June 2009
‘Imagine the sky was so close, you felt you could touch it. Imagine seeing heaven with earthly eyes. Imagine a land, which homed fruits so strange, you could travel beyond the boundaries of space and time’. Kodaikannal fit that description, beyond the perceptions of accuracy. It’s simply the easiest thing in the world to begin an expedition with four other people, with pretty much the similar state of mind as yours.
Nikhil, Noel, Tommy and I stood at that bus stop, clueless and anxious waiting for some special thing to come by. We lit our cigarettes, took up our positions and waited, it wouldn’t be too much longer. A dark hooded man walked by, the sweet three words I heard come of his lips were unforgettable. ‘Magic mushrooms sir?’ A doubtless answer almost in a chorus, ‘Yes!’ Well that was obvious, the whole intent of our expedition was getting our hands and yes of course, our minds to indulge in these strange alien-like fruits. Nikhil and I accompanied him down a very strange narrow downhill course, the dark man introduced himself as Srinivas. With a broad grin on his face he asked us to call him Sai. Ten dozens for a meager eight hundred rupees was the promised deal.
Sai had his phone glued to his ears, from what I heard he seemed to be conversing with a certain Mr. Balaji.
‘Any grass you have man?’ He asked us, the broad grin still in its glory. We had left our grass with Noel and Tommy, but as kind as he could be, Sai offered us a couple of joints, requested us to roll it as he took a walk further ahead asking us to stay. Fifteen minutes and he was back, ten dozens packed in two tiny plastic packets, the strange groundnut-cap like vegetables safe inside. Sai had seemed to have forgotten about the pot he lent us and started walking back. Two more minutes and I felt my phone vibrate, ‘Bro where the fuck are you? Das is here, we’re waiting near some church up the road’. It was Noel, Das was our local travel consultant, a mushroom taxi-man with all due respect, however very dry at the moment. Sai took us back up towards the church, offered us his phone number and walked away. The drunk bastard, as funny and interesting as he was, I would’ve preferred not his company, strange people you see, very strange, they disturb me.
Das offered us two choices, ‘Vettaikannal or Observatory Road?’ Vettaikannal seemed to be too away from the main town so we chose Observatory Road. We were taxied to our temporary three day home in Mr. Das’s Maruti Omni. He took a look at the shrooms Sai had taxied to us, ‘Not bad, I will let you know in two days if I can get more’. I honestly didn’t give a damn, the four of us were awaiting our first mushroom trip. We entered the little cottage, a level beneath the normal road level. Orange painted walls, a pretty looking door and a floor as cold as a refrigerator, seemed like the classic tripping temple, and of course, the stained walls which would play an intimate part of our arriving trip.
Now Noel he was prepared, his music-loaded phone with his computer speakers all set up(the speakers were hardly used). It wasn’t long, fifteen minutes I believe and seven of those strange-looking fuckers were swimming in our digestive systems. As I had first entered the cottage I noticed a series of dots on the wall, blue in color, and yes, they were stationary. Half hour had passed since we had popped, my eyes suddenly caught hold of a very interesting sight. The dots were not stationary anymore but moved to form a sort of infinitely running train. The dots were moving, but they were not, they were moving, but no, they were still not!
‘Bro, look at the dots!’ I exclaimed. ‘Fuck, they’re moving, they’re fucking moving’, Nikhil exclaimed, I could just feel the excitement swimming in me. Noel noticed the dots too, but Tommy, the grumpy bastard that he was, ‘What are you talking about, what dots?’
‘You fat son of a bitch, look at the dots, they’re moving, they’re fucking moving’, I yelled at Tommy. ‘I don’t see a shit’, was all he said. I didn’t bother, things had started to take a dastardly turn, these were going to be unforgettable hours.
The colors all seemed familiar, but my thoughts were running so quickly, it was hard to perceive one thing at a time. My entire being had lost its ability to perceive time and space. The feeling was overwhelming, but strangely exciting. A kind of ecstasy that no words could explain! I would have one thought that would build over itself and tend to such an infinite meaning that paranoia would set in. But another thought built on positive feelings and I would feel some mental ecstasy! Things were definitely not the same. An hour had passed and thank heaven, Tom Paul finally realized, ‘Fuck the dots are moving!’
The music seemed to swim in my mind, caressing untended corners, opening new doors.
It was when Shpongle Spores swam out of Noel’s phone-speakers, the acoustic guitar in the middle felt like an angel was stroking my soul. I looked towards Nikhil who peered into my eyes and said, ‘These fruits are magical, this is some crazy ecstasy, this is ecstasy, this is ecstasy!’ Noel seemed to be swimming in his own imagination, I distinctly remember the strange faces made by Tommy bu(I don’t know why but I still call him that). And then it struck me, the strangest feeling I ever had in my life. I felt estranged from everyone around me, I felt like I was a lone nomad traveling through the infinite dimensions of time and space. The wheel of sense had been disturbed from its pivoted position, perception had been drastically accelerated, and yes, the patterns crawling on the faces of my friends, everything was so strangely fascinating!
It was about one when it happened, I heard Noel speak the magic words, ‘The door is vibrating, it’s fucking vibrating, holy fuck it’s vibrating!’ I turned with extreme faith that the door was not vibrating, it could’ve been, but I chose not to believe so, it would just be too disturbing a fact if the door was actually vibrating! But I turned and to my disbelief with the eyes that had befriended me all my life, I saw a most unbelievable sight, the door was actually vibrating! The walls were moving and it felt like the entire cottage was taking off! The music was running from my left ear to the right, the colors were spinning, my friends were as crazy as me and the world had turned upside down! Of course that was one state of mind you can not live with forever, but that was the thought that half-killed my joy, would I ever see reality again? Such a question has an obvious answer, but when you’ve traveled a million miles away from the sweet home of meaning and purpose to a strange yet fascinating tropical rain-forest within the dimensions of your mind, even the most obvious answer can have several diversions. I guess that’s what made these mushrooms so magical, their unpredictability. Either ways, the clock had struck two and things had started to lower back down to reality suddenly. I had begun to feel sleepy, and I humbly suggested, ‘Can we all go to sleep for a while?’ Somehow this had disturbed Noel, ‘Sleep? What the fuck is wrong with you, sleep on this trip are you crazy?’
Either ways I slept for a short period of fifteen minutes and woke up to realize that the psychedelic currents flowing in my body were still as alive as me. Three had come and sleep had returned but this time to capture all four of us, we went beneath the covers to drift away to a distant dreamland, me and Nikhil in one room and Tommy and Noel shared the other. I distinctly remember the time I was wavering at the threshold of my dreams, I yelled out, ‘Noel!’ He replied, ‘What?’ And that was the last noise made in the cottage for another hour. We woke up at four and remembered that a certain Mr. Neeloy Sanyal was to arrive shortly and we were to pick him up at Abbas Restaurant up the road. Now Neeloy was the kind of person you can expect to strip down naked in the middle of a national highway and wave screaming, ‘Give me a joint please!’ He was an interesting bastard either ways, but an annoying menace if not dealt with properly.
We picked him of at the restaurant after having a tea and a cigarette, he seemed to have got a drop from some stranger, typical Neeloy. Of course we shared our adventure with him, the things we felt and saw, Tommy’s late reaction. Half hour and Neeloy had popped his seven. Forty five minutes and Sai was waiting up the road from our cottage, yes, we had called, we wanted more, plenty more! We seated ourselves in Sai’s car, another Omni, he seemed to have been accompanied by a very strange squint-eyed driver. And yes, Sai was drunk, he was drunk from the morning, he guess he was one of those guys who always smelled of alcohol.
So we drove up the hills to some distant location, Sai chattered the entire distance telling us about some strange experiences of his. The bastard was half-phony, it was evident, this guy had more shit to preach than excrete. We reached the spot and Sai had collected two thousand rupees from us, promised us twenty-five dozens. He wandered of into the distance, he seemed to have climbed up some small cliff and we were left alone with a strange squint-eyed driver in the middle of some god forsaken land.
Neeloy’s expressions portrayed the fact that the mushies had begun they’re work in his life. He looked out the window and screamed, ‘What the fuck, everything is so different, I haven’t felt like this before!’ And some more, ‘Fuck the clouds are so amazing! Everything is so different, how can this be?’ I sat facing him, Tommy bu and Noel in the Omni, Nikhil seated next to me. Neeloy fascinated me, the way he acted, his expressions, the things he was saying.
Finally the time came when the fat bastard spat out the sinful words, ‘Fuck bro, the driver looks so conked, I bet he’s bombed!’ He tugged at the driver’s shirt and asked him, ‘You also trip?’ The driver had a face that freaked me out, his squint eyes swimming around the sides of his nose he replied, ‘Yes, I do, yes only I do hashish!’ ‘Oh ok, very psyched very psyched’, Neeloy replied. Neeloy continued conversing with the driver till we reached the dangerous point when the driver realized we were being sarcastic and actually trying to fuck with him! And dam the guy knew English, at least enough to score as much as Neeloy would in his tenth grade English paper. We had pissed of the driver, and yes, it was definitely not good! He started grumbling, almost yelling at us. Explaining how people like us must have respect for elderly men like him, then he started to threaten us about how LTTE terrorists live in the woods around and that they would fuck with us! We were in such a state of mind, we’d believe anything! The guy then threatened us some more, he spoke a mixture of tamil and English, I guess he meant something like, ‘I leave you here, you go somehow, get lost, get down from car!’
Panic! Neeloy you fat son of a bitch! Noel let his temper flow, ‘Neeloy shut the fuck up and sit down, just shut the fuck up I swear I’ll leave you here and we’ll fuck of!’
‘Bro what the fuck, what did I do?’ Neeloy was astounded. Too much was happening, too much to digest, we were going to get stranded in the middle of nowhere! Panic, we called Sai, and to our pleasant surprise with all sarcasm intended Sai decided not to pick up our desperate call! Panic and some more panic. Neeloy was going crazy, the poor fellow, this must have been traumatic for him, so much tension at such an intense peak of a trip!
Either ways, we tried consoling the driver, told him we were sorry. ‘No, get out, get lost, I leave you here, Sai not coming, I going, now go, leave’. The squint bastard was serious, I couldn’t believe it. Nikhil and I took turns and consoled him in Tamil explaining how Neeloy was tripping and his words were unintended. The driver finally chose to forgive us and thank heaven, Sai had arrived. He took his place and enquired as to what the fuck was going on! He apologized to us before he finally devolved the goods to us. Sweet twenty five dozens of cow-dung grown psilocybin mushrooms, dried and ready to eat, the score had been made! However, Noel still seemed to be pissed of with Neeloy, he turned to me, Noel asked me to shut him up! I did the only thing I could do well, took up the role of the hopeless romantic poet! ‘It’s all fine bro, you see the clouds, you see the lights, they’re so bright and beautiful, everything is so happy, look at the sky, it’s like the beginning of some new great joyful life, it’s all so pretty, look at the lights on the hills’, Neeloy loved it, he felt much better. Well I always believed that poetic behavior is the greatest remedy to every psyched trip! And it always worked! We were on our way back home and wait was something we could not, we were dropped of at Abbas restaurant, where our journey had begun! We hadn’t had a decent breakfast, neither had we a lunch! However, walked in for dinner, Abbas Restaurant! I don’t remember what I ate, I think I had half a dosa and an omelet, I wasn’t the greatest of eaters, and at that moment I wasn’t in the greatest moods to eat. Neeloy did his appetite justice and so did everyone else. We returned to our cottage down the road after purchasing our requirements for the night, water and cigarettes. I believe it was ten when we decided to hit our sacks, but just before we did, Noel had a proposition. ‘I’m setting the alarm for two-thirty! We’re waking up, popping and watching the sunrise’.
Crazy bastards, we all obliged.
No comments:
Post a Comment