An experiment.

I don't usually do much thinking before a blog post, but I thought a lot about this one. I'm still thinking about whether I should post it, and I probably won't know until I finish writing it, but I might as well give it a go. Some of my family reads this blog but even I'm not sure exactly who. It's a little strange writing about my first experience trying a hard drug knowing that I have various uncles and aunts reading this, as well as friends of my parents. My father doesn't matter - I've always been able to talk to him about stuff like this.

But if I take that into account, and let it stop me from posting something I want to, it will completely defeat the point of even having this blog. (The point is to be able to write about whatever I want, and feel kind of happy if people like it.)

I don't have a moral stand against drugs. I think it's a personal choice. Long ago, after a lot of reading and research and conversations with my parents - yup, even my mother - I made a list of drugs I knew I would never touch, never ever, and drugs that I definitely wanted to try once. The drugs I will never try include heroin and acid. Actually they include pretty much anything that isn't cocaine. I always wanted to try cocaine. Just once. Mainly because I learnt that the high doesn't last long. The thought of tripping out on something for hours on end terrifies me.

Anyway, cocaine never happened to come my way and I didn't particularly go out in search of it. But everyone knows that  bizarre things happen when you least expect them to, and that's part of the reason they're bizarre.

I really like the word bizarre. Bizarre. Biz-arrrre. Okay. Moving on.

I went to someone's house yesterday after work. Never mind who it was. There were three people there. One person I'm very close to, and I love her very much. The other two, I didn't know. I'm just going to call them 1, 2 and 3. 1 is the person I know, 2 is the person whose house it was, and 3 is...well, the third person.

Anyway, we were sitting around and I was feeling quite social so I was actually talking to them, and I was at my charming best. 1 was amazed - she thinks I hate her friends (true) and so she's never seen me talk to them before, I usually just stare blankly at them. But 2 and 3 seemed pretty okay and I felt comfortable around them.

Anyway, at some point 3 asked me whether I've ever done drugs.

"Not a hard drug," I said. "I've always wanted to try cocaine though but it hasn't really come my way yet."

At this point all three of them burst out laughing.

"What?"

"Look to your right."

And I looked, and I swear that it's a miracle my eyes are still in their sockets, I could actually feel them pop. There was coke on the table next to me.

1 and 2 don't do coke. 3 does. It was 3's coke. 3 asked whether I wanted to try it.

It was in front of me and I was looking at it and I didn't realize that it's possible to think ten different thoughts simultaneously but I did.

And then I asked all kinds of questions - where was it from, were they sure the quality was good, would I be able to carry on drinking after, would that be safe, what if I flipped out, I didn't want to lose control, etc.

"Just try a line," said 3. "A line should be fine. It won't hit you hard."

And then I just thought to myself, fuck it, Trisha, you've always wanted to try it once, if there are consequences, just man up and deal with them.

So I stuck the little pipe up my right nostril and inhaled a line. It went through my nose and I could taste it in my throat. It tasted like this nutritional powder thing - for the life of me, I can't remember the name - we used to eat before swimming competitions when I was in school.

I started feeling something almost instantly. Like I'd had about three drinks instead of just half, but it wasn't quite that either. It was strange, and yet, not strange. Not uncomfortable at all, no. I felt mellow and relaxed, but at the same time everything felt slightly sharper. I felt that if I concentrated on something, I'd really be able to concentrate on it, but just then, I didn't want to and that was okay. It didn't cause any behavioural changes. I was completely normal for the rest of the evening.

3 offered me a second line, but I decided against it.

Then something happened, hours later, but I'm not sure if it was the vodka or the cocaine. I was quite drunk and I wanted to throw up. This happens to a lot of people when they drink a lot, but it very rarely happens to me. And I was more drunk than I usually am on the same number of vodkas. But that could also have been because I haven't been drinking much lately.

Anyway, I was tired and I had work the next day. I decided to go to bed. 1 tucked me in (haha) and I said good night and went to sleep in a very civilized manner.

Woke up with the worst goddamn hangover I've ever had. I wonder if that had something to do with the coke - like I said, it's not like I drank an unusual amount. Anyway I staggered home at 8 in the morning because I wanted a shower, felt tempted to inform my mother (who's visiting) about the fact that I'd tried it but decided I didn't want the crockery hurled at me, and then went to work.

I'm going to tell her eventually though. Not right now. Maybe in a few months. But I'll tell her.

I told Pill about it when he came online. Pill - and oddly enough this is one of the things I love best about him - is a very self controlled person. He enjoys drinking, and he's great fun to drink with, but he doesn't smoke cigarettes, doesn't smoke up, and would never ever touch any sort of drug. Anyway, I could tell Pill didn't like that I'd done it though he didn't lecture me or anything. What made me uncomfortable was this:

While talking to him, I realized that I didn't know whether I was going to do it again or not. I always told myself that I would try it, and now I had tried it, but would I do it again? I'd had a very mild experience, what would a stronger one be like? And I felt extremely discomfited by the fact that I was considering doing it again, but since I'm not morally against it, I couldn't understand why I was discomfited. So what if I was at some party and it was offered to me? Why shouldn't I do it again if it came my way?

I thought about this for a long time.

Then I spoke to MWF. I'd noticed that I'd texted him the night before and asked him to call me, and I felt slightly annoyed that he hadn't.

"I'm sorry I drug texted you," I joked.

"You also drug dialled."

"What? I don't remember calling. I saw the text I sent you, but we didn't speak."

"Are you crazy? We did. I called you. We talked for like fifteen minutes."

"About what?"

"I couldn't make out half the shit you were saying."

"Oh."

And then, a little later, he said, "You sounded exhilarated."

"I'm not sure if I'm ever going to do it again. Maybe once was enough."

"Balls," he said.

"Why?"

"You sounded like something you'd wanna sound like again."

And that is the moment when I made my decision. It's a decision I still can't rationalize, although I'm going to try, but it's been made. And, in a way, it's been made for me by a gut feeling, by an instinct. I've had this gut feeling before, about important things, and it's never let me down.

Once was enough. I will never do cocaine again.








On a side note, I'm moving to Bangalore. But I'll talk about that later.

Also, I don't know whether it's possible to be arrested for this given that consumption of cocaine is illegal. So what does documenting consumption lead to? Apart from potential hell from irate readers. But taking all those things into account, if they happen to occur, then I would like to state here and now, that this post is a lie, this blog is a lie, my life is a lie, and I am a lie. So there.



Postscript (29.6.2013): I just told my mother about it. She didn't flip or hurl things at me, she just said that she trusted the fact that I won't ever do it again. My mother drives me insane sometimes, but I can always talk to her about things that matter.

This time, a year ago, I was two weeks away from being the happiest I've ever been. And I had absolutely no clue. If I had, I would have probably gone into a coma from the shock and never woken up and missed it all.

The happiest I've ever been.

Well, okay, definitely up there in the top three.

And this was in spite of the fact that I weighed four kilos more than I do right now. Incredible. 

The Job Hunt.

I've been looking for a job as a copywriter in Bangalore. This idea, once the seeds were planted, bloomed forth, bright and beautiful. 

I'm enjoying publishing, but my stint with Aleph Book Company is coming to an end. I was planning to do my post-graduation after it, but due to numerous reasons, I think it makes sense to put it off for a year or two and keep working. But working where? Like I said, I have enjoyed publishing, but the past few months, I've been feeling like I wouldn't mind trying something else. Before choosing publishing and throwing myself into it heart and soul, I'd like to try something that isn't publishing. Better to test the waters now, at the age of twenty-two, than waking up at twenty-eight to find that I'm not happy. 

I've explained this to many people, but I usually just get a blank stare. 

The only other career alternative I can picture (apart from being a drunken novelist, but we've already established I can't write seriously when I'm drunk, and not when I'm sober either, so that's out) is one in advertising. I helped a friend out with a marketing proposal for the Jaipur Literature Festival yesterday and she was astounded by my ability to bullshit without making spelling mistakes - it was incredibly encouraging.

 I like the concept of writing about something in order to convince other people to buy it. It's sort of like packaging something completely mundane, and being all, "Here, you know this is crap, and I know this is crap, but it's so prettily worded, and it's so eye catching, and it does seem more convincing than other products on the market, here you go, take it, TAKE IT." This could also be connected with the fact that I occasionally enjoy telling elaborate lies for no reason at all. 

I'm quite sick of Delhi, and Bombay is too expensive, and I would rather stick a fork in my eye than live in Calcutta or Chennai again, so Bangalore seems like the best option. A new job, a new city, a new life.This is why I've been sending out my resume to head hunters.

I turned to my father's friend - the Old Turkey - for help. He's been working in direct marketing all his (long) life. The Old Turkey put me in touch with a friend of his who sent my resume out to many people. A few responded and she very kindly sent me their phone numbers and e-mail addresses. The first lady I spoke to, a head hunter, was encouraging but vague. She asked me for a writing resume, and I said I didn't have one. Then I remembered my blog.

"I have a blog," I said hesitantly. "But it's really not a professional one. It's this sort of personal blog where I basically just whine about my life."

After a short, incredibly awkward pause at the other end of the line, she told me to send the link anyway. 

"I just want to see a sample of the way you write," she said. 

So I e-mailed her the link to my blog. A split second after I pressed the send button, I felt a very heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach, the sort of feeling I used to get whenever I'd have to give a math exam, or when my old Bengali tuition teacher Manjudi would walk into the house. Very negative sort of feeling. Went to my blog. The most recent post was this one. It would be. 

I spent an incredibly long time after that with my head buried in my arms. 

But then I thought to myself, maybe this blog is a good platform to show off my skills. I mean, the trouble is it demonstrates, equally flamboyantly, my faults. But hey, I'm human. Humans have faults. And then I sat and mentally assessed my blog. The pros: 1) I am obviously a hard worker when I enjoy my work. I've already mentioned my secret notebook titled ""Trisha's Plan for Becoming Indispensable to Aleph Book Company So They Keep Her on Beyond March". And given I'm still working with them, it obviously worked. 2) No surprise to discover that I enjoy writing and I'm looking for a writing job so...you know. Self explanatory. 3) I have written a handful of poems on my blog and some of them rhyme. Yes! So therefore, I obviously pay attention to presentation, construction and detail. 4) Some of them do not rhyme. So therefore, despite my commitment to presentation, construction and detail, I am also flexible, not rigid, not narrow-minded, and enjoy experimentation. 5) I have a lot of completely random information at my fingertips. A huge amount of knowledge about tigers, sharks, rip tides, dysfunctional royalty, etc. This shows a mind willing to Absorb Information, which can only be beneficial. 

The cons: 1) I drink, smoke and curse a lot. (But not at work, apart from the cursing.) 2) I average about two hysterical break downs a month. 3) I enjoy holidays more than an ideal employee should. 4) I am averaging about two-life threatening accidents a year, although I should point out that I always survive to blog about them, 5) I tell extremely convincing lies (a bonus, though, in advertising), 6) I am excessively awkward, breaking and damaging items with the greatest of ease,  incapable of walking down a road without tripping over my own feet, 7) I have an irrational fear of birds. *8)

Oh dear. The negatives outweigh the positives. I'll stop now. 

But it's interesting to think, given that this blog is listed on my writing portfolio, that a potential headhunter could be reading this right now. They might be thinking, wow, this girl sounds vaguely interesting, and hard-working, and refreshingly different. Or they might be thinking, man. This one's a looney. Not good for the company image. 

But, as Old Turkey pointed out, would I really want to work for someone who thinks I'm a looney?

Yes, Old Turkey, I would. I just want a job that will challenge me, and allow me to be creative, and live in Bangalore and afford the craft beer at Toit's while paying my rent at the same time. 

To reiterate, a head hunter could be reading this post right now.

Right now.

...

..

.

*8) Subtlety is obviously not a strong point. 

I cannot write when I'm drunk.

This is one of the saddest discoveries I've made lately.

I never tried writing when I was drunk before, because usually the drunkness happened in a bar with people, and even afterwards, when I came home, it would involve falling into bed, or staying up talking with a friend. I have rarely been drunk alone.

The past month though, I have drunk alone a few times. And no, I can just picture all you smarmy people raising an eyebrow and shaking your head at my degenerate life, or worse, being like Pill who, the other day, sent me a text saying, "You look depressed in your latest photos." The reason I have drunk alone is sometimes you come back from a stressful day at work, and I live alone with no roommate, and you're kind of like, oh, let me have a drink and relax. It's that sort of alone-drinking. I don't even know why I am explaining this on my blog, and feeling guilty at the same time. It's ridiculous. I won't.

The point is, on Saturday, I didn't really feel like meeting people. I felt like staying in, I felt like a quiet sort of night. And then it occurred to me that I'd never tried writing while drunk before. And then I was fired up with this image of me finally being able to write, really write, and for it to be writing slightly different from my sober writing. More inspired, perhaps. Less banal.

So I got myself a bottle of rum (big mistake, will come to that later) and I found a huge bottle of coke in the fridge. I had no clue where the coke had come from because I don't usually drink coke. But I put it down to one of those inexplicable life occurrences. Anyway, I poured half the coke out, poured all the rum in, went to my room, locked the door, and set about getting drunk.

Ok, I know this sounds bad, and it makes me look like an alcoholic if you're the judgmental type, but I was doing this for a specific reason. It was an experiment. A creative experiment to discover, test and manipulate my boundaries and capabilities. So there.

Anyway, I got drunk after a while, and then Hrishikesh called. (Hrishikesh and I once had a long, involved conversation about what nickname I could give him on this blog. He suggested God, I suggested Scrappy Doo, an impasse was reached. But now I know he will be known as Hrishikesh even though I call him Hrishi in real life.) I was in the middle of having a long and serious discussion with him about something incredibly stupid, when there was a knock on my bedroom door.

It was Kusum, my aunt's Girl Friday, whom I thought had departed for the night. I opened the door and we both looked at each other suspiciously.

"You've taken the coke," she said.

"Yes," I said, at that moment realising how the coke had got in the fridge and cursing myself.

"My husband would like a glass,"

Oh man. I considered giving him the coke, spiked as it was with huge quantities of rum, but I didn't think I should do that. So I had to explain to her how I hadn't realised it was Shiv Shankar's coke, I thought it was my own coke, bought and forgotten about, and now I'd poured alcohol into it, and I didn't think Shiv Shankar would appreciate the alcohol. (Actually I did have a feeling he'd appreciate it, but I didn't want to share.)

It was so embarrassing, and Hrishikesh could hear every word of this goddamn conversation, and he was laughing his head off at the other end of the line. I finally gave Kusum some money, and my apologies, and told her to give it to Shiv Shankar so he could replace his coke.

And then after I was done talking to Hrishikesh, and had drunk enough to slightly numb the incident that occurred with Kusum, I sat down to write.

And I discovered that I cannot bloody write when I'm drunk. I can't form a proper sentence. My language becomes stiff and convoluted, I use way too many commas (which I know I do when I'm sober and I'm working on it) and the next morning, I couldn't understand what the fuck I'd been trying to write about. I lose what twisted sense of humour I have, and everything just turns out bad, and worse than bad, pretentious.

Oh yes. And I'd forgotten that I cannot drink rum, and also that I slightly hate it, and I had an upset tummy for the next two days.

It was all very tragic, and to make matters worse, the next morning, as I dragged myself into the kitchen, Kusum said, "Even Shiv Shankar drinks alcohol."

"Good, good." I said, trying to look unashamed and unconcerned. "Alcohol is nice."

"I don't like it," said Kusum sweetly, "I've tried it once, but I felt funny."

I smiled dutifully.

"But Shiv Shankar likes it," she repeated.

Excellent, excellent.

"But," she said, still very sweetly, "he never drinks alone."


:(

I think, honestly, that the only way a person can achieve true happiness, and by that I mean independent happiness, is to find it alone, and not to rely on other people.

It's ever so slightly tragic, given the satisfaction another human being can give you, but to find that same satisfaction, if not within yourself, which I believe to be impossible unless you are odious and self satisfied, is to find it in an impersonal sort of activity, to find it in people and objects - yes, objects - which can expand your intellectual horizons, without blurring your emotional boundaries.

I don't believe in resolutions, but if I have to make a promise to myself, I will make it this: it will be to search for a satisfaction independent of personal relationships, and beyond them.

It's not about finding happiness within yourself - a concept I've never been able to buy - but to find it in something that is inanimate, and finding a way to make it animate to you, and you alone.


Also,cigarettes are way too expensive. Everything is expensive. I have to cut down smoking. From tomorrow, I will only smoke after every meal. I don't eat lunch these days -  not out of a desire to fit into my jeans, if only I had that desire- but because of the heat. So one cigarette after breakfast, and one cigarette after dinner. And one in lieu of lunch because I must be realistic.

I want my lungs to be lungs, I don't want them to be tar.