It was the summer of 2013, just before the Italian summer vacation, as a 28th cycle PhD scholar at the dept. Of Physics. I arrived in Napoli. It was the first time I had ever been outside my country. Honestly, I come from a very small town in India. Although I had studied in cities like Kolkata and Mumbai, I was still a small-town Indian boy. Everything felt completely different.
On my very first day, I went to meet the secretary of the Department of Physics, Mr. Guido Celentano. I still remember that sense of warmth… It was genuine, and I think I am sensitive enough to recognize that. It was the first sign that I was welcome in this country, in this city, in this department.
Somehow he understood my background. Maybe he sensed what was going on inside my head. He took me to the PhD hall where all the PhD students used to sit and introduced me to one of the sweetest friends I have ever had, Alan Ruggeri. The three of us stood there and talked. Right there, I knew something.
To be honest, although I had lived in many Indian cities outside my hometown I had never really felt at home. But standing there with Guido and Alan, I felt that this place might become the closest thing to a hometown that I had ever known.
It wasn’t that I was immediately impressed by Napoli itself. In my mind, I was going to Europe. I imagined cold weather, snow, and all those things. Instead, it was summer, around thirty degrees. The city didn’t immediately strike me. It wasn’t as clean or as different as I had imagined European cities to be.
But then Guido and Alan introduced me to Deborah, Mariano, Fatema, Ehsan, Mohadeseh, Sergei, Oktay & Asuman..and others. Suddenly, on my very first day, I felt that everything was going to be alright.
And it was.
Even today I am still in touch with many of them. Even if months pass without speaking, it feels as though no time has passed at all.
Guido was officially the secretary of the department, but he was so much more than that.
Sometimes, from his frustrations, I could tell that people in the administration thought he went beyond what his job required. But that was exactly who he was. He helped people who came from far away… from India, Iran, Bangladesh, Pakistan, many countries in Africa, Brazil, and so many other places. Some of them weren’t even students in our department. Some belonged to other departments or even other universities. Somehow everyone knew that there was this angel who would make their lives easier, and make them feel welcome in this city and in this country.
Of course, he helped me with everything. People often say that Italian bureaucracy is complicated, slow, and messy. It is. But because Guido was there, it was okay…
He would wake us up early in the morning, arrange the tickets, take us to Gianturco station, walk with us to the Questura, and stay there for hours, sometimes the whole day, waiting in long queues. He helped with the municipality, the health centre, the post office, and wherever else we needed to go. He helped not only me but also my wife, Amrita, and everyone else who needed him.
For all of that, I will always be grateful.
But that is not what made him so special.
Anyone can be helpful. Guido had something much deeper.
It was during those walks from Gianturco to the Questura, on the metro, while waiting outside a doctor’s room, or in countless ordinary moments that I got to know him.
He was funny.
I used to smoke a lot then. Once I offered him a cigarette, and he said something like, “I’d prefer kissing the lips of someone I loved rather than tobacco.”
That was Guido.
In between the humour, there were glimpses of deeper thoughts. We often talked about the world and what was happening around us. Once, while helping one of my friends who was having visa and travel permit problems, we were taking printouts at the department in the evening. He said :
“The world is funny. Oranges and apples can cross borders without any problem, but humans cannot.”
He would show me old photographs of Napoli, share old songs, and always wanted to learn about my own culture. He listened to the songs, poems, and stories that I shared with him. He wasn’t just listening politely. He genuinely wanted to understand. He genuinely felt.
Years later, during COVID when I had long left Italy, in one of his emails he wrote:
“Up to twenty years ago, distant Countries were for me variegated colors on a map. Now I think about who I know in China, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Australia, India, Iran, Austria, Canada… I am thinking not of numbers, not of graphs, but of people. With their names.”
That was Guido…he truly saw humans as humans…acknowledged our diversity but at the very core, he saw everyone as a family..genuinely!
There was something almost intoxicating about spending time with him.
During my PhD, whenever I left the department early—which meant around five or six in the evening—I would almost always stop by his room near the pendulum..you can’t resist opening that slightly-opened door of his… A quick chat would usually become half an hour or even an hour. I learned so much about amazing people..past students from different countries whom I never had the chance to know personally, about how things used to be. And I shared so much of my own life and journey with him.
He was genuinely caring.
When I was learning a few Neapolitan songs, especially songs by Murolo because I was going to perform one during our collaboration meeting on the Island of Elba, Guido introduced me to one that he loved very much:
St’uocchie ca tiene belle,
lucente ccchiù d”e stelle,
sò’ nire cchiù d”o nniro
só’ comm’a duje suspire…
I still remember his joy when I sang it for him…
I always felt comfortable sharing songs, poems, and thoughts with him. The appreciation in his eyes was genuine. Those deep blue eyes carried wisdom and kindness. And then there was that smile.
Now, when I see the photographs of him that people have shared, every single one shows him smiling.
It makes me cry.
I know that someday I will return to Napoli. But the thought that Guido will not be there is something I still cannot accept.
I honestly cannot imagine Napoli without him.
We stayed in touch by email until late 2022. Throughout the COVID period, we wrote to each other. He was always curious about how our lives were, how Amrita was doing. He was happy that we had each other during those difficult years.
He often worried that the warmth between people was disappearing. In one of his emails he wrote:
“The masks represent in a paradigmatic and sad way the deprivation of speech, of smiles, of a possible exchange between people. We are fearful automatons. Clowns without soul.”
He was worried that the world might forget how to be human.
Even after I had returned permanently to India, he would still write for the smallest reasons. Sometimes it was only because a letter or a bank card had arrived at the department. But every email ended with warmth. Once he wrote:
“Luckily, every now and then there is some reason—trivial as it may be—to send you my greetings.”
That was enough for him.
Then I made a mistake.
I thought that next year I would visit Napoli. I thought I wouldn’t write to him anymore. I would simply arrive one day without telling him. I imagined surprising him after his retirement. We would sit together and have our old conversations again, maybe at his place, maybe go for a hike somewhere.
Before I left Italy for good, on 28 February 2020, he wrote to me:
“I wish Amrita and you a peaceful life. Cheerfully, occasionally, if possible.
With books everywhere, and good music to listen (and sing) to.
Above all, be and remain with that curious and positive spirit and aptitude that both of you have always manifested.”
Then, in typical Guido fashion, he added:
“This evening I’ll leave my bike in my room.
I’ll go home on the back of a colored baby elephant, with the trunk toward the top.”
That elephant was a small stone elephant I had left on his desk before leaving Italy because he never liked accepting gifts.
I thought I would meet all my friends again… and especially this friend, this angel, Guido Celentano.
Now I am genuinely angry with myself.
Why didn’t I write?
Why didn’t I call?
Why did I wait?
I have lost many people in my life.
But Guido is different.
Not just because of what he meant to me personally.
Because he should still be here.
He should be here.
I don’t know whether saints exist. But if they do, then Guido was the closest thing to one that I have ever met.
Right now, all I want is to be in Napoli and hug my friends. Maybe I will find pieces of Guido in their faces, in their memories, in their stories, in their hearts.
I want to hug them all.
I honestly cannot imagine Napoli without Guido.
I would like to thank him the way he did…Grazie Infinite Guido, for being one of the brightest lights in this dark world we live in.
“Up to twenty years ago, distant Countries were for me variegated colors on a map. Now I think about who I know in China, Bangladesh, Venezuela, Australia, India, Iran, Austria, Canada….I am thinking not of numbers, not of graphs, but of people. With their names.”
— Guido Celentano, November 2020