My memory is still crystal clear of the afternoon when the Capital FM broadcast beaming Fareed Khimani’s show was interrupted by CNN international breaking news about a plane that lost its way and plowed headlong into the North tower of WTC.
Yes, that afternoon seemed so unusual that even a TV broadcast was relayed via radio!!
I may have missed the entire spectacle had it not been for my religious listenership of Jimi Gathu’s hits, which technically didn’t start till 7 p.m., so armed with my pocket radio I had tuned in an hour or so earlier to warm up my earbuds in preparation.
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[The above device is what was used by the hoi polloi youth of the day. As you can tell, it takes skill to manipulate this device. Rich kids back then used Kenwood discmans and digital walkmans. Besides other drawbacks this contraption has no way of displaying what station you are tuned in to]
That evening the show was never to be. And I didn’t notice, I don’t think any listener did!
What’s weird about my whole experience that evening is that kwa plot yenye nilikua naishi nilikuwa nimenyongewa stima a couple of days earlier by a very devout Christian cucu, who in spite of her religiosity was very cunning, sarcastic, sardonic and ruthless with tenants, tenant obligations fulfilled or otherwise.
So my only solace amid the dark, run down tenement was my pocket radio. It was really a trip trying to create a mental picture of what the broadcast was relaying; I had no freaking idea what the World Trade Center was; when they said planes struck the building, I thought how bad could it be? Maybe a Cessna; when they said that people were jumping off buildings, my best imagination was someone jumping off times tower, the tallest building I had probably ever laid my eyes on; when they said the structures were coming down, my mind took me back to the bomb at COOP bank building a few years earlier and the mind numbing carnage I had witnessed. I never really got to experience the event as vividly as those who were watching television(none of whom were in the plot in any case).
My thrifty device certainly kept me updated but it was not until the following days (and even months) that I got to see and understand the scale and enormity of human lies, greed, deception and evil.
May the truth come out in full one day.