Oh! Did I have class at 2? I dint know when the rays of sun had left the room of darkness, with the nausea of attendance in my mind and the fallacy of my fantasy world. Reality just smiled and whispered “It’s just that kind of a day, which reminded me that it was my day, every day that destroyed the ancient sense of time, as an hour felt a minute”. A month had passed since I called my parents last. Who have so many dreams in reality, But to me, all that matters now are the rats juggling in my stomach, telling me that I hadn’t eaten for the last couple of days, which felt more like a couple of hours to me.
The biggest asset to mankind is man himself. Which other resource in the world will think of utilizing the best of its own resource with the help of available resources to create markets for a new resource? That’s human resource for you! Man gambles with nature for its necessity to survive the rat race, which makes few things stand apart. That’s when you enter the world of availability to necessity .If you look around, the state of matter, which is difficult to obtain, always attracts the evil inside you, which slowly rejuvenates luxury to necessity, creating a niche market for a product, in my language of marketing. If there isn’t a demand for a product, create one! And then came a product termed marijuana, which again is offered to man by nature itself, to take what he had snatched from it to increase his count in the eternal sunshine of the spotless mind called life.
Life in the species of Homo sapiens has different meanings to different minds. But there are people like Nikil who like to believe that they have a mind which brings out the best in them, where he can doesn’t see but observe life on a broader horizon, which he proclaims to be psychedelic state of mind. I did meet a man from that world, the psychedelic world; He was this fun loving, easygoing, jovial personality. I was new to the city wanting to sell myself, that’s what Nikil always told me, if you can’t sell yourself in an interview how would you make a good sales man? Yes, I had come to the city in search of butter, as I wanted more than bread.
I can never forget that evening when Nikil and I planned to have a drink, as we could know each other better. He told me to wait for an hour. In the meantime he told me make some mango milkshake and pick up a few beers. Then finally he called me in, he had decorated his room with posters of lord Ganesh and Shiv having voracious colors around them. All Nikil said “Get stoned”. I had not read anything termed stoned even in the tabloids. Quite puzzled I said, “Excuse me”, he just smiled and took out a packet, which I couldn’t see in the gloomy room, which looked gloomier under the dim lava lamps. He then crushed something the way my security guard did when he used to crush his tobacco before stapling it below his lips. Nikil empted a cigarette and mixed the green stuff and the tobacco in a rolling paper. And then he said “my Eiffel tower is done” He told me to light it, I was scared, as I had a very conservative upbringing, and had always heard that ganja as they used to call it in my native, was dangerous. Then that night he got a phone call, after which he was quite tensed, he said no coke tonight. Marshall the drug peddler had missed his flight. He spontaneously got up and looked under his bedding; he almost had tears of joy and screamed out aloud “am off to white castle”. Then he said go get the shaving kit, he ripped apart a couple of blades, in the process it cut his hand and started to bleed, but that hardly went noticed, “Push it in slowly”! He chuckled, entering the dark encapsulated pulp that slowly engulfed his blood stream numbing his knee caps and tripping his benevolence to glory. We need to score more, I laughed and said we have already won the cricket match, on the barter basis he mocked at me that scoring is the local term used to obtain euphoria in the common man’s world, and it just meant he needed more of it. He said am not addicted to coke, as that’s for the rich, affluent class and my pocket money is not sufficient enough. But I think I am addicted to green, that’s because it’s so easily available. I questioned don’t the police do anything about it? They do bust them sometimes but its back like a phoenix.
Now the heaven as termed by Nikil, our room was vacuumed in smoke, I asked him how he is feeling, he said he was lost; he took out his personal kit which was the Pandora’s Box to me. His eyes were red as blood, and he said let me put in some eye drops, as they might clear them and then popped in a pill as well. I asked Nikil-lets have dinner? He said ok and put on his shoes and questioned me again “Where were we supposed to go?” I said hey man, it’s for dinner, he said he was stoned and his short term memory was retarded for the moment. We then went out for dinner at this Chinese restaurant that was pretty close by; alas they had closed down by then. I said it’s just luck; maybe the lines in our hands don’t run on this route. He said don’t ever bet your future on the lines in your hands as people with no hands have a future as well. I used to always feel, he used to come out with ideas that were so unique and logical that even practicality couldn’t question, I asked him how he gets money for all this. I manage with the money I get, that’s not money management; it’s just that I stopped crying for shoes until I saw a man with no feet. He said the show must go on. The wind might change the dunes in the desert but not the desert. I did feel he knows a lot of things that were alien to me. Maybe I forgot the only constant in life called change.
A week later was the best day of my life. I had cleared my interview, I picked up a wine bottle and went home, his joy grew beyond no bounds, he hugged me and said “So finally sold, I said finally stoned, and just giggled. The next evening I came home and noticed that for the whole of last week Nikil hardly went out of his room, his room looked completely messed up and all that mattered to him was who will score for him, he had made arrangements for that as well. Every couple of days a Nigerian man named Marshall would visit him and hand over his nectar. I asked Nikil, why you don’t just limit yourself you are going overboard. That’s the day he wept in my arms and said I sold my kidney that was the moment which shot every particle of dust that engulfed the room. I scolded him to have crossed his limits. I shouted at him, why didn’t you tell me? Nikil said I just needed money for survival, that’s when I realized that he had lost his race of life, in the quest of paradox that went unnoticed .He couldn’t stand erect as the drugs over the years had taken a toll on his body eating away his bone marrow. I did take him to the doctor the next day; I was puzzled to see Nikil, that dogmatic university topper failing in life. He told me to go to office, as I had not made a single sale in that week. That evening when I returned, I met Marshall on the stairs, I said don’t come back ever, you are killing him, he just left in silence. I rushed to his room, where he sat smoking a cigarette; I said what’s wrong with you? He said I can be invincible, I have some good news and bad news for you, and what would u like to hear? Taking a deep breath I said, bad, he said; I have lung cancer. My eyes were wet but smiled and hugged him and said, everything will be fine but I couldn’t control myself anymore, I burst out into tears, don’t you want to know the good news, he asked, after a minute of silence he said “I FINALLY QUIT” but I bet it’s too late now. He said I need a favor from you, I am a common man in this world, but make me a promise, whenever you write a story, it will be on my life, the good, bad and the especially the ugly. A month later Nikil was stoned forever. Let’s all remember there will be an eternal voice that will want you to quit and you will make it now, it’s now or never. I can never forget Nikil, but in management a vital human resource, lets wake up and rise, we are in the best age of technology, then why go back to the world so called stone age. Life is a journey and the experiences that mould us into people whom we are. Let us score knowledge for a better trip tomorrow. Have a happy and safe trip in the journey of mind so that it makes a better place for you and for me.
