“How can you remember things so vividly?” people often ask me.
The answer is simple: I kept diaries, written both in Italian and English. Many of the details that made those journeys special would be lost had I not taken the time to scribble every day.
The short stories in this page have not been edited professionally, so please forgive a few mistakes. I try to write them regularly, but I am still working on the books and often skip a deadline.
I hope you enjoy them.
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Dignity in the face of Adversity
It was evening time, and I was tired from walking through the main shopping district in search of someone who could fix my Walkman. To make matters worse, I was carrying a heavy load: my small dog Afrika safely tucked away in the bag. Six kilos, not a feather.
Shops were overcrowded, sidewalks nonexistent, and the traffic was disorderly and intense, with bullock carts, bicycles, scooters, cars, and trucks all mangled together honking their own hand-powered horn.
The Beggar Gang
It was a hot morning, and I was sitting with my small dog Afrika by an open-air chai station in the Calcutta Maidan. We had arrived ten days before, but five were spent in the room due to some contaminated food I ate on my first lunch. Everything still baffled us – people’s clothing, face markings and jewelry, shops and touts, wandering cows and their excrement, holy trees and ancient shrines, political and Bollywood posters, plus the beggars of course, pestering me every inch of the way.
The Fateful First Landing
My first journey to India started in 1992, arriving to Calcutta by plane from Bangkok. I had been warned that Calcutta was one of the dirtiest and hardest cities to visit, but I liked catching bulls by the horns and landed on the evening of a hot November day.
In the airport, the line of foreigners in front of the passport control table just didn’t seem to move. I was tired, and I knew that my small dog Afrika needed to pee. I waited, and waited, then edged my way in.
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