I: Roma, familiar unfamiliarity

Welcome to Rome at 4.45 am. It was uncomfortable. I followed the group of women into the train station. I get a bus to my hostel. I’m five hours too early. Cafe Danesi is open. Five Cappuccinos, a sandwich and a new friend later, its time to check in. I walk to the hostel with the memory of watching a temporary stall being set up for early morning shoppers and a conversation about the world and its vampires.

A quick shower, a nap and a good old friend is here. I am dazed and excited.

“This is going to be a great place to end my trip.” I think to myself.

In a city like Bangalore, you get used to seeing things change frequently. I could visit a street every week and it would look different every time. The streets hold your interest no matter how many times you pass through them. You may notice a building you hadn’t seen before, a car or a person.

When one visits a city as old as Rome, you notice that this city has changed and also not changed in its many lives. It continues to hold the suspense and mystery despite its physical stagnation. What it keeps physically, it evolves in intellect and heart. This manifests itself physically only over centuries.

There is time to sit and think here. Rome has given its people the space to do this. The sound of water and cameras clicking by the Trevi fountain and the chattering Italian voices by Fontana dei catecumeni can give you a familiar feeling from India. Instead of chai, they hold some glasses of Prosecco. You also think of how these spaces sculpted minds and thoughts of crowds. You think of how politics ate up these streets; how it still does but, you cannot see it as transparently any more.