Hasmukh Parmar — 9/11 tribute

Hasmukhrai Chuckulal Parmar

There is not much info available on Hash, as his friends called him, but I have learned a lot about him by reading the many memorials posted online by friends, co-workers, and relatives. Two things about Hash were consistently mentioned in these memorials: his smile, and his love for his family. Bharti, his wife, even wrote a poem about his “magical smile.”

Hasmukh,
I miss you everyday, and I will miss you forever.
You will always be in my heart . . .
Without your magical smile, my life will always be in the dark . . .
I will always love you, God will always be with you . . .
and take care of you.

— by Bharti Parmar on 7-13-2004

Hasmukh was as a computer systems manager at Cantor Fitzgerald in the World Trade Center. He and his wife, Bharti, and their two sons, Shamir and Rishi, lived in Warren, New Jersey, just outside New York City.

Hasmukh was one of 67 British victims of the 9-11 attacks.

The following profile was published in the October 21, 2001 New York Times:

Hasmukh Parmar: Making a Gift of the City

Hasmukh Parmar had a smile to cast away darkness, and that is what his wife, Bharti Parmar, misses the most these days. She can see that smile when she recalls the Friday before the twin towers fell, when the couple went on a nighttime cruise around Manhattan. It was like a second honeymoon, with the city as a wedding gift of a jeweled skyline, the September breezes like soft brush strokes.

The following Tuesday morning, Mr. Parmar, 48, the father of two boys, was back at his job on the 103rd floor of the World Trade Center. He was kept busy as a computer systems manager for Cantor Fitzgerald but always found time to chat with friends or lavish attention on his sons. “He was everything to us,” Mrs. Parmar said. “Everything.”

At his 14-year-old son’s school, Mr. Parmar was a basketball coach. Guitar was the special bond between Mr. Parmar and his 16-year-old. The father taught the son to play, amusing him with the songs of Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana. They played together every night when Mr. Parmar came home from work.

In a feature that appeared in India Abroad in 2004, Hash’s sons, Rishi and Shamir are quoted:

Rishi, who would also talk to his Dad about “everything” now goes to his mother for guidance. “It’s been hard on her also, but we have grown closer, it’s something different, we bond better,” he says. “She has learnt to be more independent, stronger.” And if Rishi has taken on the mantle of the man of the house — “it is hard but I have to” — Shamir has become the man about the house.

“Earlier, Dad would do everything in the house, all the repairs and fixing that needed to be done, I take care of all that now,” he says simply.

On 9-11-2001 the Parmar’s lives were changed forever, but Hasmukh Parmar’s magical smile lives on.

Shamir, Bharti, and Rishi Parmar

— This tribute is part of Project 2,996.