It’s been four days since the fifth anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks and for whatever reason, I’ve been combing the news for some substantive introspective-retrospective on the event. However, the only thing I’m finding are chronological eulogies that open with the oft-repeated phrase “In the wake of 9/11…”

Which isn’t unusual, because American media has been throwing that beanball for years and even un -American news channels, such as BBC, are using the phrase to open a much larger discussion on the global repercussion of the WTC attacks (i.e. the London bus bombings) and how the fingers of terror have got the world by the collar…

But India’s Zee TV, I discovered, has been taking an entirely different approach to the WTC anniversary by not using “In the wake of 9/11” to remember 9/11 or even India’s own troubles with terrorism. Rather, in strange homage and shared pain, their news-anchors are choosing to remember the Mumbai train blasts of July 11th. And, as I heard this morning, with each analysis of the event, they open with this phrase:

“In the wake of 7/11…”

All things being equal, I don’t think bombs on a train (or snakes on a plane) are funny, but for people such as myself who grew up and around Apu, Big Gulps and the iconography of Indians slinging Slurpees, this phrase is funny. It brings to mind all sorts of images, soundbites and stories about how “In the wake of 7/11, three kids chased me and my cousin with a hammer because they wanted our Big League Chew” or “In the wake of 7/11, I now like processed cheese and Jasbeer forever hates hot dogs…”

It’s also funny or rather, odd, because for a person who adopted not only his parents’ reverence for King’s English (which writes the date as “11/7″), but also their belief that all things Indian are superior to all-things-anything-else, hearing Zee TV use a tragic American colloquialism to describe a wholly Indian pain is, well, weird and embarrassing (perhaps because it reminds me of the time I laughed at my cousins who, long ago, while attempting to assimilate into American culture, mangled Milli Vanilli’s “Blame it on the Rain” by singing “Blame it on Lorraine”).

All things considered, it could be that I’m making too much of this. It could also be that I’m experiencing some delayed reaction to the World Trade Center attacks and how, in the wake of 9/11, the last place I wanted to be caught was in a 7/11 for fear of being shot. Whatever the case, I do know that Zee TV isn’t the only one handing a bit of India’s identity to America: