Falling in love is the easy bit.

The common symptoms of falling in love- include, heart skipping a beat, the long drawn goodbye, waiting for the next time, the constant need of knowing everything, the big life-is-so-beautiful-to-me smile (which quite frankly, puts off regular people who are not in love), the irrational urge to keep updating status message(on facebook) about how happily in love you are, suddenly the grass seems greener, sky is especially a very pretty shade of blue, songs like “I knew I loved you before I met you” starts making sense, and even, Snoop Dog will sound like Sinatra singing, “ The best is yet to come”. Well, if all the symptoms checks out; congratulations, you are in love. I am in love. Yes, I am.

This is special, it started out as a little crush, the more I got to know- the more I fell in love, time stood still, everything that was said or done seemed so special, I actually have a big pathetic I-am-in-love grin on my face. People are very sceptical about this relationship; my family does not have any idea of this mad love, but people who are aware, tell me things, like, “this is not going to happen”, “this is not perfect for you”, “you are crazy”, “you are just taken by how wonderful this looks, you are not seeing the bigger picture” Sceptics, you can say all you want, but all that I want to tell you is, B-A-H!

Okay, so before all of you start to think – that there is a man in my life. Let me burst the bubble for all of you. No, this is not about a man I am in love with and no, it is not a woman. I am in love with...Italy!  I think – that this love is true and it is here to stay. This love started like any relationship- flirting. I flirted with the cuisine, (which I absolutely love) they eat mozzarella, parmesan on pasta every single bloody day. The feelings developed when I discovered Tuscany. I sealed the deal when I started teaching myself Italian. I just can’t seem to get enough, reading Eat. Pray. Love was just a sign. As Liz Lemon says, “I. WANT.TO.GO.TO.THERE” Even though, me wanting to go there is primarily based on pasta-eating purpose, I have other intentions too- gelato, pizza, biscotti, farmer’s market shopping, café, pastries and bruschettas. Okay,  I want to go there mainly for food-related reasons.  Clearly, my world view is food-based and I am not ashamed of it.

Now that I established the fact that I want to be there- I have other intentions too, such as, learning the Italian way of living; buying a big, plush home in Tuscany with a big garden, in a share autos - free Italian roads, and I can say things like, “Toodles, I am off to the art exhibition in the city” or “I am going to spend my afternoon in the café, just reading or looking at the fellow Italians enjoying their afternoon” How cool would that be? If I were to live in Chennai, instead; I will be saying things like, “I will be there in 15 minutes, my share auto is stuck near Nugambakkam.” “I see a mentally stable but a very  stupid man peeing in the garden outside my home” If you choose a man peeing in front of your home to enjoying a quite afternoon doing absolutely nothing, but taking in the beauty of  Tuscany- I am worried for you.

Also, I would take up a fight with anybody who says, French is a more romantic language than Italian. I have a problem with that. I’ve learnt the language for more than a decade now and I can tell you, there is nothing romantic about the language... nothing! But, Italian on the other hand, *sigh* just plain sexy. Even the most ridiculous sounding word like Rats (!) – Mannaggia (man-naj-jeeah) is sexy. The country has a bakery (panetteria) and a cake shop (pasticceria), no cakes in bakery, and no pastries in cake shops. Am I the only one who thinks this is way cooler than all the endless museums in every Italian street, fountains, and libraries?

There are also other things I did consider, things apart from food-related stuff, like, will the new country like me? Am I good enough? Do we have lot of things in common? Are we compatible? Will I be working after settling there? Will things change once I move there? I like Godfather (that has to score me some brownie points), and I am learning their language so I can communicate with the lovely (hopefully) people there, will that help? Will my dad like the new country I chose? What if my friends were right, what if this was just a ridiculous head over heels love and not the practical kind?

For crying out loud, we have the similar tri colors for our flags, dogs don’t * woof woof* there, they *bau bau* there, like, Bow Bow. Come on, this has to be a sign, right? Why does falling in love have to be so easy when everything else is so hard? If only I was not such a romantic. *deep sigh*