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I was born in a poor neighborhood of Florence,
my father was a Communist ex-Partisan,
my mother was extremely Catholic.
During the elections time my father told my mom: "who do you vote for?"
and she used to say: "votes are secret"
and he voted for the Communist Party and she voted for the Christian Democrat Party.
I learnt much from them, maybe also a sense of tolerance
and this deep thing, that then in Asia it came natural,
of seeing the beauty of life in its diversities
and the true essence of life in the harmony of opposites.
I got a way of seeing things
and maybe a straight moral. They passed on me
this constant feeling of what is right and what is not right
and not according to criterions like "he is Communist" and "she is Catholic",
because I think, and this is what I am trying to focus on these times,
everyone already knows, deep inside the heart, what is right and what is not,
what is good and what is evil,
what we should do
and not according to the rules of a party or a religion,
but of the heart which is the same for everyone, right?
So, my parents made many sacrifices
and there is a story that I love telling,
they bought my first long pants by installments.
The hairs on my legs were so long!
I had to go to high school and they bought my pants by installments!
This would be unconceivable today.
Then I studied, I was good, I attended the high school,
but at the end of the high school I couldn't have gone on studying
because I had to earn money.
But I won an amazing scholarship
and I entered the University "Normale" of Pisa.
I graduated with the highest grade.
I was already in love with this woman, that is still my wife after 42 years.
I am not a big consumerist, I don't consume wifes either!
I always have the same amazing woman,
we grew up together.
Again, like those two things that are together,
even if very different, but that can create a harmony and grow.
Bye! Thanks, see you later!
And so, I got to journalism very late,
I started that I was already 30
and because I wanted to make up for lost time
I decided to raise my game.
I could already speak French, German, English and Portuguese
and I wanted to add a language that I loved,
that was Chinese. I learnt Chinese in United States
and then we went to live in Asia
and by then I have spent all my life in Asia.
I spent 30 years in Asia
being a journalist of wars and disasters.
I am not an Italian journalist,
I have been a German journalist for 30 years.
In Italy nobody wanted to give me a job!
Everyone said: "Ah Terzani" Good, you know Chinese! Go on go on!"
but nobody offered me a job.
Then, since I could speak German, English and French, I travelled all over Europe,
I went to all the newspaper agencies
and then in Hamburg they told me: "Ah Tiziano Terzani!"
It sounded like a strange name, like "Ivan Ivanovich"!
They gave me my first contract.
I chose to go to India,
journalists usually start as stringers in India,
then if they are good they go to Washington!
I did the opposite, I ended up in India!
Because I think that India is the origin of everything,
it's the starting point of everything.
At a certain moment I realised that I didn't know India,
after all this talking with ministers, directors of departments.....
I didn't know India!
And especially an aspect of India that I was interested in,
its spirituality.
India is still a country in which the divine is in people's everyday life and gestures,
Indian people greet each other with "Namaste!"
that means "I greet the divine inside you"
Something different, right?
I was curious and I knew I didn't understand anything because I didn't deal with it,
so one day I took my vows and I entered an Ashram
and I practised like an Indian,
singing the Vedic chants, cleaning statues at 5 in the morning...
and for 3 months I acted like an Indian
and I learnt a lot.
Have a look at my beard,
this is a camouflage.
I have tried to understand others for all my life,
who are the others
and our being Western divide us from the others
and there is a gap that I have always felt I have to fill.
Then, I think that the only way to fill it is a type of "chameleonism",
like a chameleon that turns into the colour of the ground or the sand,
green like a leaf.
And to understand the others I have always tried to become a bit more like them.
When I was in China I spoke Chinese, my children went to a Chinese school, we moved by bicycle like Chinese people...
until Chinese people said: "Hey, but who are you?"
because I was Italian, working for German people, I learnt Chinese in America...
That's why they thought: "This must be a spy!"
So they arrested me, interrogated me for one month and then expelled me...
And this beard was really useful!
because this beard is actually very Muslim,
and then one evening I was going back to my hotel
and a man, in the dark,
came out with a Kalashnikov in front of my car.
I opened my window and I did a thing that I also taught my children,
that is also the story of how I was not shot by Red Khmer when they caught me,
when someone puts a gun to your face, just laugh: "Ah ah ah ah!"
so the guy said: "Muslim?"
and I said: "Eh eh eh yes!"
and then we left!
After 30 years of injustices, never-ending wars, murderers that become important figures,
that you have to call "Excellence",
and of crimes that are not punished,
I got depressed.
I had the right to be depressed!
I went to see a psychiatrist and he gave me Prozac,
and I said: "No, I am not going to take Prozac! I will do something different!"
so I wrote a book and I got over my depression!
But what I want to say is that I have seen failed revolutions for all my life,
the massacres by the Sovietic Union regime to follow a dream,
horrible, a nightmare!
and China... I went there and I hated the Chinese language,
I thought China would be an interesting experiment and, instead, a nightmare! Massacres!
All of them, the Vietnamite revolution, the Cambodian one...
These revolutions are always done outside
and the result is a great poverty, both material and spiritual.
Then it's the time to realise that the only possible revolution is the one inside us,
starting from us,
and I got this idea that, after 30 years spent travelling abroad,
I had to try another type of journey,
maybe more inside me,
and look for a reality that is not made of facts.
And then, by chance, I ended up on the top of a mountain
that is in front of the biggest mountain in India.
I have a small wooden house,
I don't have light, water and contact with the rest of the world.
I live with the rythm of nature,
I wake up with the sun and I go to sleep 2,3 hours after the sun,
because I read by the light of an oil lamp.
And I rediscovered an amazing thing, that I suggest to everyone: nature.
I live on this very beautiful mountain
under a Rhododendrons forest. They are giant
and during this season they are full of red petals, amazing!
Hosts of monkeys come to eat the honey inside
and then while they are eating the petals fall down and the forest turns into a red rug.
There are moments in which I feel like a mystic!
I have moments of ecstasy in nature,
sometimes I look at the sunset, beautiful, beautiful....
and I have the impression that my small and insignificant life is actually extremely important,
because it's part of the life of everything.
I feel that life is just one thing, that we are all in this amazing thing called life.
Ah, what a joy!