Bonjour Global Jigsaw,
I just found out (thanks to my friend Meera Selva) that the winner of this year’s Best Baguette in Paris award has gone to Tharshan Selvarajah, a baker of Sri Lankan origin.
It put me in mind of the immigrant Punjabi dairy workers and agriculturalists in Italy, after whom I named my 2013 book, Punjabi Parmesan: Dispatches From a Europe in Crisis.
Here is their story, as today’s Global Jigsaw offering:
The low-lying hills that punctuate the countryside of Latina in central Italy reverberated with the screams of Harbhajan Singh’s chainsaw. The 41-year-old Sikh attacked the trees that carpeted the hillside like a demon, cutting great bloodless gashes into the trunks. Originally from a village near Kapurthala in Punjab, Harbhajan had spent over 10 years felling trees in the Italian countryside for Trulli Vittorio, a timber company.
I’d scrambled through thick, thorny bramble on a bright day in late February 2012, to get to the clearing where Harbhajan and two other Punjabis were working. Wood chips sprayed high into the air as the trees lurched drunkenly. Other than his blue turban, Harbhajan wore no protective gear at all.
As a tree came down, I squealed and scampered away to safety. Harbhajan and his co-workers stood their ground, confident, smiling at my fear. Angelino, a short, stocky Italian who was the Punjabi workers’ overseer called a rest stop.
Harbhajan had been working from 7:00 in the morning. It was close to 4:00pm by then. Usually Saturday was a lighter day, with work finishing just past noon. But the economic situation was tough. The bosses needed their workers to put in a few more hours than stipulated in their contracts. Harbhajan didn’t get paid extra for the additional hours. “With the economy like this we’ve all got to work a bit harder. It’s normal. I don’t mind,” he said with a shrug of the shoulders.
Harbhajan was in the business for the long haul. “I’ve been here ten years and I’ll still be here for as long as I can work,” he told me in Punjabi accented Hindi. He’d been lucky. Not only had he secured a kosher Italian residence permit during one of the periodic legalisation initiatives Rome undertook every few years, but also had a permanent work contract with his company.
He was paid 65 euro for an eight-hour day (plus the occasional extra hours). “We’re cheaper than most other immigrants,” he boasted. Even the Romanians and Armenians wanted at least 80 euro for a day’s work. The illegals amongst the Indians often worked for as little as three or four euro an hour.
Read More at https://pallaviaiyar.substack.com/p/punjabi-parmesan
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