I still remember that day when a friend alerted me, without giving me too many details that something terrible had just happened in New York City. I remember it all so vividly, like it all happened yesterday and not almost four years ago.

I happened to be on my way home and I switched on the Television immediately I entered the house.

The image that lit up the Television screen immediately it came on was that of the twin towers and what looked like smoke coming through a burning window on one side of one of the towers.

And then suddenly, without any warning a passenger plane came into view moments before it plunged into the other tower. I remember thinking to myself, "Oh my God, that is a passenger jet, and there must be passengers onboard. What the hell is going on?"

I watched my Television screen in dumb shock. This was clearly no movie. And anyway, who would have such a sick mind in Hollywood or anywhere else where they make those movies, as to even imagine such horror? And yet it was all very real and happening. Actually unfolding on Television right before our very eyes.

My wife who was at home came into the living room and did not say a single word. She who has never been lost for words (except on the day that I proposed to her about 20 years ago, but then that is another story for another blog post.)

The drama on the Television screen continued to play out like some terrible nightmare dream that was refusing to end and ultimately the magnificent World Trade Center started tumbling down. An important solid land mark of our nation an indeed for the entire world, was literally wiped out of the skies in one horrible morning. And we all saw it on Television.

I cannot quite imagine this thing happening in the age of radio. What would have happened? Would somebody on the spot have been explaining it all to us? Maybe we would not have quite believed them. How, when it was a problem believing the Television pictures?

This was worse than the sinking of the Titanic in some icy waters in the Atlantic that people came to learn of from some newspaper headlines long after it had all happened.

It would also have not been possible to beam the radio comments in English all over the world to many different parts of the globe where they do not even understand English. Television pictures have no language and can be viewed by people who speak different languages without any problem.

I dare say that the war on terror would have been that more difficult to win without Television. It would have been that more difficult to get world opinion to sway on the side of the war against terror.

That was the single world event that has changed the world we live in the most, in recent times. It ushered in terror at a level and intensity, previously unknown by man. And with it, the war on terror.

Right from that first stranger-than-life, unbelievable news clip from New York, the war on terror has unfolded before our very eyes. And it has all happened on Television.

And all indications are that Television will continue to play a major role in the war on terror. Actually it is the very stage where the drama is being playing out to the world at large, and a lot of world opinion has been formed from Television images.

Despite all that has been said about propaganda and the fabrication of public opinion using Television, the truth is that Television pictures do not lie. The twin towers coming down before our very eyes was hard to imagine, let alone believe, but it happened. And there were those who claimed responsibility for it. These are hard facts. There is no propaganda about it or the colossal number of lives that were lost.

And mostly the world seems to be united in one thought. Our planet has become a much more dangerous place to live in and the war on terror must be fought and won, somehow. The methods to be used and intensity, with which it is supposed to be fought, may be in contention. But everybody agrees that for sanity an indeed mankind to prevail and survive, the war on terror must be fought and won.

With a bit of luck, most of us earthlings will see our dream of victory come true on the same Television where this terrible war broke out with a new intensity for the very first time on that unforgettable September 11th morning.