History

Sikhs in Italy

by SEEMA SIROHI

The Italian hills of Colli Albani stand guard in the distance and the one road nearby leads to Rome.

Inside the small farm shed, a picture of Guru Nanak looks kindly down from three walls out of four, competing with the bric-a-brac cramming the room's beds, one book-shelf, suitcases in line and stacks of DVDs. The adjacent kitchen, which converts to another bedroom at night, has rudimentary cooking utensils, a rickety table, a huge plastic barrel of atta and two refrigerators. A neat row of clothes pegs carries the burden of entire wardrobes.

Harjit Singh, who came to Italy two years ago from India, is making cha for the Punjabi workforce on this lush farm south of Rome.

Tajinder Singh, barely 18, and who landed here just five days earlier after paying an agent Rs 8 lakh, helps with the chores. He doesn't have a job yet, but he has shelter, thanks to his village brethren.

"Everyone comes here to earn money; I too decided to come", he says, smiling shyly. But tears well up when he talks about his family. It's still too raw: the departure, the journey, the touts, the alien languages along the long route of illegal migration.

The two rooms are home to eleven men from Punjab, some legal, others illegal, but all bound by a common will to survive with few resources and many insecurities.

Goldy Singh trundles back after a 14-hour workday, having secured delicate green bean tendrils with ropes and sticks. He opens a drink, shaking mud off his rubber boots and exchanges pleasantries with Satinder, a man of many trades and skills.

Satinder, who connects Italian farmers with the Punjabis, owns two shops in Italy, exports Murano glass to Mumbai, drops names and goes to the West Indies for the World Cup, is one of the few regular links between the isolated workers and the world. The cellphone is another.

There is comfort in brotherhood, as men from the villages of Punjab come together in far-flung communities across Italy, a new favourite destination of immigrants.

More than 50,000 of them, mostly Sikhs, are spread across towns such as Reggio Emilia, Casina, Bergamo and Brescia, a far cry from Kapurthala, Hoshiarpur or Ludhiana, labouring with quiet determination and doing jobs the Italians are unavailable for or unwilling to do. Some make as little as 500 euros a month, exploited by crafty employers. Those who become legal can make up to 1,500 euros.

Last week, at a cultural evening organised in Rome by a Punjabi who's now an official with an Italian workers' union, singers belted out ribald songs before a meal of chicken curry and naan.

A prosperous-looking Balbir Singh sat in the audience with his wife and son, recounting how he came 18 years ago after paying an agent Rs 17,000 for a tourist visa. Today the price is anywhere between Rs 6 and 10 lakh.

"I didn't know where or what Italy was, but I hoped to find work", Balbir said, fiddling with his fancy cellphone sporting a Guru Nanak screensaver. Work he did find, first in a circus as a driver, then as a labourer and electrician. Today, he owns a factory making grilles for windows.

The Sikhs are also making wine and cheese. Up in the northern Emilia Romagna region, home to the famed Parma ham, the Punjabi worker, with his intuitive farm skills, has added another "P" to the big two: prosciutto and parmesan. They are curing tonnes of meat into prosciutto and turning gallons of milk into parmesan cheese, a sprinkling of which is essential over pasta. They have reportedly even improved the process.

But come Sunday, and a mini-Punjab sprouts in the twenty-two gurdwaras across Italy, with shabad kirtans and langar, providing an anchor to the thousands of Sikhs who long for the sounds and smells of home.

In the very same communities,  in April this year, Vaisakhi was celebrated with abandon and large processions ... a bit of Punjab, with an Italian flavour!

[Courtesy: Outlook India]

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