"I had dinner with Neil a few days after he started there. He kept mentioning the fabulous views from his office," attorney Umang Shastri, Neil's brother, said.
Umang Shastri was on his way to work - the second day of a new job - when he heard that the twin towers of the World Trade Center had collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001. "It took me a minute to process that Neil was there," he said, adding that the rest was history.
Three months before the terrorist attacks, Neil Shastri, 25 at the time of his death, had married his high school sweetheart Kruti. The two had just returned from a honeymoon in Hawaii, said Umang Shastri.
Kruti and Neil both had cell phones and were able to talk to each other as the towers collapsed. "At that point, he didn't verbalize that he wasn't going to make it," said Umang Shastri, adding, "Neil was generally very calm and not one to get flustered quickly."
In a 2002 interview with Outlook India, Kruti Shastri said that when she last spoke to Neil, he complained of being unable to breathe because of all the smoke.
The weekend before his death, the avid golf enthusiast who was a native of Pittsburgh, Penn., played golf with his wife and family. On Sept. 10, the Indian American spent the evening watching Monday night football with his twin brother Jay.
Shastri, who was working for the now-defunct internet company Scient, was one of 668 people who died in Cantor's offices which occupied floors 101 to 105 at the very top of the World Trade Center. Cantor lost more employees than any other company housed in the twin towers.
Cantor chairman and CEO Howard Lutnick received much criticism for cutting off the paychecks of his former employees, even as rescue teams were searching for their remains.
At Neil's memorial service, attended by hundreds of his friends and family, people kept coming up to the Shastris to ask how they could help. The idea of creating a foundation in Neil's memory was hatched at the service, related Umang.
In the 10 years since its inception, the Neil G. Shastri Foundation for Education has donated almost $95,000 to several organizations. The foundation has supported the Doe Fund which offers holistic life training to homeless men, and it has bought computer equipment for the New York Foundation for the Blind.
The Neil G. Shastri Foundation has also supported a school in Bihar through the organization Global Giving. And it has created a scholarship which offers funds to students from Midlands Park High School in Midlands Park, New Jersey - the Shastri brothers are all alumni of the school - who are attending Rutgers University. Neil Shastri graduated from Rutgers in 1998, majoring in business with a focus on information systems.
Each year around Labor Day weekend in September, the Shastris organize a golf fundraiser to support the foundation's work. The entire proceeds from the event are donated to various charities throughout the year. The foundation's Web site address is www.neilshastri.com.
"Early on, the fundraiser was very helpful," Umang Shastri told India-West. "It was a distraction that required us to put our energy into something other than thinking about Neil's death," he said.
This year, however, the Shastris are planning to hold an open house fundraiser and memorial for Neil to commemorate the decade since his death.
Neil's father Gautam, a retired engineer for the city of New York, and his mother Kiran, have had a difficult time coping in the decade since his death, reported Umang, noting however that the family is coping much better since the birth of his two children, Neil and Jaden, with his wife Shefali.
Neil's twin Jay is a nephrologist who practices in Northfield, New Jersey and is unmarried. Kruti has remarried and works for Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. She earned her Masters in Public Health from Columbia University five years after Neil's death.
Asked about his most memorable moment with his younger brother, Umang recalled Neil's personality and quick sense of humor before breaking into tears.
"I generally decline requests for interviews, but this year I thought, 'I want to talk about it.' It's been so long," said Umang Shastri, after regaining his composure.
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