“So how much do you want?” The peddler asked in a bored tone. We looked at each other. This was the first time we were buying weed. What would be the right quantity of weed to get three testosterone fueled teenagers high enough – we thought. We asked for three packets.
The peddler looked at us with awe and astonishment. “Three packets huh? Are you guys sure?” It wasn’t that that stuff was expensive – but three packets were enough to put an elephant to sleep. The peddler knew it. We didn’t.
We paid him hurriedly and scurried out of the dark alley. We were filled with a sense of excitement and our adrenaline levels were high. As a teenager, we found it amusing to push the boundaries, just to see far we could go.
We had planned to ‘smoke up’ at Sanjay’s house. It was a two-storeyed bungalow and we had planned to try out the little experiment on his terrace. We slyly moved to the terrace taking the stairs that went from inside his hall and the first floor. Sanjay’s father was sleeping in the first-floor bedroom so we had to be extra careful. He didn’t know that we (Me and Amit) were planning to stay the night and of course the fact we had industrial quantities of narcotics on us.
Finally, we reached the terrace. The cold air helped soothe our anxiety-cum-excitement. We quickly got to work. We were armed with all the necessary equipment – old newspaper, smoking paper, flashlights, and cigarettes and of course – the weed.
“Bro. Let me show you how it is done”, Amit said proudly. It was his idea and hence he took the lead. We let him. We looked at him in awe as he started cleaning the weed meticulously. He tore the newspaper and gave Me and Sanjay our own share of weed to be cleaned. We got to work under the expert supervision of Amit. At first, it seemed cool, but after the thirty minutes, it got really boring. I was promised that I was going to enjoy the weed and it was going to be an amazing experience. What I was never told was that I would be spending what seemed to be an eternity in cleaning the weed.
“No bro. You are not doing it correctly. Here, let me show you”, Amit criticized my work and proceeded to lecture me on how important it was to get the weed cleaned well. “You see bro, if we do not clean the weed well, the high will not be a good one. Plus, the seed might cause the joint to blow out”. To me, it seemed a little odd. It was like a virgin giving advice on how to enjoy sex better. It was his first time, wasn’t it? Still - I listened obediently and then continued to labour under the dim light of the torch. It was almost two hours before we were ready for the ill-formed – ill-shaped joints. There were a total of 9 joints. We had greatly overestimated our capacity to smoke. We continued to be denial and mutually decided that we will finish all nine of them. As teenagers, we believed that our ability to handle intoxication was directly proportional to our masculinity.
Sanjay backed out at the last minute. This was the second time he had done this. Not a long ago, we had decided to try a beer for the first time. The auspicious venue for that excursion was also the same terrace. Even at that time, Sanjay had backed out the last minute. He did have a lot of laughs at our expense once we were drunk and starting talking funny. In my heart, I knew what Sanjay was up to. He was planning to get us high and then have fun at our expense. I thought of him as an evil scientist and we were his lab rats. Nonetheless, I joined hands with Amit and swore to bring our little adventure to an awesome end. (It was anything but awesome)
Finally, the smoking began. It wasn’t pleasant at all. It was like ordering a sizzling brownie for dessert that tasted like boiled broccoli (unsalted at that). All my illusions of ‘smoking weed-and-getting high’ was gone with the smoke. It tasted foul, smelled pungent and made my eyes water. I coughed badly, I could feel my lungs reverberating in my chest. For a minute, I thought I should give up. But again - being with my peers, I couldn’t accept defeat or acknowledge my weakness. I decided to power through. The joint was rotated after four drags as instructed by Amit (He told us that passing the bud after three drags was a bad omen. At that time, we thought he was super cool to know such trivia).
Nothing was happening. We were done with two and a half joints. We were hoping to feel a little tipsy by now. But nada. Nothing at all. This is where we should have stopped but we didn’t. We celebrated our manliness and our apparent immunity to weed. The smoking continued. Somewhere in the middle of the fourth joint, it happened.
Unlike whisky or beer, where the high is like shifting gears in a car, you know you are moving from the first gear to the second and then to the third. Weed-high, however, is very different. One minute your walking leisurely, on a plain of grass, admiring nature, minding your business and before you know - the land under feet is gone. Whoosh. Gone. I felt completely weightless and was finding it difficult in keeping my train of thought in check. At one point, it wasn’t even a train of thought – my mind was like a TV with two hundred channels. The problem was that all the two hundred channels were on at the same time. I was thinking one thing, which I couldn’t control or alter, which led to another thing, equally beyond my control, which led to another thing and to another thing and then to – so and so forth.
I couldn’t tell if Amit was high or not. It is difficult to gauge another person’s intoxication level, when your brain can’t even spell ‘intoxication’. If he was indeed high, he was doing a fabulous job at hiding it. That is when Sanjay (the evil scientist) came up with a plan to feed his lab rats with sweets. Before we started smoking up, Amit had shared another trivia with us that eating sweets multiplied the ‘weed high’. I was impressed with this trivia and as well and secretly wanted to know who was Amit’s source after all.
There were chocolates, and cakes and gulab jamun (an Indian delicacy which is a one way ticket to diabetes-land). Even while intoxicated, I wondered when and how did Sanjay manage to get the sweets. I then recollected that we had purchased it before going to meet the peddler – Amit insisted on getting them. Just like with the weed, we had greatly overestimated our capacity to digest sugar.
We started munching like cows. My mouth felt like the Sahara Desert. No amount of water seemed to hydrate it. I kept drinking water but the desert-like feeling wouldn’t go away. Amit was high now. I could tell because he had started slurring and was trying to lean on the wall. I knew he was high. I mentally scored the match 1-0 in my favour.
“Ok guys. I am high. I am going to sleep”. Those were Amit’s last words. No – he didn’t die. Amit rose and started his journey to the downstairs bedroom. Sanjay offered to help him but I think he was still clutching on to his manliness too hard. He declined. “I am fine. I go myself will….”. We let him be. Sanjay kept pushing sweets to me and kept denying. I was still smoking though. We were down to the second last joint.
We could hear Amit’s footsteps as he walked down the stairs. They were like heavy thuds and unrhythmic. Like someone tried to pick a bag of flour – decided it was too heavy – and dumped them down on the floor. We knew he had reached the final stairs that led into the bedroom. And then we heard a loud bang. A sound of a heavy man falling and along with it a few other household items. I was too high to get up and check on him – Sanjay was plain lazy. “Are you ok?”, we yelled from the terrace (I hoped Sanjay’s father was fast asleep. High or not high, I was in no mood to be interrogated by his father at four in the morning)
That is the last I remember of that night. After Amit’s unsuccessful attempt at climbing down, I said I am done. I had won the imaginary match anyways. I told Sanjay I was going to bed. Those were my last words. I walked down carefully, utilizing the walls as much as I could, as my walking-cum-falling down support system. I saw the bed and my weed-riddled brain said, “Sleep”.
And slept I did.
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