Quo Vadis ?

Chiesa del Domine Quo Vadis, Rome

 Its again many months of non-blogging. Well, there was no dearth of things to write about  nor words to spin the yarn but something holds me back. Partly the busy nothings of my mundane life and partly the thought that I am not to write about the work I am engaged in office. The current work assignment, which took majority of my time last year , was so damn interesting that the temptation to write about it was very high. Looking back, these were some interesting months I lived. I visited fascinating places and met extraordinary people. Did some silly things , tried to come out a winner and all in all, it was  a good existence  and loads of  happy memories. May be some day I will write about it too. But look at me now, I was in Rome last year then touched Banaras in between and am back to Rome again. Its like a circular bus touching all ancient cities .

I knew it even then. It had to be this way.  We were not done last time. Me and Rome . Rome left me desiring for more – more of Rome, I mean . So I am back. Back to my favorite piazzas, my favorite walks and my favorite city.  All this was going in my mind when I climbed the bus for catacombs on via Appia Antica ( the ancient Appian way ) . 

There was no fixed program and it was a bright  Sunday morning .  As  expected ,  I got down at the  wrong stop. Good that happened , for it made me walks miles on the  picturesque ancient highway . It was then that I noticed “Quo Vadis?”.  First on a pizzeria and then the Church nearby . It was so ironical. As if the question was addressed to me.

Quo-Vadis? (Where are you going?)- a question that  can hardly ever have one perfect answer. Well, the Church was fine but the story was fantastic. The resurrected savior appearing to give courage to an old man to be a martyr  and later on Saint . I am not a big fan of St Peter at all. He sounds so unsteady in his faith , so terribly wrong in his choices and so timid mostly  that he needed divine interventions at many points in his life  . But then he rose to the occasion and become the rock on which the Church was built. May be it was all this that made him the connect between the God and the world. He became the saint , because he returned. He returned knowing  that he will be crucified . But still he  changed his mind and he returned .

So walking the serene ancient Appian road, admiring the sun and the grass, I thought about journey of life and I thought about the return. The latter because the church (Church of Domine Quo Vadis ) is in fact located just in front of the sacred campus dedicated to Rediculus, the Roman God of the Return. So It was on this 2000 year old road that I decided to return to my blog again ( among many other things )  and to tell where am I going , both in a worldly way and in a metaphorical one .