I took up a new job in Milan, Italy. Prior to this, I was working in Bahrain. My wife & I landed in Milan in April, 2009

As we got out of the Malpensa airport of Milan, we were greeted with bright sunny weather – the winter was ending. On our drive from airport to the residence, it was pleasant to see greenery around.

We soon realized that learning Italian would be necessary because with English we could barely manage conversation. It is inconvenient to communicate at slow pace. The Italians apologized for their English & would make all efforts to try and communicate including taking help of others to help us out. The first word that I learnt in Italy was ‘ciao’ – pronounced as ‘chow’. It is used for saying ‘hi’ & the same word is used for saying ‘bye’.

After coming to Italy, as per Italian rules, it is necessary to get a document called ‘invitation’ to work. The same has to be stamped by the Italian Embassy in Mumbai. Hence, I visited Mumbai in June. The visit to Mumbai was around the time the Bandra Worli sea link was inaugurated. But we missed the inauguration by whiskers. I was interested because not only it is a construction feat & beautiful structure, but because it is constructed by a company which I worked for – HCC.

At present, trees & flowers are blooming & the rivers flowing with clean water due to the melting snow from the Alps. We landed here in the right season. We visited the F1 showroom which is magnificent. We saw many places in Italy – balancing between the work schedules during Omkar’s (my son who was here for 3 weeks) stay.

We get a large variety of sweets which are very good – pastries & ice-creams. The pizza has thinner base as compared to what we are used to, but the taste is good.

We have not found many Indians here. As it is Indians are few. In addition, one of the factors restricting meeting people is the cost of travel. Petrol is € 1.2 per litre plus the toll tax takes its toll.

August is a month of vacation here. So, everyday is a Sunday (in Middle East context – a Friday)! The system is that though this holiday is part of one’s annual leave, it is availed by everybody at the same time. In India, it’s impractical since even when this practice is not followed; the bus, train & air tickets get booked 3 months or even earlier when the booking starts. But this raises a fundamental question – do Government, Corporate bodies, etc. need annual leave like humans keeping aside commercial considerations?

We received our cargo after almost 5 months. We attempted to calculate the difference between the cost of transportation & cost of goods transported – but could not come to any conclusion. One more important piece of statistics – the amount of freight + charges from Bahrain to Milan was considerably less as compared to the same from Milan airport/seaport to residence!

We located the ISKCON centre & visited it for Janmashtami. It is about 75 kms and 8 euros (toll) away! The place is beautiful – green, vast, clean, quiet & serene – carrying the hallmark of Italy.

We missed the Ganeshotsav festival. When we left Mumbai first time in 1993 (I was in Muscat), we started missing festivals. If I have to grade the festivities it would be Bombay – best, Muscat – better, Bahrain – Good. My apologies for grading the Muscat festivities better than Bahrain, but that is firstly because it was a five day festival & secondly there was a dedicated community hall.

Our Italian classes have started. A young, beautiful Italian lady teacher comes home & teaches Seema (my wife) & me. Fortunately, she did not go on August holiday. We soon plan to talk in Italian at home so that there are 2 advantages – we will hopefully learn the language faster & we would have lesser quarrels!

Talking about learning languages, I remember an instance where I attended Aditya’s (our son) parent-teacher meeting in Muscat. The Hindi teacher announced – ‘I request parents not to teach Hindi to their children’ (this was mainly because majority Indians in the Middle east are from South India).

The internet has been of immense use. To the extent that we are able to see Indian TV programs. Especially, I consider myself lucky not to have missed Pt. Hridaynath Mangeshkar’s SA RE GA MA (Marathi). In my opinion, he deserves Bharat Ratna for his contribution to Indian music.