If the sunrise is sincerely experienced, the human soul can be touched by divine fingers that heal more than just wounds. It is this unrealized truth that gave us the ability to wake up to Noel’s cruel but exciting two-thirty alarm. It was difficult, but we managed it. Of course Noel was the first to rise and Tommy bu the last, but the five of us had our eyes wide open and our mouths wider, one, two, three, four, five, six and seven, yes seven more of those alien fruits had entered our toiling digestive systems only to open new gates for our adventurous minds. Darkness still prevailed as we sat cozy covered with blankets on the cold cotton bed. We had our backs against the walls and our minds against the heavens. Noel had the music equipment arranged, with honesty let me tell you, we owe those three days in the astral plane to Noel’s N95, his speakers did our ears justice.
As we began to drift away from reality, I saw red patterns emerge out of thin air and fly away to the distant meadows of infinity. ‘An hour and we’re going up to the terrace bro, get the cameras’, said Noel.
I distinctly remember that dark morning to be one of the most silent times I’ve ever experienced in my life. Somehow the dark always chose to be hostile to me, I never did him any harm, I wonder why he treated me in such a rude manner. The trip had begun, and the wondrous thing about psychedelics was the fact that every single time, the experience varied to a great extent. It was like a whole new different world. Imagine holding a leaf in the palm of your hand and then notice the ventricles on its bottom. Of course these would remain the same, but what if your mind had the ability to perceive those ventricles differently at different times? What if they seemed to resemble the Eiffel Tower one day, and the leaning tower of Pisa the next? Wouldn’t it seem so confounding?
As red dots floated and strange thoughts materialized, time had traveled a little more than two hours. It was five and the sun was readying itself for another glorious ascension.
‘Get up you fuckers, let’s go up’, said Neeloy in a sudden instant.
Something had happened, my moods were lowering beneath the levels of comfort.
‘It’s too cold bro, can we just stay here?’ This was probably the most sincere request I had made to a friend in years. ‘Bro what the fuck is wrong with you? You don’t want to miss the sunrise do you?’ said Noel, I could see how much Noel and Neeloy wanted to leave the room.
I would not oblige, even if I had to save my life, I would not leave the pleasant comfort of that warm blanket, I was afraid, afraid of nothing, and such a realization caused even more fear in me. To my great comfort, Tommy and Nikhil agreed, ‘Fuck it bro, we’ll stay here chill, it’s too dam cold’, said Nikhil. ‘Wear your sweater and your jacket, let’s go up bro, quickly, lazy fuckers!’ Noel was a little angry, or so it seemed. Either ways, Tommy, Nikhil and I stayed in the room, as for Noel and Neeloy, they climbed up the ladder to the terrace, if mushies could give me x-ray vision, I would’ve explained that more in detail, but no, these fruits gave you no super-powers, just the unrealized powers of the normal human mind.
I was experiencing a very strange confusion! Paranoia, estrangement, fear, insanity, euphoria and the color red were the ingredients of a sandwich my mind had eaten.
I don’t remember much of what Tommy and Nikhil were doing beside me! I loved noticing Nikhil though. I think I remember seeing him swirling his fingers around his eyes and making faces, and of course Tommy moved his eyes around to form strange faces too. It was six and the sun had risen, and in a minute a sudden current of regret filled me, I had missed the sunrise, the crazy sandwich had been excreted from my mind and I had regretted eating it! Noel and Neeloy had arrived! I could see the excitement on their faces, a sort of enlightened aura around them. The pictures taken by them were fascinating, the effects of refraction just before the sun rises is something immaculate! Just a sight of those pictures cheered me up. There are moments when joy is sinfully contagious, and that moment came around seven. The cover that had the mushrooms in it was below the television set and it seemed to have been calling out to us, almost as if it said, ‘Eat me, eat me! Eat!’ Well, crazy bastards, we ate. We popped two each first, Neeloy suggested we eat another one, so we popped one more each. It was now eight, visual hallucinations had lost their importance and thoughts were now racing at severe speeds, fluctuating at terahertz frequencies. Eight thirty and we had popped two more each. We were enjoying it, looking into the green cover, picking the mushrooms of our choice, naming them and popping them. Giving them life histories, for example Noel picked one with a big cap and a long stalk exclaiming, ‘Dam this one surely came from Mars!’ We then began to discuss the shit in which these vegetables were grown, the lethality level of bison dung grown mushrooms as compared to cow dung grown ones.
Nikhil had a very interesting thought to share with us, ‘Bro what if Sai grew these shrooms in his own shit?’ Well, laughter does great things, that question cheered us up as all five of us burst out laughing in a chorus! By nine-thirty we had popped around fifteen or sixteen of the big-capped lethal shit grown wonder vegetables following which we made our way up to the terrace. Neeloy the wonderful child that he was somehow managed to break the ladder. Of course prior to that, he tried raping a water bottle and cursed the geyser such that it stopped working.
We lay on our backs in that square terrace, watching the clouds take strange shapes. I remember seeing a warrior striking a lion with his sword, a cow trying to mate with a man who looked somewhat like Tommy, and of course red and green kept jumping around and bouncing of other clouds changing into yellow and orange. Four colors I believe always play an integral part of my mushroom trips, red, green, yellow and orange. Probably has some biological explanation behind it but truly I could never care.
There was an instant when something on Nikhil’s hand caught my attention. I began to stare at his forearm, patterns of various shapes were swimming down towards his palm, Neeloy noticed me and turned his eyes towards Nikhil’s arms following which Nikhil turned his eyes to his arms as well. The patterns intrigued me, they were fascinating, an image would form and move on Nikhil’s arm, this was a crazy world!
It was around eleven when we realized that a strange man was waiting outside our cottage, he didn’t look too friendly but by his notions it was evident he was looking for us. Prior to our terrace exploration we had ordered ten more dozens of bison dung mushrooms from Sai who promised he would arrive near Abbas restaurant in a little while. The strange man said in a hostile tone, ‘Come fast sir we waiting from that time, everyone waiting in bus come fast tour start now!’
Panic! We totally forgot! The previous morning following our arrival we booked a city tour through Das and we had paid half the amount in advance! In the present state of intense psychedelic consciousness, we were in no mood to depart on a city tour, ‘Cancel it, we are not coming’, I told the tour man. ‘Sir now no cancel, you have to come, everyone wait sir, you come now no choice, already half paid other half pay now and come, all ok sir, enjoy tour nice tour, all place you can see’, replied the taxi guide. We were dazed and in addition confused, our minds offered us no time to think, ‘Fine bro we’ll just go, I need to show my mom some pics too, we’ll take a lot of pics let’s just go’, said Tommy. After not much thought, we decided to go, we readied ourselves quickly, informed Sai that we would pick the mushies just before we left and proceeded up the road towards the tour bus. Sai was there waiting in his car, he told us he had to leave the city that day and he was in a hurry, I walked up to his car, paid him the money, dropped the two packets of mushrooms in my cargo pockets and walked to the tour bus.
As we entered the bus the driver looked at us strangely, ‘Sir please mix with everyone, enjoy tour’, was all he said. The humans in the tour van blew my mind in multiple directions, the various faces, the way they stared at us, the funny looking couples and the strange women with over-curled hair! My heart was beating at the speed of light, I knew it, yes I knew it well, we were at the beginning of a journey, not through hell, not through heaven, but through something that existed right in between!
The last row of seats was empty and they looked welcoming, as if God had booked those seats for us. To my unfortunate fate only four fit there and I had to sit somewhere in the middle of the bus beside a stranger. As we moved my thoughts took a disastrous turn. I began to think of home, to think of my parents, I asked myself if I would ever see reality again, and ‘myself’ answered no! I looked behind at my four fellow inter-dimensional travel comrades, I felt separated from them, ‘will they remember me?’
It is funny how fear grips the human mind to such an extent that the littlest of aspects can cause the most immensely hurtful feelings! I felt like life was over, I had forgotten the return-route to reality and I had forgotten the usual beliefs that comforted me in times of stress! But thank heaven it lasted not too long, we had reached the first destination and it was some kind of forest with strange trees! Timber or sandalwood or Teak, I really didn’t know, but the trees fascinated me! As soon as we stepped out the bus we lit our cigarettes! This is what I believe, when hope is thin and imagination wild, it is just a humble cigarette that forms the fine line between reality and insanity.
The forest place was beautiful, it had a stream of cold water flowing, fresh and clear, it was pretty. I felt surrounded by elements from heaven, as if the creator had picked up the five of us and dropped us in some alternate existence!
We clicked a few pictures and left to the next destination. Few more places we were taken to. It was the uncomforting time in the van that was very disturbing! I could see frustration on the faces of my friends, they were restless. Being confined to a single seat when your mind is overflowing with psychedelic energy is like being imprisoned beneath the ocean bed, but we were helpless. The driver turned on the music system only to output a few Tamil numbers that were gravely annoying! I felt like we were being kidnapped, taken in a space ship through some distant galaxy filled with earthly trees and twisted thoughts. We arrived at the spot where we would eat our lunch, it was beautiful. There were hills all around and the greenery was as green as it could get and the sky bluer than ever before! I raised my hands up towards the sky and felt the wind blow against my face, Neeloy tried running down a slope and doing a few other things, we lay on the grass for five minutes following which we ate our lunch in some highway dhaba, Things were starting to make sense now, I was eating food, that was something relative to reality which was very comforting. We were then taken to a temple right at the peak of a hill following which we were taken to another forest area which was infested with monkeys, few meek, many wild. I remember eating an omelet there with the others when it had started to slightly drizzle. We had another cigarette after which we entered the tour van which then led us to a chocolate store beside the main Kodaikannal Lake. We bought a few chocolates to take home and two packets of marshmallows which would be of great use later. The psychedelic feelings had started to wear of, but I could still feel those currents running in me. The city tour had started above hell and ended beneath heaven, we had one last step to take and we would reach our final destination. We returned to our cottage and completed the ritual we had begun around thirty-six hours ago. We popped another six mushrooms each, with the marshmallows along with them to sweeten our mouths, and took the final leap to the heart of heaven, we had made it, the red dots all fit, the pieces of thought in my head combined to solve the great puzzle, purpose had returned, joy too back from exile! It was about nine-thirty when we decided to leave the cottage again for dinner.
However it seemed that Abbas restaurant, as well as every other shop around had been shut except the smoke shop. The smoke shop vendor called us a taxi who would take us to the city to buy ourselves a little dinner. The only two Tamil-speaking men that was me and Nikhil boarded the taxi as we left for the city and bought us parotas, chicken and a few omelets. As the taxi dropped us of up the road from our cottage Nikhil and I decided to sit on the footpath for a while and just enjoy the atmosphere.
This was a moment I would never forget, we sat there, all the boundaries in life dissolved in two days of mental adventure, the little beauties like the greenness of a leaf and the intricacy of a bed-cover design we learned to appreciate with immaculate honesty. The stars that night were a few more than a trillion, the sky was glowing. We sat there eating the omelets telling each other what a few vegetables actually performed in our curious searching minds. The highway was desolate, not a single soul that night would disturb our holy realization! Life was about appreciation, about enjoying the little things, learning to overcome the great sorrows and strife that torment us every moment, learning to find peace with ourselves. We returned to the cottage and ate our parotas with Noel, Neeloy and Tommy.
Two days had passed! Fifteen to twenty joints and almost four dozens of mushrooms consumed by each of the explorers present in that cottage! Man is born for adventure, not to accomplish but to experience, not to criticize but to appreciate, irrespective of what the external world seems to be. The perception of life is a choice, which lies in the hands of every individual. I was never a person who believed it is a necessity to consume a substance to discover the truths behind life and such a person I never will be, however, what I experienced those two days was different, was something beyond the realms of social stability and collective concern.
That night we decided that we were done with the mushrooms, we would not indulge in the same the following day.
When man has experienced something beyond the boundaries of reality, that memory is etched in his mind forever.
The eyes of man can see great things and his ears hear ancient truths, but it is only his soul that can experience both.
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