On September 11, 1976, my father proposed to my mother just two days after meeting her on a bus in Brazil. He, an Indian scientist working at a Brazilian university, found love when the bus that he was riding came to a sudden halt, causing a woman to fall on his lap. My mother, a young Brazilian woman who happened to be a spectator of this precipitous turn of events, smiled at my father and the lady on his lap. Two days later, he proposed. Four months later, they were married. In 2001, twenty-five years later, I looked forward to September 11.