FEATHERED LOVE

Chapter 2

ONE YEAR AGO

Rome, Italy.2018

If there is any advice that you should take from people who have been to Italy before, then that is that you should never travel to Italy in summer. Italy in summer is like an extremely hot pan overcrowded with ants. The heat makes it nearly impossible to enjoy the scenic beauty around you and the feeling of being squashed between tourists wherever you go makes it near damn unbearable.

If you are a normal person making normal travel plans then the above advice would help you save some money and probably help you find some goddamn peace of mind. But if you are an unfortunate fellow such as myself who is bound to travel wherever her bloody job demands, then you are struck out of your luck.

I am not saying that Italy is a bad place to be, but if you are someone spotting a piercing headache from jetlag and getting stuck in traffic in the scorching heat of Italian summer, then you would probably share my sentiments.

I jolt awake from a shut-eye when the cab comes to a stop. The impatient driver quickly demanded the pay and skidded away the minute I got out of the cab. I stand in front of the massive building of the consulate of India, Rome with the sun staring right down at my face.

A new place, a new phase of life.

In the beginning, when I had first decided that I wanted to become a diplomat for my country, the thought of meeting new people and getting to travel to new places had been the very thought that had driven me to take on the job. But once I had gotten the job, the thought of moving to an entirely new region with people speaking an entirely new language made my back coil in fear.

Exhibit A of why this was so fearful would be the situation I had been facing for the last 15 minutes. For the past quarter of an hour, I had been trying to convince the front desk lady with the little Italian that I knew, that I was not here to get my visa renewed but to report for my first day of joining here. Whereas she ,with whatever little English she knew, was repeatedly telling me to take my visa and go to the second floor. At one point in the conversation I was convinced that she was doing it just to get on my nerves but looking at her wide-open doe eyes I couldn't bring myself to even doubt her for a second.

If it would have been any other day at another time, I probably would have laughed heartily at the predicament that I was in but with the killer headache I was having, every minute of this fruitless discussion was turning into torture.

That's when I saw her, THE HER, descending the stairs, gorgeous blonde hair floating behind her, clad in an olive green blouse and loose cream skirt, looking beautiful like a diva. She came down and saw us stuck in an impasse, walked towards us and looked into my eyes, and said," Is there something wrong here? Would you like some help?" that was the moment I knew, fluent English and fluent Italian along with that pretty face, I knew then and there that this pretty lady was going to be my knight in shining in this foreign land and I had to befriend her as soon as possible.

After a few moments of fruitful conversation with the stunning lady who later introduced herself as Nadia, I was finally able to get through to the lady at the front desk that I was going to be her colleague from today onwards and she finally, FINALLY guided me towards my new workspace.

What a heck of a start for the first day.

After clearing the misimpression, I was expecting Nadia to walk on her way to her work but as the ever gracious lady as she was, she offered to walk me to my office. As we were waiting for the elevator she turned towards me, smiled and asked, "So, Ms.first day, you haven't given me a name yet. If you don't want me to call you Ms.First Day for the rest of your tenure here then I suggest we go forward with the introductions."