Humans were part of that everything. David George
Haskell’s journal of a year in his native Tennesse
woods opens, far away, with a description of “the
mandala”. This is a poured-sand picture, with the
sacred lotus at its centre, created by Tibetan monks,
as a representation of the divinity in nature.
Haskell’s small thing is a square meter of what
would seem to the uninformed eye to be mere
woodland dirt. Over the course of four passing
seasons, he contemplates its “life” with the trained
eye of a biologist and the eloquence of a published
poet. “I believe that the forest’s ecological stories
are all present in a mandala-sized area”, he says.
Poet and writer Kathleen Jamie is more of a “sightseer”
than a walker. In her book Sightlines describes
a visit to Greenland to wonder at the Northern
Lights. On a plane trip she gazes from a fuselage
window at the moon, dancing against the motions of
the aircraft.
Her eye is always wandering. She has an incurable
fascination with Hebridian islands such as St Kilda
or Rona where humans once lived and left their
inscrutable, stony residues.
These devotees of nature inspired me to show my
grandchildren that there was something beyond I9
pods and Facebook in this world. Even so, we had
to go through the ritual of passing through London,
tasting of European Civilization at Vienna, Venice,
Florence, Rome and Milan before striking gold at
Switzerland.
London was not only a transit stop for us but also an
opportunity to spend some quality time with our old
friends from Tobago. Neelum, Vishnu and their
daughter Nishka delighted us by coming to our
Notting Hill apartment in the evening.
The delight was compounded when we were toldthat Nishka, who was born in Tobago when Vishnu
and I were working on building Claude Noel
Highway, was engaged to marry. Soon her Sri
Lankan fiancé, Kishan, also joined us and all of us
(except Amma) celebrated the news with some
serious wine drinking. The young man proved to be
10
quite an intellectual Tamil and it was difficult to
defend Indian Army’s role in his Country during the
Tamil fight for independence.
Lankans and, for a brief period by the Indian Army,
while not being the most glorious period of India’s
history, was by no means attributable to India left
him unconvinced. To put us in a more agreeable
mood Vishnu took all of us to an Italian restaurant
on the Kensington Church Street which was run by
a jovial Roman. When we revealed to the owner
that we were planning to be in Rome in a couple of
weeks he became as proud as probably the Pope
would be if we announced our intentions to become
Roman Catholic. We were subjected to advice on
the Roman restaurants and other attractions of
Rome which were completely lost to us in
translation.
Before the ‘Good Nights’ we were invited for lunch
next day at Vishnu and Neelum’s home in East
London.
When we arrived at Greenwich Underground
Station, Vishnu picked us up and after collecting
Neelum drove us to the Green Street in Upton Park.
The street could have been lifted from Mumbai or
Ahmedabad. Lined with jewelry stores, fruit stalls,
supermarkets, general merchandise stores and
restaurants serving Indian cuisine only, the place
was a paradise for Amma and many an hour she
spent there with Neelum while Vishnu and I looked
for paans.
Rehana came with her son-in-law, Sameer, to pick
us up. Though as beautiful as Amma had described
her to be, she had some weight around her waist and
some sadness in her eyes. We drove to their
bungalow in the upscale Hampstead Heath. The
conversation covered the years 1958-1964 during
which both Rehana and Amma had got married.
Rehana’s husband died early and Amma’s husband
(me) bore wrouth of his mother-in-law!
More interesting that day was the account of those
years in a Sunday paper extracted from the book
The Years of Lynden Johnson Vol 4 by Robert Caro
some of which I quote in the paragraphs that follow.
It is an extraordinary story of a deeply flawed
character. ‘I am going to be President. I was meant
to to be President,’ Johnson was still saying to
anyone who cared to listen when he was Senate
Leader. The Texas Governor John Connaly once
commented: ‘He’s never had another thought,
another waking thought, except to lust after the
office.’
He had climbed within reach of the Presidency by
flattering those with more power than himself and
by bullying those with less. Yet when the time came
to launch his campaign for the Democratic
nomination he was so frightened of failure that he
vacillated for too long and gave a head start to John
Kennedy a man he had once dismissed as ‘pathetic’.
deputy to his bitter rival. Johnson knew full well
that being Vice President would be, ‘not worth a
bucket of warn p***’, but he had instructed his staff
to find out how many Presidents in modern times
had died in office, and had been pleasantly
surprised. He said to the writer:’I looked up: one out
of every four Presidents had died in office. I am a
gamblin’ man, and this is the only chance I got’.
Every day he tried to extend his power, and every
day President Kennedy rebuffed him. Kennedy’s
team held him in contempt remarkable in its depth
and intensity, and behind his back poked fun at his
clumsy, unsophisticated ways, imitating his
pronunciation and hooting with laughter when he
fell over at a swanky White House dance.
Kennedy’s brother Bobby, the Attorney General,
held him in a contempt amounting to blind hatred.
‘He’s mean, bitter, vicious,’ said Bobby of LBJ, ‘an
animal in many ways.’ Bobby seized every
opportunity to humiliate him. ‘Bobby hates me,’
said LBJ and he knew that this loathing had a life of
its own. ‘Bobby hates like me,’ his proud father Joe
Kennedy had once declared, adding: ‘When Bobby
hates you, you stay hated’. And LBJ detested Bobby
in return; when he heard his name mentioned, he
would make a throat-slitting gesture.
After his failure to adjust the game to his own rules,
Johnson made a bid for pity by presenting himself
as the powerless butt of Camelot jokes (which he
was). He moaned that he was “a cut dog.” He rarely
challenged those around him, and when he did (as
when he considered Bobby’s response to the Cuban
missiles too weak), he was excluded from the secret
decisions made on the crisis. He feared, rightly, that
the Kennedy team was determined to push him off
the ticket in 1964. Their detestation for Johnson,
with their constant mocking of him, was so obvious
that the president tried to damp down the fires,
telling his appointments secretary, Ken O’Donnell,
“You are dealing with a very insecure, sensitive
man with a huge ego. I want you literally to kiss his
fanny from one end of Washington to the other.”
But that availed little, and Caro says the president
himself was beginning to see he would not need
Johnson in 1964. Johnson could not even contain a
disruptive party battle in his home state of Texas,
between liberal Ralph Yarborough and Johnson’s
old ally, now the state’s governor, John Connally.
On the fatal Texas trip with Kennedy in November,
Yarborough even refused to ride in the assigned
convertible car with Johnson, prompting a Dallas
News headline, YARBOROUGH SNUBS LBJ.
From the minute, at the Dallas hospital, when he
received confirmation that Kennedy was dead,
Johnson was all decisiveness. Advised to hurry back
to Washington, since there might be more
conspiratorial action against the government, he
overrode that advice, declaring that he would not
leave until Kennedy’s body was released, so it and
Mrs. Kennedy could ride with him on Air Force
One back to Washington. He wanted to be sworn in
on the plane before he left Dallas, with his old
friend Judge Sarah Hughes administering the oath
of office. Legally, he did not need the oath—he
succeeded Kennedy as president the moment he
died—but he felt it would give visual force to the
legitimacy of his succession. In that instant,
Johnson seemed to turn into another man, the man
he had always wanted to be: cool, calm, confident
and, above all, in charge.
2. SURRENDER TO TRAMPS IN VIENNA
When I had rang up my grandson, Kiran, one
Sunday morning from Trinidad to tell him that I
was planning to take his Amma (my wife, Zia) to
Laussane in Switzerland, he persuaded me to first
go to Vienna where he would join us too. Kiran was
finishing his third year of M.A. Honours in
Economics at Edinburgh University and was keen
to see the cultural monument that Vienna was
reputed to be. I happily agreed.
But the day we landed at the Wien-Schewechat
Flughafen airport Kiran informed us that his
departure for Europe has been delayed as his
Schengen visa had been denied by a Call-centre in
India! Nonetheless we determined to make the best
of our Viennese holiday although at a curtailed
scale.
Also delayed was our taxi drive from the airport to
the apartment that I had booked a month back.
When I rang up the owner to announce our pending
arrival She told me needed another two hours to
have the apartment ready and someone to receive us
there. Amma and I whiled away the hours looking
at the airport’s expensive shops.
The two-bedroom apartment at 29 Kolbiglasse that I
had booked proved to be very comfortable. And
after a short rest we took a tram to Shwarzenbbergplatz
and then walked leisurely towards the City
Centre. Though Vienna has been named ‘City of
Dreams’ because it was home to the world's first
psycho-analyst Sigmund Freud, a neurologist who
is well known for being one of the greatest
interpreters of dreams, it looked like a dream
because of its well laid out streets, roadside cafes,
and charming people. And as we reached the City
Hall we witnessed an open air gala. It was Life Ball
is a charity gala to raise money for people living
with HIV and AIDS
.It’s Vienna’s biggest party — and it’s most
outrageous — where guests in tuxedos rub
shoulders with others wearing little more than body
paint.
But despite the revelry, the city’s 20th annual Life
Ball had a serious purpose — raising money for
AIDS research and helping victims infected with
the HIV virus. The celebs attending include actressmodel
Mila Jovovich, supermodel Naomi
Campbell, actor Antonio Banderas and fashion
designers Angela Missoni and Eva Cavalli. Also
taking part was former U.S. President Bill Clinton
who thanked organizers for donating to his
foundation’s drive to prevent the birth of HIVinfected
children in developing countries.
But it was only the next morning that we discovered
the historic centre of Vienna is rich in beautiful
architecture, including Baroque castles and gardens,
as well as the late-19th-century Ringstrasse lined
with grand buildings, monuments and parks.
The walk along the Ringstrasse by day had its own
charm and looked quite different from what it was
during the night. Though trams drove around the
Ringstrasse, walking the area was just fun.
Incredible, a great part of Vienna's history and
architecture, in only 1 hour walk under the trees, in
both sides of the road.
The reason why this street – Ringstrasse - could be
called the most beautiful avenue in the world might
be the fact that there is no other boulevard like this
in the entire Vienna... so the concentration of
monuments, sumptuous neorenaissance and
neogothic palaces, historical cafés, luxury hotels
etc. is unusually big. It's still a nice place to walk, at
least for me. Unfortunately, the reputation of the
avenue suffered in the last decades. 100 years ago it
was pure luxury, now not so much. 100 years ago
there were also like 30 cafés lining the street. Now
it's five: Ministerium (a classic Viennese café with
red plüsch), Prückel (the only one in Vienna with a
completely preserved interior from the 1950's),
Schwarzenberg (beautiful!), Imperial (very good,
but too hotel-like), Schottenring (the only thing that
survived the 20th century is the ancient ceiling,
The Inner Ring is a semicircular grand boulevard,
which encircles the center of the city. On its both
sides, there are majestic old blocks, luxurious
hotels, parks and most of the famous historical
buildings of Vienna.
A round trip on the red bus gives a good view of all
the buildings; and we decided to indulge in this trip
next day. We started from the Opera at
Albertinaplatz and drove around Hofburgh,
Parliament, National Theatre, Maria - Theresia's
statue and the Museum of Nature, VotivKirche,
Rathaus, the historical Cafe Lantman and the
University. The bus crossed Donaukanal, passed
along a giant Ferris Wheel at Prater, and took us
across a fascinating bridge over Danube to the ultra
modern Uno city.
A stop at Hundertwasser-Krawina-Haus was
extremely interesting. It is an apartment
house in Vienna, Austria, built after the idea and
concept of Austrian artist Friedensreich
Hundertwasser with architect Joseph Krawina as a
co-author. This expressionist landmark of Vienna is
located in the Landstraße district on the corner of
Kegelgasse and Löwengasse. Their ideas on
forested roofs, "tree tenants" and the "window
right" of every tenant to embellish the facade
around his windows are demonstrated here. I had
an amazing time just drinking in the beauty of the
place. I could not stop myself from going ‘click’
‘click’ all over the place (including the restroom to
use which I had to pay half a Euro!) Those vivid
colors still jump out brightly at me.
-Krawina-Haus Apartment Block in Vienna
It is an amazing residential block with 50
apartments. It is hard to imagine that this wild
creation actually houses regular tenants. The
exteriors literally looks like enormous paintings or
quilt works sprung into three-dimensional glory.
Trees sprout from roughly rectangular window
openings and the uneven balconies of the roof
terraces, and the floors are designed to look and feel
uneven. A fountain adds to the streetscape alongside
the apartment tower. There is now a small store next
to the building, capitalizing on the steady stream of
visitors. A cafe on the ground floor is the only
public space inside the tower.
Once the Red Bus tour was over we did a little
shopping at the local supermarket at the
Rennwegstrasse before retiring to our apartment.
That neither we could read the labels on the items
nor understand the German spoken by the staff did
not prevent Amma from getting in some friendly
conversation with the Checker. But the soup which
she prepared in honour of our absent guest (Kiran)
was delicious enough for us to eat while watched
Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II live on TV.
Though this time we could comprehend the
language on the TV we still did not understand how
hundreds of thousands people were wasting time on
the occasion in the streets of London.
One could not be in Vienna and not take a cruise on
the blue Danube. And thither we decided to go on
our fourth day in the City. A leisurely walk took us
to the Scholos Belvedere from where we took a taxi
and asked its young driver to take us to Danube
Cruise site. But the bright young Viennese man had
never heard of such a place. He took out his mobile
phone and spoke to a couple of his colleagues till
his face showed enlightenment. Buddha could not
have been more confident when he found that the
cause of sorrow was desire than our young man
who now crossed the Danube twice and then
dropped us at Schiffstation Wien. We happily
walked the stairs to what we thought was the
Danube; but it was neither a river nor was it blue.
But they indeed had a cruise over the Danube Canal
which would be leaving in 10 minutes. We hastily
bought the tickets and proceeded to board MS
Schlögen.
We were the first to board and were happy to note
that we could occupy any place – inside or outside,
cabin or upstairs on the deck. As the rope was
pulled in and the boat commenced moving we
realized we were also the last people to board! We
felt like being master of the boat with the whole
boat staff at our beck and call. It was only when we
reached the Captain’s cabin that we noticed a young
couple hiding behind the cabin and mooching. The
young lady’s right leg was stretched outwards
which I felt like pulling – at least figuratively. But
better sense prevailed and I left them to their
devices.
The boat headed upstream to the Nußdorf Lock
before which it turns to go to the mouth of the river
Vienna, where again it turns to go back to the
Schwedenplatz pier, with the many sights of the city
centre such as the Danube Tower, Ring Tower, the
Rossau Baracks, the Kaiserbad Lock, or the Urania
Observatory, on the way. Incidentally, the Danube
Tower has a spinning restaurant like that at Crowne
Point Hotel in Trinidad.
The Ring tower houses one of Vienna’s largest
insurance companies – the Wiener Städtische
Versicherun.Line 1 Tram circles the Ringstraße
(ring street). The ring street was built around the
first district, where in Vienna’s past the city wall
used to be.
The Rossauer Barracks was built as the Crown
Prince Rudolf Barracks, named after Rudolf, Crown
Prince of Austria as part of an overall approach to
protect the city against the proletariat after the 1848 Revolution.
The Uremia Observatory is a public educational
institute and observatory in Vienna. It was built
according to the plans of Art Nouveau style
architect Max Fabiani (a student of (Otto Wagner)
at the outlet of the Wien River and was opened in
1910 by Franz Joseph I of Austria as an educational
facility with a public observatory. It was named
after the Muse Urania who represents Astronomy.
As the boat turned around, we descended to the bar
of the boat where the friendly bartender took a
picture of us before serving beer.
On disembarking from the boat now I had a good
idea of the City’s layout and took a walk back
towards the City Centre
A short walk along the fashionable Rotenturm
Street brought us to Stephensdom, Vienna’s most
treasured symbol, fascinating viewers with its
gothic intensity and tapered South Tower.
It is an awesome building surrounded by several restaurants and shops. Saved from destruction by the Germans at the end of WWII when the order to reduce it to ruble was ignored by retreating Capt. Gerhard Klinkicht, unfortunately in April 1945 it caught fire when the Russian troops were entering the city, but much of its historical valuables were protected.
I've seen stained glass before, but it creates a stunningly beautiful effect inside of the church (it looks like a color prism projection over the columns and statutes).
Standing at 136 metres tall (445 ft) and affectionately referred to by the city's inhabitants as "Steffl" (a diminutiveform of "Stephen"), St. Stephen's Cathedral's massive south tower is its highest point and a dominant feature of the Vienna skyline. Its construction lasted 65 years, from 1368 to 1433. During the Siege of Vienna in 1529 and again during the Battle of Vienna in 1683, it served as the main observation and command post for the defence of the walled city, and it even contains an apartment for the watchmen who, until 1955, manned the tower at night and rang the bells if a fire was spotted in the city.
The North Tower was originally intended to be as high and as graceful as the South, but construction ceased after a spooky tragedy. In the 16th century, during its construction a young builder Hans Puchsbaum wished to marry his master’s daughter. The master, jealous of Hans’ skill, agreed on one condition: Hans had to finish the entire North Tower on his own within a year. Faced with this impossible task, Hans despaired until a stranger offered to help him. The stranger required Hans to abstain from saying the name of God or any other holy name. Hans agreed, and the tower grew by leaps and bounds. One day the young man spotted his love in the midst of his labour, and called out her name, ‘Maria’. With this invocation of the blessed virgin, the scaffolding collapsed and Hans plummeted to his death. Rumours of a satanic pact spread, and work on the tower ceased, leaving it in its present condition.
over the city of Vienna. The Gloriette is home to a café where
we relaxed after the uphill climb.
Quite tired with the day’s walking to, in and around Schonbrunn Palace, we now looked forward to dining in the Palace restaurant where they served favourite dishes of Emperor Franz Josef.: Appetizer: Beef consommé with sliced pancake
Main Course: Tafelspitz Viennese boiled beef
Dessert:
Homemade Applestrudel
I declined beef but was served excellent vegetarian dishes
instead by the obliging waiter. Culture and fine cuisine are an excellent
combination! The restaurant, located in the Ehrenhof (Court of Honor)
adjacent to the palace's main entrance, was full – mainly tourists, who had
booked the dinner and Concert weeks earlier on the internet. I tried to give the extra ticket (which I had
bought for grandson Kiran) to the waiter but he declined saying that he eats
that food at the restaurant anyway and has no time for the Concert!One of the perks of buying the
VIP tickets for the Concert was that were lead to the Schonbrunn Palace
Orchestra performance without any hassles. And as we entered we were guided to
the front seats of the exceptional Great Gallery
or the White Gold Room located inside Schonbrunn Palace,
at the Schonbrunn Palace Theater.
Since imperial times, this was a place for courtly festivities and banquets. During one of these events Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri held a unique music contest. In this historic ambience the Schonbrunn Palace Orchestra performed most beautiful works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Strauss.
In the first part, we listened to some of the most marvelous overtures, arias and duets from the operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. "Le Nozze di Figaro", "Die Zauberflote" and "Don Giovanni". The most popular operetta arias, waltzes and polkas of the "Walzerkoenig" Johann Strauss - from "Die Fledermaus" and "Der Zigeunerbaron" to "Donauwalzer" and the famous "Radetzkymarsch" - comprised the second part. The orchestra was accompanied by two opera singers, a soprano and a baritone, as well as two ballet dancers in authentic costumes. The soprano was a most beautiful woman who must have been Madhubala in her last birth. She enchanted the audience not only with her looks but also her singing which betrayed mischievousness at times.
We
had left our penultimate day in Vienna for just loitering in City Centre,
Amma’s little shopping and buying our train tickets to Venice. And with not a
care in the world we took our usual tram from Rennweg to Schwarzenberg, walked
across tram lines to Karlsplatz and then found our way to the famous
Ringstrasse.
Presently a Pakistani looking stout middle-aged man stopped me, unfolded a map of Vienna and spoke to me in German as if asking for some directions. Hardly had I time to tell him that I did not understand his language that a Romanian looking man appeared, flaunted an ID card and declared that he was a policeman and enquired if we had drugs. Both of us denied vehemently. Then he asked the Pakistani to show him has wallet, the ‘policeman’ inspected it, took out his currency, folded it, kept it back, found nothing wrong and waved the Pakistani to go away. He repeated the same procedure with me and thoughtlessly I also complied. After he left the scene I checked my money and found some 50 Euro notes missing. I looked around for the ‘Policeman’ but the man had disappeared in the thin air of Vienna. At last it dawned on me that what had occurred was daylight pick pocketing with the full cooperation of the victim. Apparently, the Pakistani was an accomplice of the Romanian.
There was nothing much to be done to retrieve the loss and we continued to walk till we came upon a statue of Goethe.
The
monument for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was created in 1895 by Eduard Hellmer
in a competition and erected in 1900. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 -
1832) was one of the most important literary men in the German speaking area.
He was not only a poet, but also a theatre director, scientist and statesman.
He had famously written: The world is so empty if one thinks only
of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with
us, and who, though distant is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for
us an inhabited garden. That
day I would have preferred Ringstrasse uninhabited by the two men who got
rather close to us.
I presume exactly similar thoughts would have occurred to some Viennese on 14 March 1938 at the nearby Imperial Hotel when Hitler, accompanied by Himmler, made his grand entry into Vienna, the city he had known so many years earlier as a down-and-out tramp. He stayed at the Hotel Imperial, the same hotel where he once worked as a half-starved day laborer, shoveling snow off the sidewalk outside the entrance and respectfully removing his cap as wealthy guests came and went. As a poor youth he could never go inside. Today he was the guest of honour. Perhaps the Romanian tramp would also be a guest of honour somewhere some day.
3. CONFUSION IN VENICE
It's a
very nice way to arrive in Venice by train. Shortly after leaving Vienna, we
traveled through the mountains on the Semmering-railway. The train ran through a spectacular mountain landscape and there were
many fine buildings, designed for leisure activities along the way, built when
the area was opened up due to the advent of the railway in 1858.
The
train then traveled through the south of Austria, passed the border
to Italy... and after Mestre it becomes really
nice, travel through the lagoon. I loved the moment when we left the train
station, Santa Croce, in Venice... I think it the only railway station of this
kind (no cars, silence, no stress) in the world. The arriving passengers just
walked to their destinations though there were some boats for those who had
more luggage than they could manage themselves. We were lucky to find a man
with a hand cart who offered to lead us to our apartment and carry our mini
luggage in his cart for sixty Euros. It was drizzling and we accepted the
offer. Crossing the Scalzi bridge we entered Santa Croce
section of the city and zigzagged in the narrow crooked streets towards Campo
Santa Maria, Materdomini. Here our guide and porter brought us to 2177 Materdomini
where a first floor apartment had been booked for us, our daughter Ira, her
husband and Kiran (who was now to remain absent in Venice too).
The building was at least 300 years old and decorated with furniture and paintings that appeared to be 400 years old. Yet it had a modern kitachen and bathroom and we settled down for a few hours rest from our overnight train journey. Hardly had I time to buy some groceries from a neaby greengrocer that I got a call from Ira that she and her husband, Imshah, had landed at the Venice airport and were on their way to join us.
Amma
had taken care to pack some cooked food at Vienna and all of us enjoyed her aloo-began
curry before losing ourselves in the labyrinth of narrow streets (calli),
squares (campi), large streets (lista) and bridges (ponti) of Venice.
The Venetian gondola is recognized the world over. Flat on the bottom to navigate shallow waters of the Venetian lagoon, with an iron head for counterbalancing the gondolier's weight that is a stylized map of Venice itself, the gondola is an always evolving symbol of Venice. Our Gondolier came from several generations of gondoliers and displayed great pride in maintaining and operating his gondola. Throughout our ride on the Grand Canal he gave us a running commentary on the buildings situated on either side of the canal.
A night’s train journey combined with
walking and gondola riding had tired Amma and I and we both decided to return
to our apartment while Ira and Imshah stayed back to further explore the
squares of Venice. A big key that had been given to us by the owner opened the
huge 17th Century gate of our building and slowly we ascended 50 odd
steps to our apartment.
On reaching the door of the apartment I was planning to fall in my bed and experience the bliss which only exhaustion can bring to a body when at last it is in horizontal state. But the plan went out of window when the door would not open and there was no key in sight. I must reveal here that Julia, the owner had told us at the time of handing over the apartment that the key should not ne taken out of this main door. Apparently out of abundance of security precautions Amma had taken out the key and left on a table inside.
I rushed to Julia’s apartment but there was no answer. I went up and down the stairs several times shouting “Hello, Hello” but no one responded. “It is a haunted ancient Venetian house – I have read all about such houses”, Amma helpfully consoled. I lay down on the floor to recover. Thoughts of spending the weekend without beds, clothes and bathroom haunted me. What would I say to Ira and Imshah whom I had invited to Venice to share this period apartment?
I went out of the apartment and into the Square, entered the only restaurant that was open then and interrupted the owner from his business to relate my plight and ask how I could contact Julia. The Italian owner understood me not at all. When at last, with the help of a customer, the problem did dawn upon him; he smiled and said, “Ah! I know Julia has gone to Rome for the weekend.” The sinking grounds of Venice sunk a little more for me but I recovered soon and pleaded with him to divine if someone else in Venice could be holding her spare keys. His eyes lighted up and he directed me to another restaurant in another Squire, a few streets away, to find the person who might have the spare keys. Thither I dragged my tired old feet.
Half-a-dozen streets and a couple of bridges later I realized that if I go any further I might reach the God-damned restaurant but no way in hell I will be able to find my way back. With these tidings I returned to my first Italian restaurant owner. He threw his hands up as if he was trying to stop the Venetian sky from falling over him. He also took out a cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number, which I could make out, connected him to Julia. After conversing with her for a few minutes, he looked at me with a contemptuous smile and in almost threatening language remarked, “It is your fault – you locked the key inside”. Amma, who had now joined us, looked innocently at no one in particular. I sheepishly accepted the accusation and asked him to please get out of the blame game and find a solution. After 5 more minutes of Latin conversation the Italian told me that a cousin of Julia will be on her way to the apartment in half-an-hour.
We greeted Nicola, the chubby cousin of Julia, with great reverence and watched as she took out a huge bunch of keys and tried one after another to open the lock. Alas! None worked. Now she rang up Julia in Rome to relate the situation. After a few more minutes of Italian phone talk Nicola opened another apartment for us with the instructions to stay there till Julia returns from Rome by train at about midnight. Hardly had I settled in my new bed that Ira and Imshah returned to enquire why we had changed the apartment. They casually laughed at our story and dragged us to the roof that was accessible from this apartment and have a look at the Venice skyline at the sunset.
At last Julia returned from Rome, quietly opened our apartment without a word of rebuke or sympathy and withdrew. We then at last entered our apartment/ I suppose similar was the entry of Napoleon in this city of Venice. In 1797 when Napoleon entered Venice; universal confusion prevailed. The commanders of the Venetian troops and fleets received contradictory orders. Venice consented to surrender to the victor large territories on the mainland of Italy. Lastly tranquility was established just as it did in our case!
Next morning we got up late, sent Amma out first and then stepped out of the apartment with key securely inserted in the main door lock. Going past Rialto Bridge and scanning the upper scale shops beyond it, we fathomed why our guidebook said, ‘Venetians forget that the outside world exists. They talk as though Venice is the only place on earth that counts.’ Even Julia reminded me that it was weekend in Venice. As though it wasn’t weekend anywhere else.
After walking through various streets and squares we at last reached Piazza San Marco. It is said that Napoleon called San Marco "the drawing room of Europe." And it is a breathtakingly beautiful place. But the square has long been a lure for massive numbers of pigeons, drawn by the massive numbers of tourists who readily feed them. I remember when last time I visited Venice with a group tour this was the place we spent most of our day. The year was 1978, the season was summer and Venice was full of mostly older white travelers. And the pigeons were there in their numbers. But now expanse of the space was completely filled with people of all ages and nationalities.
The Basilca di San Marco stands majestically over the open end of the piazza. This crown jewel of Venice is a spectacular fusion of gold and marble that graces the piazza with its symmetry and frescos. We had to stand in a very long line to gain entry into it.
Interior of the church sparkles with gold mosaics from both the 13th century Byzantine and 16th century Renaissance periods. The floor is composed of magnificent 12th century stone mosaics. Centuries of uneven sinking of the foundation has given the floor its sea-like waviness.
Piazza San Marco is enclosed with 16th and 17th century Treasury offices.
5. HAPPY LIVING ROMANS
At Florence’s Santa Maria Novella station we did not have to wait long: train to Rome was already at the platform when we reaches the Station. The train was quite spacious and comfortable. The train route connects the stations of Firenze Santa Maria Novella and Roma Termini via Arezzo, Terontola, Chiusi and Orvieto with a total length of 314 km. It follows the valleys of the Arno, the Paglia and the Tiber rivers and completed the journey in two and a half hours.
Stazione Termini on the expansive, bus-filled Piazza dei Cinquecento. It
lies on the northeastern edge of the city center and is the main public city bus terminus in town. Now
that we were six in our party we took a maxi taxi to Grand Hotel Tiberio at Via
Lattanzio where we were booked to stay.
"While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls--the World."
If the Venerable Bede (673-735), the Anglo-Saxon monk and the first English historian who wrote these words (later translated by the poet Lord Byron), heard the news today, he might indeed believe that the end of the world was near.
According to Rome's authorities, the symbol of the Eternal City is in need of support as its south side is 16 inches lower than the north.
Experts from Rome’s Sapienza University and the Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering have been tasked with finding out the cause of the tilt. Professor Giorgio Monti thinks there may be a crack in the base of the monument.
"The concrete foundation on which the Colosseum is built is an oval-shaped 'doughnut' which is 13 meters [42 feet] thick," Professor Monti said. "There could be a stress fracture inside it."
The 12th
century Leaning Tower
of Pisa was
closed to tourists for more than 10 years while engineers worked to stop the
structure from falling over. It was reopened to the public in 2001. The
Colosseum, which was built by Emperor Vespasian in 72AD and attracts hundreds
of thousands of visitors, may need similar restoration work.
It was not easy to get in the Collosseum though. Lines were miles long and we hesitated to join one. A Roman agent saw us and guided us to his Agency which organized guided tours without the hassles of joining queues – at a price. We got through a catacomb of pathways – but getting the guide’s mike and the speakers proved even more difficult. The guide said in due course of time they will get it right. And for Collosseum even a thousand years might mean just ‘due course of time’.
They are named after the deacon Callixtus who, at the beginning of the third century, was appointed by pope Zephyrinus as the administrator of the cemetery and so the catacombs of St.Callixtus became the official cemetery of the Church of Rome.
The
underground cemetery includes several areas. The Crypts of Lucina and the area
of the Popes and of St.Cecilia are the most ancient areas.
The early Christians lived in a mainly pagan and hostile society. During Nero's persecution (64 A.D.) their religion was considered "a strange and illegal superstition". The Christians were mistrusted and kept aloof, they were suspected and accused of the worst crimes. They were persecuted, imprisoned, sentenced to exile or condemned to death.
Just like men today, Julius Caesar worried about going bald. But unlike men today he also claimed descent from Venus. Caesar’s conquest of Gaul made him fabulously rich, adored by his legions and set him on the path to Rome and supreme power., but also caused the death of 1m illion Gauls, according to Plutarch. We should realize no Roman would have been remotely shocked by this. Quite the contrary. Barbarians were there either to be colonized or killed.
Life of Julius Caesar is jam-packed with issues that plague the world even today. Some examples:
Betrayal. Brutus places his ideals (Rome as a republic) over his friend, Julius Caesar, and is willing to kill Caesar to protect the Republic.
Fear. Incredibly afraid of losing Rome as a republic, Brutus is willing to murder Caesar before the guy even does anything wrong
Political Turmoil. The politicians are like, "the citizens are going to kiss our togas for eliminating the tyrant Caesar! Down with absolute power." But the citizens are like, "What! You killed Caesar? We loved him." Let's just say that the politicians aren't exactly tuned in to the citizens' wants and needs.
Sacrificing Personal Morals for the "Greater Good." Brutus is well-known for being a moral and honest guy, yet he decides to commit murder and sacrifice his morals in hopes of ensuring a better future for Rome.
Reason vs. Passion. Brutus convinces the concerned public that Caesar was a tyrant who needed to be eliminated in order for them to be free. Then along comes Antony, with his passionate, emotional appeal, who turns them into an angry mob determined to avenge their beloved Caesar.
Sexual mores were different then. Women were virgins, mothers or whores. For men, the great thing was not to get buggered, but it was fine to do the buggering. Caesar was mocked not for being gay – a meaningless concept then – but for allowing himself to be “buggered by a geriatric royal pederast”: King Nicomedes of Bithynia. On the whole, Caesar preferred women, ideally other men’s wives or exotic maidens, such as Cleopatra and Eunoe the Moor.
Not long was the walk to the Fontana di Trevi from the Foro Di Caesare
The Fountain was horribly crowded and a haven for pickpockets and trinket sellers – mostly Bangladeshis. Also a newer story was now making the rounds that says throwing one coin means a return to Rome, a second coin leads to a new romance, and a third coin leads to marriage. I stopped after throwing the second coin.
While there are regularly attempts to steal the coins from the bottom of the fountain, it was pleasing to know that the coins are collected every night and the funds used to fund a supermarket that serves the poor of Rome, the Italian Red Cross, as well as other local charities. And we’re not talking chump change, either – workers routinely pull roughly €3,000 per day out of the Trevi!
It was for centuries the center of Roman public life: the site of processions and elections, venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiatorial matches, and nucleus of commercial affairs. Here statues and monuments commemorated the city's great men. The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the world, and in all history.
An important function of the Forum, during both Republican and Imperial times, was to serve as the culminating venue for the celebratory military processions known as Triumphs. Victorious generals entered the city by the western Triumphal Gate and circumnavigated the Palatine Hill (counterclockwise) before proceeding from the Velian Hill down the Via Sacra and into the Forum.
There followed minor emperors such as Galba (AD68-69) and the notorious glutton Vitellius (AD69), who in his youth was supposed to have pleased the ageing Tiberius under his nickname Sphinctria. It is a relief then to come to Vespasian (AD69-79), the bald, bullet-headed, pragmatic emperor-general who banished astrologers from Rome and put a tax on public lavatories. His son Titus (AD79-81) is also regarded as “a good emperor”, although it is a relative term. He burnt thousands of Jewish rebels alive, and presided over the opening games of the Colosseum, where 5000 animals might be slaughtered in one day, and criminals torn apart by Caledonian bears. Intriguingly, Titus left the games “in a state of deep depression” and was dead within months at the ageof 41.
On Dominitian (AD81-96); the last of the Caesars that Dennison covers, he writes, “Alone he sits in palace rooms, lost in silence, catching flies and stabbing them with with a keenly sharpened Stylus.” Domitian once invited his senators to dinner, in a room in his palace painted entirely black. “To each he gave a small stone slab shaped like a gravestone and engraved with his name, a tomb lantern and a naked attendant similarly painted black.” They ate black food while the emperor talked about death. The senators thought they were doomed, but they were allowed to go home alive. The emperor made his point.
Piazza Navona is a perfect example of urban continuity in Rome. It cover exactly the
area occupied by the track of Rome's
first stadium (built
by Domitian between 81 and 96 AD). The stadium was known as Circus
Agonalis (competition arena), which became corrupted to
"n'Agona" and eventually "Navona".
Soon after being elected Pope, Innocent X (1644-55) decided to embellish the piazza in honor of his family. He had his family palace and the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone rebuilt, ordered the restoration of the two fountains at either end of the piazza, and commissioned the colossal Fontana Dei Quattro Fiumi in center.
It is lively with painters and street performers that put on their shows for tourists and passersby, new spectators of that life that's always flowed though the piazza with movement and joy. Piazza Navona is one of the Roman's most treasured piazzas; here, in centuries past, acrobats and jugglers perfotmed crowds.
It has long been a meeting place for the inhabitants of Rome and liveliness of happy Romans is most tangible here.
It was now time for us to visit the last item of our agenda – Ponte Sant’ Angelo.
In the past, pilgrims used this bridge to reach St. Peter’s Basilica, and in 1450 the crowds were so great the bridge yielded and many pilgrims drowned. Later, the bridge was used to expose the bodies of the executed, there was a toll to finance the marble statues, before modern tourists took over free of charge.
It is the most famous and elegent bridge in Rome. Tiber River may be one of the most languid, dull waterways flowing through any European capital. Still, there’s something inherently romantic about strolling on the bridge during the twilight hours, when the sun sets over the ancient pillars and domes.
“Difficulties strengthen the mind, as labor does the body”, so said Lucius Annaeus Seneca (often known simply as Seneca; ca. 4 BC – AD 65) a Roman Stoic Philosopher. He was tutor and later advisor to Emperor Nero. But neither new nor old Romans believe him. We found this out when we were looking for dinner that night in Rome.
We was very excited when we came across Kohinoor restaurant at Via Aurelia.. Nice small mom and pop shop with decent Indian design. Entering it we were met with the owner of at the front desk. Prominent near the desk was a picture of the owner being baptized by the Pope himself. Apparently that action had won him Roman citizenship with which he also acquired a certain disdain for his visitors. Food was not bad for our Indian appetite but when I asked for my customary raw onion slices the water told me I will have to order a Salad from the Menu (15 Euros) in which I shall find some onion slices! Well done, new Romans!
during dreams, the mind continues to supply from inwards the awareness to the Soul, according to the residual desires contained in the mind. These
