Rivers of steel

On one of the weekends during my semester long stay in Rovereto, I took a trip to Bologna to meet my friend A. In the evening we had ventured towards the center of the city where stands the oldest educational institution in the western world. Inspite of the medieval architecture, the city came alive with mostly student population. The roads here have somehow managed to keep its centuries old archways and leaning towers preserved alongside more modern buildings. The main piazza was teeming with young people who were sitting down in small knots with their beer and music while the observatory of Copernicus towered behind.

It is here that we were cornered by a middle-aged lady who wanted a piece of our pizza. Upon refusal she proceeded to urge me to kiss her and subsequently abused me for five minutes in Italian and walked over to dance clumsily for another group of students for some beer. We are expert handlers of eunuch related situations in our country. A little uncivil Italian lady had nothing on us.

On my way back it was already dark, misty and raining. I could see multitudes of railroad tracks (binari in Italian) from the window illuminated by a series of lights - and the lights reflected on the series of parallel serpentine tracks. The faint shimmering of the lights made it feel like it was a giant river of steel. Somehow it brought me closer to my daydreaming self watching the railway tracks from crowded compartments of a Kolkata train.