Days of Bliss...

My days of blissful coexistence are almost over. I love my marijuana. After a hard(or lazy) day's work, thats the only experience i look forward to. When the door to my room is closed and an undisturbed peaceful evening is the forecast of the day, thats when my night begins. Here in calcutta, you can buy a small gram of grass for around 10 bucks(thats Indian Rupees mind you and for those unaware of this currency 1$=43INR). So as you can see, grass comes cheap here. Thats not to say its legal here but just to show that there are more taker's and even more keepers in these parts. I have a more or less standard style of making the stuff:
1. Take apart the leaves till they remain as tiny particles(or at least big enuf to blend with the tobbaco) - This is the most irritating part of the proceedings.
2. Empty the Cig of its contents.
3. Mix the leaves(as in step 1) with the appropriate proportion of tobbaco. (This part requires experience and is the most important step of them all)
4. Take a scissor and cut the mix(as in step 3) into finer particles.
5. Load the whole thing into the empty cig. (This step can be pretty irritating if ure doing this in a running car or a loaded bar(in which case you have to keep an eye out!!)

Next comes the timing part. I generally allow an hour or more for the grass to sink into my system before i allow any external disturbance. External disturbances can fall under the following categories:
1. Folks calling for dinner. This is generally dealt with by an approximate short grunt and a general hazy awcknowledgement that i'll join them as soon as i'm thru with whatever i'm busy with.
2. Calls from girlfriend/s. This is generally dealt with via perfect ignorance. I usually tell them later that the music was too loud to hear the ring on my cell which is both true and false...as long as some element of truth is there :-). The response is generally a sceptical piercing look.
3. Misc calls from other folks that can either be dealt with as in step 2 or by brief short replies or an excuse to go to the loo unless its someone who wants to join in the fun!!

After all that's done with, here's the meat of the story. When ure on grass especially when the stuff is properly made, you'll know the difference with the very first drag. So here i assume i've made the perfect toke(which is most of the time) and have managed to smoke a whole reefer undisturbed. Thats when i need what i need most. Music. Here i digress a bit from the subject so far. There are 5 or 6 bands that i almost always listen to when i'm high:

1. Black Sabbath
2. Judas Priest
3. Iron Maiden
4. Blind Faith
5. Megadeth
6. Metallica (old stuff of cource!!)

When i'm getting stoned alone, i generally enqueue all or a few stuff on winamp and do some other stuff that doesn't take much thinking. This may include:
1. Reading an ebook
2. Playing some game like Tennis or Cricket. (Here again, you have to ensure that the game is one which you can play without putting ur mind into it. This allows ur mind to drift-cause thats the purpose of getting stoned while ur hands keep busy-which is a good way of convincing ur self that ure actually doing something and not wasting time!!).

When i'm toking with a friend, the music forms the background again but this time no games. When you have company and the taste in music is similar, it doesn't take much to imagine that ure the one playing the base or lead or drum or rhythm or even vocals(if u get that high i.e). Some of the folks i get stoned with almost always switch on a porn video(which i don't really prefer when i'm stoned) in which case i generally take a lie on the bed-but not sleeping, mind you for that tends to lessen the high. A tip for you tokers(if you didn't know it already)...always keep plenty of water on hand cause the damn throat has a tendency to go dry on you!! Sometimes, when there are no new porns to watch, a music video does just as well. Thanks to emule here for i have an enviable collection of rare concerts which are a treat to watch. I still have some cousins who drop by once in a while and put up a case to watch war pigs or freebird after they've had a drag or 2.

The rest is pretty much standard. When i'm high, i tend to smoke like hell so i always ensure i have enuf cig's to last the session and when it all ends an hour or so later, my stomach takes over. Thats when i realize i'm hungry like a wolf and thats when i watch out cause i have a tummy like an insurance agent doing too well for comfort.

By the time i go to bed, i've pretty much utilized the whole evening doing absolutely nothing let alone anything productive. This is when i feel grass is a waste, a good waste off cource!! Which brings me to the topic i wanted to come to sooner or later. You would too if you have a lifestyle like mine and you're to end up getting married in another 9 days time. It's a crying shame. Youth should be worth more, don't you think?

Satch in Cal...

A hot summer's evening is not perhaps the best time for a 3 hour concert, especially when the venue is relatively unknown to hosting a show of this kind. Billed as the Guitar God of the world, naturally the expectations were high. Speaking for myself, i'm more of the classic rock and 70's metal kinda guy. The venue, Rabindra Sarobar stadium did not dissapoint. The gates opened at around 6p.m and by that time the huge crowd (as it seemed at that time) were boiling in the searing heat and humidity of one of the hottest summers in the recent past in Kolkata. Once inside the stadium however, it was awesome.

The tickets, priced at Rs.900 and Rs.400 wasn't too heavy for the pockets but that didn't show. For once, i was glad i could only afford the 400 bucks ones as it was much better lying in the grass at the back rather than rattling the jewellery seated in a chair up front. There was a rather stupid mumbai rock act that started the proceedings, Brahma it was called and i hope i got the spelling right. With a cheap impersonater of James Hetchfield on the vocals and a drummer who desperately wanted to make a mark but fell way short, the rhythm and lead salvaged the situation some. And to be honest, the kind of crowd that assembled there deserved nothing more than that sloppy act.

By the time Satch finally came on at 7pm, the stadium was gradually starting to fill up a lil' though i expected the calcutta crowd to pack the place like sardines but either they didn't know or they weren't listening. To come back to Satch, i was glad i haven't heard much of his stuff. Gives me an opportunity to dig into all the stuff i have of him in my ipod. The best part of Joe's performance that night was summed in one word, an Honest performance, for thats what it was. For a guy, who's used to crowds that we can only imagine at an Eden Gardens full house on a Sunday evening, if he was dissapointed in what he saw, he surely didn't show it. Looking at that man in black from so far away though we did have the services of two video screens on both sides, i couldn't help but feel his passion not just for his 6 string but for his humbleness to come to a little known place (at least to him!!) with no expectations and to put up such a kickass show. For a while during the concert, i began to miss the services of some Vocals to add to his mesmerizing guitar but any thoughts on that were blown away by the sheer intensity of his performance and that of his band. The drumming was tight and perfect and the rhythm and base just added so many layers to a guitar sound that seemed to cover so many genres, so effortlessly. An older gentleman next to me was convinced of a blues inspired sound while another well informed fella beside me insisted it was speed metal. For me however, it was the sound of a man who had heard it all and it was putting it all into proper perspective in his own special way. For me, as i'm sure is the case with many other whole hearted fellows who were there that evening, it was an experience of a lifetime, a performance that i thought deserved to be expressed in words (which is why i'm writing this), an appreciation of a man who's two hours with us was surely an experience to cherish for a lifetime.

Thank you Joe,We love you!!

Warm regards.

a still dazed bison from Kolkata this 17th May of 2005.