Fiumicino Airport, Rome—Some 31 years ago, on a cold Saturday morning I landed here together with a group of nine other Bhutanese. Sleepy and tired after a bumpy and noisy Air India overnight flight from New Delhi, I still remember that moment of awe and wonder that covered my face.

We were on a government scholarship to undergo university studies in engineering and medicines. It was offered to Bhutan by the Italian government as part of the modernization process that Bhutan had pursued. We were the first large cohort of Bhutanese youth to study in the West.

I was 19 and spoke no word of Italian. It took us a week to reach Italy from Bhutan. It was Thimphu to Phuntsholing, and we crossed the border to Siliguri and caught a bus to Calcutta. From there, we had to fly to Delhi and to Rome. Druk Air had only a few flights per week with that small unpressurized aircraft, and it happened to be monsoon when all the flights were cancelled. It was also the era when you had to collect your tickets and ‘travel permits’ from Indian authorities from Calcutta.

I really didn’t know what to expect. Or where I was going. All I had was a destination—Italy—and a dream: to make it big in my life and build for my family and my country a better place in the world.

I was poor, and I was hungry for knowledge. I still am, for knowledge, and this wonderful country embraced me, taught me their language, fed me, clothed me, and treated me like one of theirs and sent me back with an advanced university degree in engineering after 8 long years.

So, it is always an emotional return to this “paese mio”, although it will just be for a few days. I left Italy in 1995, but it seems Italy never left me. I continue to support them in World Cups, feel passionately about what’s going on here, eat pasta, drink espresso, retain the language, and, of course, continue swearing in Italian. Porca miseria!

Italy, nonetheless, continues to reciprocate. For every time I come back here (this is my third visit after 1995), Italy welcomes me back like my old grandmother—with love, affection, and the fondest of memories—not to even mention the great food and unmatched beauty. The friends I have made here are friends for life.

I will always be immensely grateful to this country and its wonderful people for playing an important part in my life.

Grazie, Italia!

(NB – Visiting Rome to look for some old manuscripts from the Zhabdrung era (circa 1627) at the Vatican Library. The famous letters from the Jesuits, Cabral e Casela

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