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Dear
Family,
Some of you had asked me to write to you from Europe. Here
is a brief first-one. This is in place of picture
postcards.
Anjali and I flew from Atlanta and reached Venice via
London. Both Anjali and I had been to Venice not too long
ago. About five years ago we came here with Uma. I
was invited to give a lecture at that time. We had a good time
then. So, we decided to skip most
of the
tourist spots
this time and just enjoy it leisurely.
Venice is one of the most important
tourist places in the world, and
there are good
reasons for that. It is unique in many ways. It is
situated in Italy at
the head of the Adriatic Sea (a part of the Mediterranean
Sea). Many of you know that it was built on several
hundred small islands, at the mouth of two big rivers. I
am reminded of the small islands (Ganges delta, baw-dwips or
chars in Bengali) that we saw when we visited Sunderbans, south
of West Bengal. The Venice islands were
originally like that. I was told that many years ago,
in the 6th century AD, when the power of Roman empire was
declining rapidly and at the same time Italy was being
continuously attacked and harassed by the so called
"Barbarians" from the North of Europe, who
are also known as the
"Huns", some Italians, in desperation, took refuge in
these unhealthy and god-forsaken miserable little
islands. The attackers did not bother to pursue them
there. Gradually these people became traders (as there was
nothing else to do) and then they became pirates, and
robbers. With their trading skills and by force and lastly
with the help of the "Crusaders", the fanatic
Christian thugs and murderers of the middle ages, they collected
a lot of loots from many places (from Asia, Europe, Africa,
especially from Istanbul and Egypt) and became very rich.
They built a beautiful city on those unhealthy islands.
They built homes, mansions, churches, squares and so
forth. Soon the city started to flourish and became
the most important center of trading
between Europe and the rest of the world especially the
Middle East.
The most famous among all the spots in the city is the St. Marco
Square named
after the Christian saint, St. Marco. The Venetians stole
his body from
Egypt where he was buried, and reburied it here. They
believe the body
would protect the city. St Marco's place has a beautiful
palace, a cathedral, an old clock tower, many fancy shops, and a very
large square.
Like at the Trafalgar Square in London, thousands upon
thousands pigeons live there and eat from tourists'
hands. It is fun for the first timers. Great for getting
pictures with pigeons standing on head and shoulder and eating
out of your hand.
The central Venice was built on about 120 smaller islands.
That is why
there are canals, not roads between them. Mode of
transportation is by
various types of boats, private boats, gondolas, water
taxis, waterbuses
etc. Yes, indeed, there are hundreds of waterbuses with
various numbers
and they ply on different canals. Just like buses go
around roads at Calcutta or Delhi. The islands are connected by hundreds
of bridges over
the canals. The waterbuses of course cannot go in the smaller
canals, but
the private boats and gondolas can. Whenever you cross a
bridge, you
actually cross from one island in to another. The
islands are so small
that the houses are actually coming right out of the water,
there is no or
hardly any land left between the houses and the canals. Some
islands have only one or two houses, most probably have fifty
buildings. You can take your boat or the gondola right
into the door of your house. In addition, there are
very narrow lanes between the houses; these lanes are even
narrower than the ones I saw at Benaras. There is no car
in the city. Most people do not own any because to keep a car
you will have to park it out side the city and then walk home or
take a boat home.
There are many other slightly bigger islands, also all built up
now, as
suburbs of Venice. Only
boats can reach them. Last time we stayed in an elegant hotel in
one of the remote islands. (Luckily, the conference people
paid for the hotel and the airfare at that time).
Venice was pretty hot. We took walks all around partly as
a group and
partly by ourselves. Walking through Venice is a
wonderful experience. But I must tell you; Venice is
losing its population fast. Only 10 years ago
there were 100,000 residents in Venice, today it is only
60,000. This is
because of the very high cost of living in the city, the
pressure of
millions of tourists (more than 12 million a year), and the
inconvenience of
living (no car, etc). That is why they are leaving the town and
moving into
the mainland.
Venice is the birthplace of many important people. One of
them was Marco Polo, the explorer, who went to China. The Venice
airport is named after him. There are others, like the music
composer Vivaldi and the infamous Casanova.
You must have heard that Venice is sinking gradually. That
is true. The
reasons are: because of the overuse of underground water
earlier
(tube wells), the whole city has sank about seven
inches. Further, the sea level is
rising due to global warming and melting of the glaciers and
Arctic ice.
Venice floods very often in some parts, sometimes daily, with the changing of the tides.
From Venice we go to Istanbul, Turkey. It will take two
days and two nights to reach there. We will be sailing
through the Mediterranean Sea and the Sea of Marmar. I
will write to you again from there.
Love
Sujit
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