Former Machachari actor Ian Nene alias Almasi has opened up about his troubled childhood having grown up in a toxic environment.
In an interview with Man Talk Podcast, the thespian addressed the challenges he faced at the hands of his stepfather when his biological dad left.
“My stepfather was a little bit abusive, well not to me but more so to my mom, and I would observe it, and my uncles obviously were like drenched in intoxication and just in this bad world,” Ian shared.
The Machachari actor expressed how this experience had an impact on his perception of manliness, shaping his views on masculine energy.
“I didn’t have a good example of men in my life. My biological father had left my life when I was young, and he didn’t really make an active effort to connect to me and my youth, so I just always had like a bad sting in my mouth every time I thought about masculine energy,” Nene revealed.
The UK-based actor further explained how the lack of positive male role models influenced his understanding of masculinity.
“So I was like wow, I’ve never experienced this before because my awareness of masculine energy was that you put up a front,” he shared.
Nene emphasized the absence of mature and confident male figures in his life during his childhood.
“Now I’m in this space, you’re getting all these examples of men who are mature and are confident within themselves, who can cry, who are emotional, so I thought you know what, I’d rather make this jump and see what it is,” he added.
Hinduism
In a past interview, Nene shared how he ended up ditching Christianity for Hinduism.
Ian talked about how he was raised in a Christian home where questioning religious beliefs was taboo despite having so many unclear answers about faith and religion as a whole.
The Machachari actor revealed that his journey to finding himself spiritually kickstarted when he joined university in the UK where he met a weed dealer friend who gave him a book he got from a monk.
The 'Zen' actor stated that the book changed his course in life and that's how his hunger for deep spirituality got stronger and he started seeking more than Christianity could offer.
"When I got to the university, I was wild and partying but still connecting a little bit with a dealer (Weed) friend and I was always smoking weed and having some deep conversation and stuff," he noted
"Randomly, he brings me a book while we are just chilling and getting high. He told me he was a monk but I didn't understand, he told me if I read the book, I would get some realizations. He gave me the book and a bag of a guitar and I looked at the back of the bag of the guitar and I saw a picture of one of our founders, I didn't understand it then," the actor added.
The actor also explained that when he came back home for the holidays, his mother broke the news of her cancer diagnosis to him and he was lost resorting to smoking weed to numb his pain.
"My mum told me that the doctors said she had stage four breast cancer. I am a Mama's boy. My mum raised me single-handedly, and my dad was never around my life," he revealed.
"I started getting higher even more, I asked God why He had allowed my mum to suffer, 'If you truly exist, why do you allow bad things to happen to good people? My mum here serves everyone and even people outside the community she helps so many people yet she is the one getting cancer,'" Ian said.
Attributing a Facebook post to his current spirituality, the actor revealed that a post by one of his friends of a peaceful 'zen' looking lady with some marks prompted him to convert.
"I could not understand. I was scrolling on Facebook and I saw a picture of a lady who had some marks on her face, she looked peaceful and her picture was posted by one of my old friends," he said.
"I was invited to a temple and I started learning and they were answering all my questions deeply and scientifically and how God is manoeuvring this world and a lot of technical questions," he added.
Adding: "I became a vegetarian immediately and when I went back to the UK, I met monks and they took me to a temple, where I spent most of the time, especially during holidays, and dedicated even more cohesive time to it after am done with school,"
