.

“My brother-in-law woke me up and said the World Trade Centre was hit by a plane. I was shaken by the news because only the previous day, I was clicking pictures of the Twin Towers and the Empire State Building,” Sharma said.

“But the journalist in me was pushing me to rush to the scene of the tragedy. So I told my brother-in-law I had to go to Manhattan and take pictures of the crash. But it wasn’t until we were in the car that we realised that it was not an accident. It was a terror attack and that the second tower was also hit by another plane!”

Deserted Manhattan

When Sharma arrived at Manhattan, he saw thousands of people evacuating the area. “And no one, absolutely no one, was going towards it apart from one policeman. But no matter what, I decided to go towards the burning tower. The first tower (the North Tower) had already collapsed,” he said.

“By then I was in New York for two months. You know Manhattan, it’s always full of people. It never sleeps. But the roads were completely deserted that morning after the incident. I took pictures of the empty streets. That was a story in itself, a story of an empty Manhattan.” Sharma still gets nightmares of that horrific day that killed more than 2,900 people.

“As a photojournalist, I was lucky to be in New York that day to capture those moments. But as a human being, it was the worst experience of my life,” Sharma said.

“I saw people in disbelief. I saw people covered in dust. But also what struck me at that moment about the American people was that — even though they were trying to escape the mayhem — there was no chaos, no unruly behaviour. Everyone was following the rules. The discipline that had been ingrained in them was visible even in that catastrophe.”

Sharma says he wasn’t aware of the magnitude of what he was doing that day.

“When I look back now, anything could have happened to me that day. You know I was just a random guy from India taking pictures, even though I had a professional camera,” he said.