Italy

Ah, Italy.

What can I say… In the words of Oscar Wilde:

I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned,
Italia, my Italia, at thy name:
And when from out the mountain’s heart I came
And saw the land for which my life had yearned,
I laughed as one who some great prize had earned:
And musing on the marvel of thy fame
I watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame
The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned.
The pine-trees waved as waves a woman’s hair,
And in the orchards every twining spray
Was breaking into flakes of blossoming foam:
But when I knew that far away at Rome
In evil bonds a second Peter lay,
I wept to see the land so very fair.

TURIN.

-Oscar Wilde

 Being of Italian origin (and Indian… but half-Italian just sounds weird. Does that mean my left half is Italian? Or maybe it means I’m from only half of Italy?) I still consider Italy one of the most beautiful places on the planet. In few other places (if any) can you find such a concentration of sea, sun, mountains, snow, history, culture and insanity as in Italy.

Italy is… well, Italy is unique. All the words in the English language aren’t enough to describe Italy… nor are all the words in the dialects available in Italy! A recent (2002) song at Sanremo, one of Italy’s music festivals, was described as:

 Botero cantano “Siamo treni”, brano che, metaforicamente, parla di come ormai siamo treni, destinati sempre a correre, che non ci accorgiamo di quello che ci accade intorno, non ci accorgiamo forse neanche di quello che accade a noi stessi.

Translated, this says that Botero (the band) sing “Siamo Treni” (we are trains), a song that metaphorically says how we are becoming trains, forever destined to rush about, without realising what is occuring around us, to the point that at times we don’t realise what is happening to ourselves. This crude translation does not begin to capture the beauty of the song. The following video reminds me of Torino (Turin), one of the places I refer to as “home”, but truly, one of the few places I’m so attached to!