Peeling Mandarin Oranges

I am not able to recall those exact lines from a Greek play that I had studied back in school, though I have narrowed it down to it being from either Oedipus Rex, or Antigone, where the chorus defines tragedy as not something unhappy, but rather something predestined, that has to be fulfilled at any costs. It is filled with tension, speculation, drama, but never sadness.
This definition of tragedy somewhat outlines the 2013 Malayalam hit, Annayum Rasoolum, a love story (amidst a lot of other things) between a Christian girl and a Muslim boy. Beautifully shot in Kochi and it's adjacent islands, the director, Rajeev Ravi shows us life of the working class and subsequently the Christian culture that thrives there.

Compared to the colourful and scenic Kochi of Martin Prakkat's Charlie, here the city is teeming with activity from fish markets to bazaars to the residential areas and its people are painted in colours of grey, blues, greens, and browns. Only Anna's (Andrea Jeremiah) saris of pink and yellow stand out amidst them. Take the scene when Anna asks Rasool (an excellent Fahad Fasil) to meet her outside of work, the subsequent shot is an birds eye view of the busy street, where both of them make their way through, and we can easily spot Anna in her yellow sari, but it becomes harder to find Rasool in all that hustle and bustle.

Scenes indoors are mostly shot from behind a curtain, or from a corner of a wall evoking a feeling of being watched, especially Anna, who we mostly see from behind her room curtain.
Such scenes of loneliness, silence or helplessness are further amplified with background conversations that don't involve the main leads. Take the scene on the ferry, when Andrea is contemplating on whether to message Rasool, and as she does so, in the background, the ferry owner and Anna's neighbour haggle about the payments. On Rasool's side, the tv blares out news, as he stands by the window and replies to Anna. Even when Francis and his mother visit Anna's house, we watch Anna making tea, but hear Francis's proposal in the background to marry her at the same time. All this makes the scenes more authentic and more spontaneous, like on one of the ferry rides, a stranger asks Rasool, after he gets off the phone how he knows Bharthan, and comments that he is close friends with him. This isn't necessary in anyway for the plot, but small inserts like this, makes the screen come more alive.

I know, I know, its become extremely late, and probably by now you have lost interest, hell, to an extent even I have, but, here I am, finally, (drum roll please), with the last set of photos along with some tidbits from the last leg of the Italian journey.

To be honest, between juggling submission deadlines and getting enough sleep, to keeping up a rudiment social life, I am hell-a amazed this blog is still up and running. So please bear with me on these rather late posts, as this will be a future occurrence too.
So, that's that.

To get this essay started, here are a few photos of our first evening in Florence, at a beautiful park from across the street from our hotel,

From the hustle and bustle that was Rome, we were transported to this quiet small town, with its residences, schools, parks, those parks with families on picnics, children on see saws and swings, old cute grannies in long dresses sitting together, sharing the day's jibber-jabber, dogs catching frisbees and couples totally lost in each others eyes. It felt like we were intruding onto their privacy and felt like outsiders, and finally for the first time since we arrived in Italy, I felt like I was someplace new.

We nomads feed on this feeling of uncertainty, a feeling of being unaccustomed and being left out, yet ride on the joy of able to adapt, explore, and learn at our will. Monotony bores us, be it in the languages we converse in, the food we eat, the extreme climatic changes we endure, and are thrilled on meeting new people and embracing their culture as ours, and carrying some of it with us when we fly off to our next destination.

The following morning, we took a train to Pisa, and by now it was fair to say that we had become fairly competent travelling in the Italian railways, but then again, as the countless times the uncles at countless dinner parties have stated, twirling that whisky glass in one hand, and declaring with an air of affection to ones homeland that exponentially grows the farther you are from it, 'If you can survive in India, you can survive anywhere in the world.' Driving also strictly applies to this statement.

It was a Sunday, and I remember this because the streets were deserted. The shops were closed and windows shut, and the whole walk from the station seemed even more longer due to this. The only other people on the streets were tourists like us, walking towards the same destination, with bag packs, camera and loads of water bottles in hand.
Here are a few clicks from the walk to the Pisa Complex,

The first point of interest was, no guesses,

Ta-dah!

If the streets leading to the Pisa Complex was empty, the crowd at the complex made up for it. People stood in all directions, positions, stances, trying to push the tower back to its intended stature. I especially loved watching the Chinese tourists, trying to (flying) kick or karate chop the bell tower. Quite innovative I must say.

We visited the Cathedral and the Baptistery,

And also climbed up the Leaning Tower!

Here's my brother, pretending not to be scared,

The climb up the tower was tiring. The staircase being narrow and crowded, the riser being quite high, and the centripetal force that kept pulling you in towards the centre, which in turn requires you to put in extra effort to resist that force.

For lunch we had Bombay Pizza, the irony, and caramel custard, with a view of the leaning bell tower, to our backs.
It is not everyday you eat pizza named after an Indian city, in Pisa, in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, is it?

We were back in Florence that very evening, and the next day we visited the Florence Cathedral, Ponte Vecchio, and a walk through Palazzo Vecchio and Uffizi Gallery.
Just like Pantheon, the Florence Cathedral is gigantic, but so neatly tucked away in between alleys, that until you see the monument with you own eyes, you will keep questioning if you are going the right way or not.

Coincidentally a whole year back, we had built a model of the cathedral for a history group project, and if someone would have told me that time, that, a year later I was going to see the real thing, I would have just laughed.

With buildings all around the cathedral, it was really had to get one clear shot of the whole cathedral, so with equal excitement and nervousness, I am sharing a few attempts of mine; please do be kind :)

Here's mom giving it a try as well,

....And here are some photos from the interiors. Unlike its facade, the interior is pretty plain, with very less ornamentation or any form of decoration.

Then, was a long stroll to Ponte Vecchio, which took us through Palazzo Vecchio and Uffizi Gallery. Unfortunately being a Monday, the Galleria dell'Accademia was closed, so we met Michelangelo's David here, outside the Palazzo Vecchio, along with many other equally beautiful marble statues,

and a person dressed like so them, we actually thought of him as a part of the building facade!

It was raining by the time we reached Ponte Vecchio, but rather than the bridge, I enjoyed the walk to the lanes nearby, filled with pizzeria and many boutiques.

Lasagna was the one dish I couldn't get to try anywhere because it contained beef, but thanks to pictures of broccoli floating around the photo of a lasagna on the *board, and to Google Translate, we found a small cafe serving vegetarian lasagna right outside the Florence Cathedral.
So, if I had to sum up five days of Italy in a few words, it would be 'Good food with good views.'