Where are they now?

A man stood at the midpoint of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence on a clear golden summer evening. A crowd had gathered around him to see the sunset, but he had his back to the sun. The beautiful medieval covered bridge was a major tourist attraction in this colorful Italian city full of tourist attractions, and the fact that it offered a magnificent view of the sun setting over the river Arno had pushed the whole crowd to this spot. It was almost 9 o'clock but the crowd was still mostly energetic. This man was holding a guitar, and he was singing into a microphone. He had large speakers next to him which amplified the music and filled the atmosphere with rhythm. Was he a great singer? I wouldn't say so. He was more loud than melodious, his voice more mundane than magical as he reminded everyone to tip him and buy his CDs. But the music that he created is definitely part of my memory of that evening from last June. From his sweaty face to his sinewy hands, everything about him showed that he was hardworking if nothing else, and sincere about his music. I had photographed him and dropped a Euro into his hat, but I had not really expected to remember him a few months later. His music, maybe, because that was an overwhelming part of the scene, but not him as a person.

And yet, I find myself thinking about him for the past few days. Is he still alive, or is he one of the nearly 19,000 people that have died in the Covid-19 pandemic? If he's alive, what is he doing now? He can't sing on the streets anymore, so what does he do for a living? What about the waiter who stood waiting for customers at the Piazza della Signoria in the summer evenings, or the art sellers in Piazza della Repubblica? Where are the musicians who played for the open-air diners at the San Marco Square in Venice, or the sellers of leather goods at the Florence Central Market? I saw an old gentleman in Venice having a morning walk and buying a newspaper from a newsstand. Is he still alive? If he is, he definitely cannot go out for walks anymore, and can he still get his newspapers?

These are questions that keep haunting me and my wife Poulami repeatedly as we look through the photos of our Europe tour from last summer. We had always wanted to tour Europe, and Italy was the brightest jewel in that crown of a tour. We remember Italy as a hot, crowded, colourful country full of loud, cheerful people everywhere eating delicious food in the roadside cafes. A country of bustling marketplaces, busy alleyways, and people standing in queues to eat gelato while the tantalizing aroma of freshly baked pizza wafted through the air. The brightly colored country full of tourists, souvenir sellers and priceless wonders scattered everywhere surely left us impressed and longing for more. My parents had also come from India to accompany us during these ten days of tiring but unforgettable sight-seeing.  

And today, barely eight months later, all of that is gone. It's gone, along with nearly 19,000 people, leaving hundreds of thousands whose lives were changed forever. Of course, everyone in the media is talking about the sufferings of gondoliers, cafe owners, shopkeepers and other faceless people, but it feels particularly bad when one has captured some of their faces. Many of the people in my photos are tourists, and they are unlikely to be there now. But there were others whom we remember vividly, such as the lady who owned the gelateria near our AirBnB in Rome, the young woman who showed us our AirBnB in Venice, and the taxi driver in Rome who magically changed my 50 euro note to a 10 euro note. Maybe we don't remember that last person with a lot of fondness, but we do remember him vividly. It feels very painful to think of that country under lockdown now, with the hospitals overflowing with COVID-19 patients.

Italy is by no means the only country to suffer in this pandemic, and bodies are piling up fast in my favourite city in the US as well. Spain wasn't part of our itinerary last summer, but we traveled through UK, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Greece, Germany, Austria and Greece. All of these countries are affected to various degrees and I really hate to think what this beautiful continent is going through right now. Meanwhile, we haven't left the house for the last three weeks and teaching classes through Zoom seems like the new normal. The world we know has changed - probably forever - and it happened so quickly that everyone seems to be in denial. It is this denial that is exacerbating all this suffering in the US, and I shudder to think what can happen back home in India if things are not handled well.

But this blog post is about Italy and the happy people we met there. I wish I had some way of knowing where they are now, and how they are doing. I also hope they can get back to their normal way of living sometime soon. For an elderly gentleman who has spent all his life taking morning walks and buying newspapers, it would be very sad if he has to spend the last few years of his life deprived of these simple pleasures of his daily routine.