Boldly going alone.

The sun had set but it wasn't completely dark yet. St. Peter’s lit up then. The church, the square and the fountains were bathed in strategically placed artificial lighting. I was by myself, but I didn't feel alone. Travelling and exploring new places on my own was actually a wonderful, exhilarating experience.

How did an ordinary South Indian girl (with all that social conditioning about girls not going anywhere alone) end up by herself in Rome? Well, work brought me to Italy, with a brain-ful of ideas about how I wasn't going to waste a single weekend idling away the time. I was going to explore it all. The others from my company posted there along with me, however, had other ideas. Most of them were quite content to spend all their weekends oiling hair, taking long baths, doing mostly nothing (well, maybe some shopping). I love lazy weekends, don’t get me wrong. But we were in Italy! I was out of India for the very first time, with so many plans to visit so many places. To be fair, there were some people who were interested in visiting other places, but they’d already been there for a few months and had seen most of the sights.

For the first two weeks, I tried my best to get some of the others to come with me. I wheedled, whined, sulked, and finally understood that they were not interested at all when some of them agreed to go with me to Naples the next day but refused to when I knocked on their doors to tell them it was time to go. I was so upset by this that I didn't speak to them for a whole week.

The next Monday, I asked my Italian friends at work where I could go safely alone. I was damned if I was going to let the lack of these people’s company stop me. I felt I was better off going alone. That’s how I ended up with a borrowed mini-tripod, my camera, a few snacks, some water, and an umbrella; at Caserta. I had a lovely day walking around the palace and the expansive gardens. I met some wonderful people, got invited to Adelaide the next time I was ever in Australia, and got a mini-lecture on why I should catch an Italian guy because they apparently make such good husbands. It was a revelation. I wasn't bored on the train journey, I didn't have to make meaningless idle small-talk about which actor was in what movie (none of the Telugu movies have plots these days, the titles follow a theme that changes every few months, how am I supposed to keep track? I don’t even watch most of them, for heaven’s sake).

The entire day was a delight. It made me confident that I could go places, literally. I made sure to ask my friends if these places were safe or not, of course. I planned out my day, took some printouts of maps (I didn’t have a smartphone then), packed my backpack Friday night and explored a new place every Saturday.

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Two months passed, I was happy with my weekends, but I hadn't stayed anywhere overnight by myself; nor had I set foot in Rome. One or two times, someone would join me; most of the time, I went alone. Then a couple of people showed interest in visiting the Eternal City. I was ecstatic, until we started planning the weekend. There was a same-day-return offer at Trenitalia, where you got the return ticket free if you travelled the same day. Obviously the other two wanted to take up this offer. I was confused, frustrated, anxious, you name it. I tried convincing them that they wouldn't see much of the city this way, but found out to my horror that they were only interested in being able to say they had been to Rome. All they wanted were a few photographs of themselves standing in front of the Colosseum and St. Peter’s. I wanted to tell them to just use Photoshop and be done with it, but I had one more month to go before I’d never see them again.

I was hesitant about spending the night alone in a strange hotel in a foreign land. All the things my elders had ever scared me with swam to the surface of my mind and nearly drowned out the entire plan to visit Rome. Again, my Italian friends came to the rescue. Giorgio, being the most absolute sweetheart as usual, helped me search for a nice respectable hotel near the railway station. He even spoke to the hotel management and made sure it was all above board. Once that was done, I felt much more confident. The others were shocked that I’d be staying on after they left, but I was adamant. The train offer would go waste, they said; it wasn't safe, they said; what would I do, they asked. I told them to stay back with me if they were so concerned. That shut them up.

And that’s how, after getting rid of them on Saturday evening at Roma Termini, I walked around the Vatican City walls and entered St. Peter’s Square just as the lights came on. I met a wonderful American family and had dinner with them, then took the subway back to my hotel. My room was cosy and comfortable, and the man at the front desk made me feel comfortable. He didn't give out creepy crazy rapist vibes, anyway.

The next day, I really explored Rome. I walked through side-streets with no tourists, I jostled with the crowds at the Trevi Fountain, I felt my jaw drop at the magnitude of Circo Massimo, wandered among the ruins of the Forum, asked random people to take photos of me, felt dwarfed by the magnitude of the Pantheon, and awesomest of all, ran into a re-enactment of the liberation of Rome by the Allies.

Travelling alone made me really connect with the place I was in at that moment. It also led me to some powerful insights about myself and how I react to different situations. It made me more confident and self-reliant (and gave me a sort of rebel image among my Indian colleagues in Italy). I met a lot of interesting people from different places, and had interesting, even uplifting, conversations with them. Most importantly, this experience taught me that if you wait around for people to go with you, you mostly end up staying back.