Music, Moments and Memories.

I haven't written for a long time, and in typical fashion, I thought I'd write a lot today to over compensate. My rant here is going to be really long and I hope you get bored in between and just leave. Like most people, and most Indians, I can never strike a balance.

And like most Indians, I love my music. I say like most Indians because I've finally moved out of the country and very ironically, identify more as an Indian now than ever before. This is my only identity at the moment - a passport. And it's a little strange a piece of paper (or a small booklet, as in this case) should mean so much to someone. 

Okay back to music - I've always believed you don't have to be great, or even good, at something in order to love it. I was a bang average football player, but Chelsea FC has been with me and rescued me during the darkest periods of my life. I still remember May 20, 2012 like it was yesterday. I managed to royally mess up my CA exams, and headed straight to a football pub in Madras to watch Chelsea take on Bayern Munich at the Allianz Arena in Munich. What happened after that was mostly magical, and like much of my life, pretty dramatic. Chelsea won a game they should never have won. I passed exams I should never have passed. Pretty dramatic. But I digress. 

I'm a horrible singer and will always be cursed to be one. I'm so bad my kindergarten teacher sent a note to my dad asking him to take me out of the optional music class all kids had to attend. The optional music class became the mandatory drawing class after that. I was a pathetic singer, and only got worse with age. But music has always played a pretty important part in my life. I've had a very good ear for music, and could listen to anything from MS' Baja Govindam to Zeppelin to Blaze shouting at the top of his voice in the excuse of rap in Slumdog Millionaire. Music, for me, will always be associated with places and memories. And I thought I wouldn't be doing it justice if I didn't pen my love for music down. 

Vishnu Sahasranamam for me, along with MS' Suprabhatam, would always signify home. I woke up to either of these two songs everyday at home, and I remember my mom turning up the old tape recorded, letting it run the cassette out of breath completely, and then changing the sides for the Suprabhatam. The smell of filter coffee, thatha bringing flowers home for the everyday pooja, paati chiding him for being late, thatha admonishing paati with a shrug and slowing down everything he did on purpose - I owe all of this to Ms Subbalakshmi. She could bring back memories I didn't know I could. It's been years since thatha passed, and everytime I hear the Suprabhatam, I half expect him to walk into the house wearing his bright white 'veshti' and a towel on his shoulder. Grandparents are always special. Like Backman says in his novella, And Every Morning The Walk Home Gets Longer and Longer, the reason grandparents spoil their grandchildren is to indirectly apologise to their own children for messing up so much of their childhood. And did my thatha spoil us! (Note to self - I need to call my paati.)

Another song, or a band that brings up a ton of memories is The Beatles. We came back from the Middle East for my higher education and it was a pretty lonely period for me. We were struggling financially at home, and I bore the brunt of most of it because my sister was still too young to understand what was happening. My only solace during those periods were The Beatles. And George Harrison in particular. I'd cycle/ walk an insane number of km everyday to school and back because getting a van or auto was expensive, and we could save that money. My sister took the auto because she was too young to walk. Mr Harrison kept me company most times. I listened to his guitar weep as I walked the distance down. It was also a learning of sorts for me as The Beatles were the first English Band I actually listened to. I Youtubed most of their songs, downloaded pirated music, put their lyrics as status on this new website everyone was on called Orkut. Put them as my DP later on when everyone deleted Orkut and moved to another new website called Facebook. I had more friends breaking my heart than lovers, and 'With a Little Help From My Friends' was my everyday anthem. I loved In My Life more than Hey Jude, and who knew Ringo Starr could sing! Before you could say Ringo John Paul & George, I had downloaded everything the Beatles sang (including bloopers like the one from their Strawberry Fields recording) and put them on my MP3 player. 

AR Rahman's Dil Se reminds me of our school trip to Goa, where I shunned most of my friends and stuck to listening to music. I wish I had spent more time with friends then. Everytime I listen to Ae Ajnabi, I imagine I'm back in that train, in the sleeper compartment, sitting up listening to Rahman and thinking, wow this man has the whole range! Who'd have known he'd end up winning the Oscars years later for a bang average album. Ilayaraja was the better composer for me. Rahman, the better human being. Strangely enough, I didn't hear a lot of Ilayaraja till I started articleship at a firm in Kodambakkam. A junior introduced me to the maestro, and I haven't stopped listening to the man till today. He has an ego the size of a mountain but nobody can deny his talent. We would sing Raja Raja Cholan (I'd only sing the paragraph that repeated after every stanza) and Thendral Vandhu together at the top of our voices to everyone's agony. My junior was the better singer and better person. Ironically, much like Ilayaraja, my ego got in the way of our beautiful friendship and we stopped talking shortly after. I would still continue to listen to Ilayaraja and silently thank my junior everytime for introducing me to the greatest composer in Indian cinema. 

The often covered You're My Sunshine got me through one too many heartbreaks, and Dhanushs singing always brought a smile to my face as I remember singing aloud with my best friend from school. We would sing to every Dhanush song from Why This Kolaveri to Voda Voda Dhooram Korayala. I didn't burn that bridge yet, and we are still friends till today. Even though we are miles apart.

Sona Mahapatras Ambarsarya is special for many a reason, introducing me to someone who could yet become a huge part of my life. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and his infinitely more talented uncle remind me of dirty Kormangala streets that I used to walk down after teaching in the morning, wondering if the bus to my office in Domlur would be on time. On the contrary, Astrid Gilbert and The Girl from Ipanema reminds me with much sadness about the streets of Toronto, and the pristine clean St Georges Street in particular, and the huge University of Toronto campus. The music from '96 would invoke memories from Prague and my first solo trip to Europe.

As I grew older, and not wiser, I moved from the MP3 player to a flip phone, a brick phone, a couple of droids and finally to the One Plus I have today. But the music I listened to hasn't changed as much. I would be nothing if not for all the music in my phone. Whether as a pirated song downloaded from a shady site that would download porn if you clicked the wrong ad, to a paid Amazon Music subscription, it has contributed immensely to who I became as a person. I wouldn't have discovered some brilliant bands if not for my sister, who introduced me to Coldplay. Recently, I was introduced to Billy Joel by a cousin. I'm still discovering great music, and I don't think one genre can ever claim dominance over the other. Cash, The Beatles, Ilayaraja, Bossa Nova and Gilbert, they've all been equally special and I would forever be grateful.

When We Went to Europe: Day Six - Naples

Naples was a last minute plan. We were contemplating leaving from Rome to Milan to Paris (remember, our original plan was to go everywhere by car from Milan, and thus our Milan to Paris flight was booked). We changed it to Naples after we saw a crazy 800 rupees ticket from Naples to Milan. That is an astounding 80% less than any other ticket, train or flight, to Milan. One thing I have always been fascinated about as I grew up was in history. And Naples had tons of it in Pompeii, the village that was burnt to ashes by an angry Mount Vesuvius.

Mt. Vesuvius is the heart of Naples. It's on every board, and you can even see the mountain if there is a clear sky. We had an early morning train on Nov. 6th from Rome to Naples. Exhaustion was already evident as we got down in Napoli Centrale. Naples was the Mecca of pizza, but we were in no mood to eat any more bread, or cheese. We wanted dal and rice and potato fry, and that didn't seem like happening. My parents were so exhausted they backed out of the day trip to Pompeii and offered to stay back at the hotel. The hotel, or apartment, was a one bedroom flat in an extremely closely knit community in downtown Naples. The city was a lot like any other Indian city. It was filled with a middle class and lower middle class population. The working class vibe was evident in everything. Food was cheaper, there was no air of European superiority that was evident in a Rome or a Venice.

I did the trip to Pompeii alone. In the beginning, I almost gave up too. On my mobile app, I purchased the TrenItalia tickets to Pompeii. The only issue was finding the local train station. After 15 minutes of searching all over, I managed to locate the station, only to be turned back by the harsh Italian security. This was the Circumvessuviana, the 'other train' that Naples had. TrenItalia was a different station. I missed the train I booked for, and had to get into the next train. Fortunately train tickets in Italy are time bound, and not journey bound. Which meant I could do as many journeys as I wanted within the time frame. Things got worse on the train as we were stalled for an hour due to an accident en route. We finally reached Pompeii at 11 AM. From Pompeii station, I waded past the tourist guides, the folks selling audio tours, etc. to get into a cab and then to the entrance of the historical site.

Pompeii today is rabble and dust. Though it is maintained extremely well, one can't help but notice the sadness in the entire place. There are laundries, washing rooms, kitchens, etc. just like it was hundreds of years ago. Some of the items have been restored, but most of it is as is. Getting buried under hot conditions without any oxygen entering the site has helped it stay preserved. There is even a restored body of a local who tries to flee Pompeii but is burnt in the process. There were about five hundred people that day inside the site, but it wasn't the least bit crowded. This site was huge and divided into 7 areas. I could only see 3 in the 4 hours I spent. My train back was at 3 PM and I made the same mistake by walking down to the Circumvessuviana station instead of the TrenItalia one. On the way to the correct station, I got a hazelnut gellato for 1 EUR, and this was easily the best ice cream I had on our trip. If I went back to Naples, it would be for their food. It must have been quite a sight for the small quiet town of Pompeii that day - seeing a 25 year old run on the streets, but that is exactly what happened. I managed to catch the second train to Naples, and walked to our apartment.

Food was all ready, thanks to the sister and mother. Though it didn't taste even a bit like the food in India (we had only olive oil in Italy), I didn't mind. I slept like a log till 8 PM and then went out to get some groceries and snacks for the next day. There was a Spar in the locality that we walked to. On the way, we saw the real Naples. The tea stalls, their love for football. The Europeans are lucky to have their football matches happen in the evening. They don't have to stay awake at 1 AM like we do in India. Especially on a big Champions League day like the one we were in Naples (Napoli were playing PSG), the atmosphere was electric.

Naples did not give us the feel of being in a European city. There was no Western European charm here. It was more local. Even the next day in the airport, we found most of the passengers to Milan were Asians. Naples to me is a one time visit. The weather, the people, and the sights - you can get them all on a good evening walk in Marine Drive.

When We Went to Europe: Day Five - Rome

To call our fifth day in Europe a damp squib would be rather harsh. But that was almost how it was. There was some excitement through the day, but it never matched any of the previous days' levels of activity. We woke up on a rather overcast day in Rome, and it wasn't even as cold as Venice. Or maybe we got used to the cold. Mom and I went to the nearest supermarket, which was a ten minute walk from the hotel, and got our regular 'European breakfast' of cheese, bread and mayonnaise (eggless, of course). As we were munching on our bread, my mom asked me what time our Colosseum ticket was scheduled for. I did a quick check on my phone and told her we had time till 11 AM.

We dressed warm, like we always did, expecting inclement weather and made our way out of the hotel at around 10. We planned to walk down to the Colosseum, which was a 25 minute walk, and then take a bus/ metro from there to wherever we needed to go. As I was gradually checking my ticket again, I noticed I had misread the entry time with my booking time.The ticket was for 9 30 AM and we were already late by 30 minutes! I got nasty glares from my parents, and tried to check on tripadvisor if they allowed late entries, and was grossly disappointed when I understood they didn't. As it was already too late, we took a metro from Roma Termini to Colosseo, the stop for the Colosseum. As we made it into the entry gates, I tried to be all nonchalant as I gave them the QR code for the verification for our entry. To my surprise, they didn't seem to care as much about the entry time - they were happy we had a valid ticket! As we quickly made our way into the Colosseum, our joy was rather short lived as the skies opened up on us. The rains poured down, making the Colosseum seem more beautiful that it actually was. It was a magnificent piece of architecture, no doubt about it, with a lot of history associated with it. I loved how they displayed short prose on specific time periods on the Colosseum, and the literature freak in me read everything, not bothered whether it got me drenched or not.

After running (literally!) through the Colosseum, we made our way to the exit as the rains got worse. There were a lot of hawkers of foreign heritage, mainly African and Middle Easter, who sold us raincoats that were literally blessings. These plastic coats could be worn on our clothing, and meant we did not have to abandon the day's plans and could go to our next spot in Rome - which was a short walk from the Colosseum as it was directly opposite it. The Roman Forum - the ancient marketplace or city center of Rome. The Pantheon was just around the corner, and the Forum itself was so big, we barely managed to scratch the surface considering we were running out of time. We entered the Forum at 12 PM and saw barely 30% of the entire place in the next hour or so. Oddly enough, the sun shined down bright when we entered the forum, before the rains again poured down on us as we tried to make our way from the forum to the Vatican City, a country within a country in Italy. The Vatican is also the only landlocked country in the world.

Almost the entire Vatican is locked within mainland Rome and is extremely pretty. A metro from Colosseo to Ottaviano, the Vatican stop was only 15 minutes. We hadn't eaten lunch yet so we got some snacks because we were running out of time. Loaded with Pringles and chocolates, we made our way into the Vatican walls. Due to the heavy rains we did a quick visit to St. Peters Basilica, and the balcony from which the Pope gives his sermons. The rains got worse, and we went to our next destination,the Trevi Fountain, a major landmark in the Italian Capital.

We took another metro from the Vatican to the station Barberini, which was the closest to both the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps. The Spanish Steps were mom's favorite and something she has been wanting to see forever. Unfortunately, due to the heavy rains, our clothes as well as spirits were completely soaked. We had no mood to go in the opposite direction towards the Spanish Steps and decided to give it a miss. We did only the Trevi Fountain after wading through roads filled with water. We realized that on a rainy day, Rome is no different from T Nagar. En route to the Trevi, we got some salad in a salad bar. I refused to even go in there because of all the meat being adorned on the walls. After dropping our coins as is the custom in the Trevi Fountain, we took a bus and got home.

Our day was far from being over. We had a dinner date with Dad's friends who were from Ostea, which was about an hour from the city of Rome. Mr Giancarlo was a friend of Dad for over ten years from his marketing days, and they wanted to meet. He had booked us a table in a fancy restaurant in the city. Our shoes were soaked in water, jeans were far from being usable and we were in a dilemma as to what can be worn that was not either soaked, drenched or already used. After some carefully planned drying, using the table fan strategically, we got into our best clothes and made our way to the Rifugio Romano, one of the few cities in Rome that served vegan.

Mr Giancarlo was 60+, and his wife 50+, both artists and retired. Their son had drove them to Rome, and he was a vegan and full time animal conservationist running a LIPU (the PETA-equivalent in Italy) saving forest animals from poaching, and spreading the vegan way of life. I was amazed that a family in Europe had taken up veganism while vegetarians in India were still finding it difficult to make that transition. They helped us choose our food, which was our first proper meal of the day, and walked us through what each meal contained, why it was healthier, and how the Italians ate. And how the Italians ate! Eating in Italy was almost a religion. I say almost because the Italians love their food. And wine!

After thanking the Giancarlos for the wonderful meal, we made our way back to our hotel ont he rain soaked streets of Rome. Rome, to us, was largely a disappointment because of the weather. The city was extremely pretty and definitely warranted a second visit. In our entire trip, this was the first place I wanted to come back to!










   

When We Went to Europe: Day Four - Cinque Terre

We first thought of visiting Cinque Terre after seeing how much mention it got on most blogs in the travel space. While the Amalfi coast, and the southern part of Italy was an obvious option, more than half of the blogs I read to understand Italian tourism pointed me towards this dreamy sequence of five towns nestled among the mountains.

Tuscany is known for its wine and food. While Florence was a little bit of a disappointment for most of us, (majorly because we couldn't appreciate the art strewn upon the city), Cinque Terre was almost a breath of fresh air in the Tuscan mountains.

We woke up early on November 04 in Livorno in our plush AirBnb. It was one of those days during the trip when we wished we had just scheduled the entire 14 days around a single country, rather than the marathon that we were doing. Not that we regret seeing so much now, but we were extremely tired that day. While we went about packing whatever we hadn't packed up the previous night, I spoke to the local taxi agency and guided them to where we stayed. My broken Italian, a lack of sense of direction, and an almost comical landmark delayed the taxi by quite a bit of time. I later realized that the landmark I was giving the taxi driver, a pharmacy, was on every street in Livorno. It was almost like asking an Uber driver in Madras to come to the street with the Pilaiyar on it.

We managed to catch the train from Livorno to Pisa, and later made our way to the already-booked train from Pisa to La Spezia. La Spezia is the gateway to the five towns - or Cinque Terre, in Italian. While La Spezia, in itself, doesn't have any attractions, most tourists prefer crashing the night in La Spezia, and make their way to the Terre early in the morning. But we weren't most tourists - we preferred to crash miles away just because the AirBnB we got looked really pretty.

It was only after arriving in La Spezia with all of our luggage, were we told that the trekking path between the five towns were closed because of the incessant rainfall in the Tuscan region, and rest of Italy. It was a bit of a disappointment considering we had plans to stow our luggage at the La Spezia stations, and then trek between the five towns. When I say 'We', I had that plan, while my parents and sister secretly hated the fact that I was going to make them walk around. But the closing of the trekking path threw a spanner into it, and we decided we had to just see the towns by train. We chose two towns, and these were again based on what I read. Vernazza and Riomaggiore were the towns that were going to have the pleasure of having us as tourists, whatever that is.

We made our way first to Vernazza. I was blown away by its beauty even before I got out from the train. Considering the towns are aligned almost in a line, Vernazza was the second town from the north, while Riomaggiore was the southern most town. Since we were going from the South, we passed Riomaggiore, Manarola, Corniglia, and landed in Vernazza. The train station in Vernazza is actually in a tunnel in the mountains. You have to walk out of the tunnel, and walk down from the mountains to actually reach the town.

The tunnel - station of Vernazza

Vernazza was nestled perfectly between the mountains and the sea. This was the first time I actually walked down from a mountain, and had a 360 degree visual of the Ligurian sea. Nobody actually took a dunk, or even stepped into the sea because there was a slight drizzle, and the tides were pretty choppy. The view was breathtaking, and almost as if taken from a postcard. We did the usual photo ops, and had our packed breakfast. The 'packed breakfast' was a result of the miscalculation in the quantity for dinner the previous night. We put it into boxes, and carried it with us. Typical Indian thing to do, I know.

This was what Vernazza was all about - the mountains, and the sea. 

After the photo ops, we walked a little up the mountain, got some pickled salad, and munched on the famous Italian 'aperitif' as we saw what we could of the extremely small town. Our next train to Riomaggiore was an open ticket, meaning we could get on it whenever we wanted. But the problem was our train from there to La Spezia was only at 6 PM. We had banked on the Cinque Terre entertaining us the whole day, and hadn't expected it to be shut down. It was 10 AM in the morning when we reached the Vernazza train station. The locals had just woken up and were surprised to see us leaving already.

As the rain started pouring down, we got into the Riomaggiore at 10 30 AM. The train from Vernazza to Riomaggiore was relatively more crowded. We got down in Riomaggiore, and took shelter from the rain for a while before making it into the town. Riomaggiore was almost the opposite of how Vernazza was set up. The train station here was by the sea, while the town was nestled in the mountains. This meant a steep climb up in the pouring rain. We were neither adventurous, nor crunched for time, so saw the rain out before we made our way up. My sister and I took a lead as we went up the really steep Riomaggiore streets, and soon lost our parents who were lagging quite behind. We told them to take rest and make it slowly, as we hurried up.

Riomaggiore was supposed to be the most beautiful during sunset. While the town in itself was bigger than Vernazza by atleast two times, there was precious little to see other than the castle and the church, both of which were nestled on top of the mountains. We made it to the top, and took a lazy walk from there to the castle. On the way, we stopped to ask for directions a few times, and were even rebuked for calling it a castle while it was called castello in the local language. The difference? We don't even pronounce the T in English, while the T is all they pronounce in Italian. Who thought I'd get language lessons in Italy?

On top of the world, literally. In Riomaggiore, in the castello.

The castle was a 17th century monument, or that is what the inscriptions said. We had another breathtaking view of the Ligurian Sea, and didn't waste it by not taking pictures. On our way back, we saw our parents still making their way up, stopping casually in every eatery asking if there was something vegetarian, and getting grossly disappointed. We waited on the streets for them, as they made it to the castle and back by 2 PM. As our stomachs grumbled, we had our millionth margherita pizza for lunch. The pizza was atrociously cheap (10 EUR for a giant pizza), and we got a coke to go with it. The coke was an allowance for my dad for making it up the mountain and back. He was diabetic otherwise, and we strictly regulated his sugar intake.

The margherita pizza that saved our vegetarian lives. 

It was only 3 PM and we were already done with our lunch. We had to kill a further three hours, and therefore made our way to the viewing points from where the sunset could be seen. The sun set that day a little late, around 5 PM, and till then my sister took a quick nap, my mother complained about her knees aching, and my dad asked around if there was more vegetarian food. The sunset was a sight to behold. As the sun disappeared behind the Ligurian sea, Riomaggiore for 5 minutes was washed in a colour of orange. This, mixed with the existing pastel coloured houses made the town even prettier.

Not quite at sunset, but the pastel coloured buildings make a good background, nonetheless.

It was time to catch out train to La Spezia and collect our luggage. From La Spezia, we caught a train to Pisa, the largest town in this part of the Tuscan region. We would take a connection from Pisa to Rome, the capital city. We were due to arrive in Rome at 11 PM, but arrived only at 11 30 PM. The Frecciabianca that we took, the fastest train in Italy, was not fast enough to reach us to Rome on time. A pity, considering we paid almost half our airfare from Mumbai to Venice for the Pisa to Rome train. It was a luxurious train, make no mistake, and no, they did not serve food. Shadabti > Frecciabianca, any day.

While we sat next to a couple with a poodle (yes, dogs are allowed on train, flights and in restaurants in Europe), we took another quick nap, and woke up only when the train eased into Roma Termini, Rome's largest and main station. My mom had booked the accommodation in Rome (the only booking she made in the entire trip), and it was a wonderful hotel room right next to the station. The entire complex had a hotel in every floor, and we were booked into a different floor because the original hotel was overbooked. We didn't complain as the room was comfortable enough, with hot water, clean, and a three pin plug I ended up bringing with me to Chennai, thinking it belonged to my Dad.

Cinque Terre is definitely beautiful, and worth a visit especially in the non-rainy season. It gives the Indians in us a glimpse of unpolluted, unpopulated, and unadulterated beauty. All for a price. 

Friendships and Timestamps

Reading through any band break up story, you'll be forced to contend with one factor that will always be evident - ego. Most bands over the ages have broken up because of their own, or somebody else's ego. Nobody ever stopped playing music just because they were shit all of a sudden and people were not buying their records.

Take The Beatles as an example. A band I worship. Huge in the 60's, and then suddenly broke up in the 70s, after just ten years of ruling the music world as arguably, the best band there ever was! Like any other band, this was the story of four friends who came together to jam in their backyard, had failures, then success. Success - so much success, at one point they were called 'bigger than Jesus Christ himself'. And nobody even protested. Try doing that today in 'secular India'. Call somebody bigger than Jesus Christ, and you'll have a riot in your hands. But not when The Beatles were playing 'Yesterday' in Madison Square or the old Wembley.

But what is that makes friendships sour? Is it just the ego? Or is it competing priorities. Is it the fact that the human brain is never content with what it has, and always looks for more. Are we programmed to be greedy as human beings, even in friendships. Do we want 'better friends'? I'm not going to go all shallow and say prettier friends, or even richer friends. But do we, maybe, want friends who will give us richer experiences, and not just the mundane conversations. The friend who drinks wants a friend who drinks, the smoker wants a 1 PM post-lunch buddy. Are we at the end of the day looking for like-minded people?

I remember a quote from Manu Joseph's 'Serious Man' that resonated with me. Don't we all at the end of the day just want to be better than our friends? Mind you, not all are as ambitious. But there always is the odd friendship where competition is ingrained. My best friend and I have been competing right from school. He was the better cricket player, and I the better footballer. He was a stud at math, and I at accounts. He got into Chennai's best commerce college, and I didn't. We didn't speak for a year. Then I passed my CA exams in the first attempt, and suddenly, we were talking again. Do we only speak to people when we are successful? Is friendship not all-weather.

The Beatles broke up because they had songwriting issues. Their lead singer was also in love. There are a lot of versions to that story, but the version they all agreed to was disagreements over the music they made. Only John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote their songs, but suddenly George Harrison's (my personal favourite) songs were finding more mileage. They had to include his tracks too. This was the 70s, and before you know it, they are fighting for space on the disk. It ended with Paul McCartney walking out on The Beatles. 'This is just business, but you will always be my best friends', he apparently said. But they never spoke again.

I haven't been speaking to many people I thought were going to be friends through life. It would almost be funny if it was not as sad, but at some time during our friendship, we almost always promised to be best men at each other's weddings. Little did we know our friendship came with a timestamp, just like that milk you bought from the grocery. Most of these guys are today not even on my Facebook friends list.

In 2011, when I created my Facebook profile, I had 1k+ friends. Today, I have less than 900. Aren't we supposed to be making friends as we grow older? Isn't that how this life thing should work? Not let go of people, but get to know more. Evidently not.

Maybe we get bored of mundane gossips over time. The bad A-jokes will bore you, the drunken dancing is not funny anymore. Maybe the people you thought you knew have changed. People change all the time, and that is not even a surprise. Friendships sour because of ego, changing priorities, human beings who think they are more important than they actually are, sometimes love (Hello, Yoko Ono! Thanks for breaking the Beatles up!), and a false sense of self worth.

Little do we realize the person you are hanging out with today will be a stranger tomorrow. Whom you hung out with yesterday, has already become a stranger today. At some point in your life, you and your friends will meet up for the last time, go out for your last meal together, and probably share your last laugh - and you will not know it. As Mr Keating says in Dead Poets Society, 'Carpe Diem, boys. Seize the moment'. You never know what's going to happen tomorrow.

When We Went to Europe: Day Three - Florence/ Pisa, Italy

We woke up to bright sunshine on the 3rd of November in Florence. The Florence leg of the journey was special for two reasons. I had wanted to see Florence for its buildings, and just that. There was little else there for those who don't drink, since winery is their forte in the Tuscan mountains. We were also to spend only half our third day in Florence, and were due to catch a train at 15 30 GMT to Pisa, where I was going to witness my first world wonder. Surprising - considering I had not seen even the Taj Mahal yet, which was closer home. Ten years back if you had told me my first world wonder would be the Leaning Tower of Pisa, I would have laughed in your face. It was with great difficulty that I had structured the trip so we could see both Florence and Pisa the same day. It was also particularly difficult considering I did not find accomodation in Pisa till the last week before we flew into Italy. By some chance, I got an absolutely beautiful AirBnb in Livorno, a port side town near Pisa.

The famous Duomo of Florence.

We spent the morning in Florence walking down its beautiful streets. Florence is the home for art lovers in Italy. It is littered with Michelangelo masterpieces, Leonardo da Vinci museums, and what not. But the art connoisseurs we were not, we chose to skip all of that and just walk through the town. Our first stop was at the famous Duomo, or Cathedral at Florence. The building was rich in architecture and housed the Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore. I was astonished at how grand it was built, and how brilliantly the Italian government had managed to maintain it. The streets were crowded, and this was news to us since we were expecting almost empty streets in the winter of 2018. November was not, by any stretch of imagination, a peak time for tourists in Italy.

Me, trying to make some sense of the map of Florence I got from the hotel. 

The crowd got worse as we passed the Duomo and tried to get tickets to see the David sculpture. We were accosted by Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan tourist guides chirping about how they can get us in through pre-booked tickets. I noticed the phrase all of them seemed to use was 'Skip the line'. I had been forewarned of the same, but with the increasing temperatures and worsening crowds, we decided to give David a miss. Michelangelo could wait till our next trip. Post the David debacle, we walked towards the Ponte Vechio, the only bridge that had not been destroyed during the World War II bombings of Italy. Honestly, the bridge was another disappointment with the extreme crowds, and photo ops that the view gave. People were placing love locks on the bridge, smooching for photos, and it got a little too suffocating as we made it onto the bridge. Ponte Vechio, clearly, was no match to the beautiful bridges of Venice.

Ponte Vechio, and the famous love locks. The bridge was no match to the beauties I saw in Venice.

We were already hungry by then and decided to get another Margherita Pizza for lunch. This would be our fourth pizza in three days, and we were running out of options. Tempers were also flaring as the heat got the better of us. At the max, it was an uncomfortable 27 deg C for our inappropriately dressed (we were decked in everything from a scarf to three layers of clothing) Madras people. We made our way to the hotel room, checked out, and headed towards the station. My sister had skipped the pizza (we never thought a day would come!) and chose to get some Chinese rice taken away for her lunch. The Santa Maria Novella was only a quick walk away, and we were relieved to get on the train as it chugged into the station from Milan.



The train we got into was the government operated Tren Italia. These were as clean, if not more, as the Italo that we had taken into Florence from Venice. We had to validate out tickets on the station, very similar to how we did on the buses in Venice. My sister took a quick nap, had her lunch, and before we knew it, Pisa Centrale, Pisa's main station, was outside. With bags and baggages, we took a quick local bus with other equally exhausted-but-not-showing tourists, all excited to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

The proper touristy pictures in my first World Wonder of this trip.

When we arrived near the Leaning Tower, it was close to 16 30 GMT, and the sun was setting. From the bus stand near the Tower, we had to make our way into the entrance (entrance was free!) and into the vast compound that housed the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a Cathedral and generously distributed green space for families to picnic around. There were hundreds of families taking typical touristy pictures. The weather was getting a little nippy, and I couldn't but smile seeing kids between ages 2 and 8 kicking a ball around with their mothers. As we finished our photo ops, and my sister made her way to take her customary brilliant pictures, I kicked a ball around in the grass and spoke to some of the kids. It was the weekend and they had no school. The Pisa complex also doubled up as a park for the lucky buggers.

Livorno was only fifteen minutes away from Pisa by train. The bus tickets in Pisa were valid for two hours, which meant you could take unlimited journeys as long as you were not in a bus when the two hours elapsed. We had around 25 minutes for the two hours to lapse. We could either hope to catch a bus in the next five minutes, and reach Pisa Centrale in nine minutes, or just take another bunch of tickets. The conservative in me chose to do the latter.

We made our way to Livorno at 19 30 GMT as the skies opened up. The sticky beach air that Madras was so infamous for greeted us again. As humidity increased, we were greeted in the station by our AirBnB host, a nice local who owned a couple of homes in Livorno and made his daily bread renting them out. Our house and four different keys to get in. This was the first time we actually lived in a local's house. Though we had the house to ourselves, our host came along to show us the place, and thank god for that. The first key opened the apartment door, the second got us into the lift. The third got us into the floor's passage, and the fourth into the house. Italian security, apparently. Back home, I did not even lock the apartment most times we went out. We realized we did not exactly want or like everything that was European.

The flat was a pretty duplex with a living room, hall and kitchen in the ground floor. The living room had a badass 50 inch TV, collection of English and Italian move DVDs, a stereo system that could wake the sleepy town, and games for everyone to play. We were tired and had no time for all those. The first floor had a hall and bedroom. My sister loved the kitchen, which was equipped with everything from an oven to a dishwasher. I ran to the local grocery store and got her some pasta to make with whatever oil was available at home. The grocer barely understood what I wanted. I started with whatever French I knew, hoping the Italians liked their neighbours enough to know their language. This failed, and I switched to gestures. When I encountered failure again, I decided to just Google Translate. It worked mostly well, though I ended up buying salty brown bread thinking it was chocolate cake.

Livorno - arguably, the prettiest house we lived in Europe.

Dinner was only decent, as I was no pasta fan. Food, largely, can be very disappointing for vegetarians during travel. I didn't let that disappoint me. I had enough to fill my stomach so I could sleep. It had been a really tiring day. The travel was taking its toll - and it was just 3 days done out of 21.   

When We Went to Europe: Day Two - Venice, Italy

Jet lag finally hit us that night, as we turned in to get some sleep. It was also weird without a fan or AC to keep us cold. We opened the window on the ceiling, till it was too cold, and we had to close it again. We got used to the stuffy feel and managed to get some sleep. Welcome to Europe, indeed.

We woke up late and rushed to a nearby SPAR supermarket (called De Spar) to get some vegetarian supplies. That was probably the best decision in our entire trip. We would keep going to supermarkets whenever we needed a quick bite, or a complete meal. We got enough egg-less mayo, ketchup, salsa and bread to last us a while. After cramming in a quick breakfast, we headed out and took the bus into the island which was a twenty minute comfortable ride. Most countries in Europe do not have bus conductors checking your ticket when you board. There is a machine on the bus where the ticket has to inserted and validated. If you were every caught on a bus without a ticket, consider yourself bankrupt.

Typical touristy picture on one of Venice's multiple bridges.

Venice was a cool 11 deg C when we got off the bus. We didn't have a map, so decided to wander around. Fortunately, my Vodafone sim was activated so we had a backup plan (What else, but Google Maps!) in case we got lost.  We wandered around the island carefree. there was no rain, but a very slight drizzle that worried us now and then. The first gelato we had was just a little more than 2 EUR each. It tasted like heaven. Anybody who thinks the gelato is the same as an ice cream needs to have a proper gelato. It's milkier, the taste is more true. It doesn't feel even a bit artificial - almost like a chocolate bar was molten and place strategically on a cone.

One of Venice's beautiful churches where we sat to catch our breath.

Vegetarian lunch was hard enough to get as we walked around. As we went searching for a proper veg place, we notice that the lanes were extremely narrow, and thankfully, we were there in the off season. I can't imagine how crowded it would be when the summer finally comes to the island. Most of the buildings were ages old. By ages, I mean atleast a hundred years old. The island seemed to function as if on auto pilot. The streets and bylanes were clean, but didnt have one sweeper on the road. There was a slight drizzle, but no puddles. It was almost too good to be true.

Using a 1 EUR telescope, trying to spot birds on the clear Adriatic Sea.

The canals were sparkling neat too, and what again amazed me was the clear smell in the air. No fish smell. This mattered a lot to the pure vegetarian in me. Any smell other than the sambar and rasam at home was a turn off. We took the customary touristy pictures on the canal, and got lost a lot of times as we walked the 8+ km around the island. I was surprised my parents weren't tired considering both of them were 50+. But I think that is what a beautiful place does to you. Makes you do things you wouldn't even have thought possible elsewhere.

Piazza San Marco, or St Mark's Square was the lowest lying plain on the island. We were relieved to see the water had drained by the time we visited.

We managed to grab some pizzas at a roadside shop. The sliced pizzas are especially cheap in Italy. We were well and truly lost post lunch, and decided we needed proper directions if we wanted to get anywhere close to the central bus stand. Google Maps did help me out as the rain got heavier. We needed to get to the Hotel by 6 PM in order to get our stuff and rush to Venice Maestre, the central railway station on the island, for our train to Florence. The hotel reception was nice enough to let us keep our bags and stuff in the store till the evening. But we had to get back fast in order to make it to our train at 7 PM.

A candid by Sister mine, as I sped through the various lanes, trying to find the right one.

We were lucky enough to get to the Hotel, and Station on time. Between reaching the station and catching our Train Italo to Florence, I managed to lose my parents, got the wrong platform number, and even almost missed our train. But thanks to Italo being inefficient, and giving us a couple of minutes thanks to its delay, we got our act together and got into the train.

We were the only folks in our compartment. I had never seen an empty inter city train before in my life. The ticket conductor came and got our tickets checked. We managed to get some sleep, but the 2.5 hour journey to Florence was uneventful otherwise. It was late night when we got out of the train and into the Santa Maria Novella station in Florence. The hotel was a five minute walk, and we were greeted by a warm Colombian who showed us our room. We were almost going to turn in for the night when the thought struck that we hadn't eaten our dinner. For a normal family, that would not mean much. But we worshiped food. Not having dinner was sacrilegious.

I was sent on one final errand for the night. All the nearby shops were closed. A small supermarket seemed to have it lights on. The Chinese owners spotted me peeking in to find if it was open, and ushered me in, fearing I would ransack the place otherwise. They were just wrapping up for the night, counting the till and closing the doors. I quickly got some milk, bananas and chips for the night and made my way to my hotel after thanking the Chinese proficiently for their kindness.

In the hotel room, I was greeted with dirty looks as I gave them bananas and milk for dinner. It was 11 30 PM in Florence and the city was already asleep. That night, as my mom slept, she had finally seen Venice, a city she thought she would never have the privilege of visiting. I don't know who was happier that night in Florence - my mom, or me.