Roma

Rome smells like the pages of an ancient scripture.

On a hot sunny day, I perambulate the corridors of Colosseum. I wonder, astonished at the vastness of the structure. Heaps after heaps, years after years, thousands of slaves must have stubbornly walked these corridors, carrying tons of stones on their backs. Generations of kings must have marched these aisles, arrogance locked in their heavy strides. Stanch the bloodshed! Their benign hearts must have announced, seldom in their years of monarchy.

After reigns of several kings, after many civilizations, after battles and wars and human tyranny, I stare hopefully at the arches of the Colosseum. The man-slaughter has stopped. The kings have died. Their arrogance escaped through ruins of these arches and dissolved in the air, hanging low on the streets of Rome.

I feel the sporadic slaps of hot air as I spend some time in the city. Voluminous architectural monuments landscape the city of Rome. Roman Catholic churches. Roman towers and hills. Roman temples and fountains. Fountains are big and sculpted. There’s a fountain at every Piazza. There’s a Piazza in every address. Every address has a glimpse of different eras of Rome.

There’s an Old Rome and a New Rome. There’s Rome which welcomes you and there’s Rome which reminds you that you are a tourist with a return ticket. The New Rome makes you sit on the Spanish steps where a local street-group performs jauntily. The Old Rome tires you with the walks around the antiquities.

I tire myself and sit at the steps of a fountain: embellished with bare statues, rarely a robe draped on a shoulder or a lap. The folds of the fabric fall gracefully in the air. As the sunlight gleams on the monolith, reflections of the statues silhouette on the sheets of water. A rivulet falls at the side of the fountain, where tourists gather to drink water in their cupped hands. The fountain is a symbol of pure water.

A couple stands at the circumference of the pool. Theirs backs held straight and facing the fountain. A coin is pressed between a thumb and forefinger. It’s flung from over the head into the pool, after murmuring a silent prayer. Standing thousand miles away from home, with a little furrow in the forehead, they see the coin slowly slide into the shallow depth of water; a silent wish sinks to the base of the pond. The fountain is a symbol of faith.

The sculpted statues are always narrating a story: pointing at some direction, hinting at some history. Is there a Roman riddle? There’s a sudden urge to read the secrets - - not just to know the past but to be able to read it. There’s a sudden urge to fathom the arcane knowledge hidden, in the folds of the fabric, in the shadows of the silhouette. The fountain is a symbol to be solved.

Voluminous architectural monuments landscape the city ofRome.                                                                                   Voluminous architectural monuments lay buried beneath.

I sit at the steps of a fountain, cross-legged, rubbing my palm on the coarse earth. I look at the shadows in the pond. I look at the fading Sun. Soon the shadows will recede unto the statuettes. Soon the Sun will dissolve into another sky.  We need to get home. The finality of thought hits me, and I get up, taking the support of my knee, sucking in a long draft of air. 

Rome smells like the pages of an ancient scripture. The pages are tattered, the text is trenchant, and the sheets are bound firmly to the spine to survive centuries of storytelling.