High-Strung

“LSD’S are also known as designer drugs and are used mostly….”


“I wonder if the designers are as famous as Gucci and Versace….” quipped my friend Yo and we giggled.


“Oh man! Look at hash! It looks like a slab of chocolate” declared a classmate.


“She knew it was hashish even before the name was projected on the slide!” I whispered to Yo as discreetly as was possible with only a few inches of distance between the said classmate and us.


“You know hash is slang for hashish huh?” questioned Yo, one slim eyebrow raised in amusement. We sniggered once again.


“It’s easy to recognize symptoms of addiction among your peers. Youngsters might suddenly decide to wear long sleeved outfits to hide needle marks…..”


“Hey! Haven’t you taken to wearing long sleeved outfits Falak? C’mon show me the marks…..” ribbed Yo


“I can and I will. The only problem is that the marks are sunburns and not needle punctures so sorry to burst your bubble”


“……other symptoms include wearing sunglasses to hide bloodshot eyes, frequent visits to restrooms, mood swings and extreme emotions……”


“Falak! Ha! You’ve started wearing sun glasses too….” accused Yo”


“I won’t from tomorrow….. Just get me some under eye cream to protect me from damage due to UV rays...”


“Ok!” conceded Yo “But the mood swings symptom is sooooo you!”


“Fine I wont be moody but just don’t ask ‘why aren’t you writing anything’ or ‘why haven’t you posted anything’.” I concluded with a smug smile because I knew she just couldn’t attribute the last symptom left to me.


“Ah, well the restroom visiting is way out of your league…… You only use the college restroom if you have been downing like gallons of water since morning.”


“Yeah, I guess people use pigsties to relieve themselves only when the other options are 1) embarrass oneself and 2) embarrass oneself.”


“Yeah, whatever but you’re our ‘addict’ ok?” proclaimed Yo and I replied with a nonchalant grunt and didn’t bother to retaliate with a witticism since I had been called worse in jest. I was secretly making diabolic plans of how to pay her back when the opportunity came.


The lights in the audio visual center were dimmed so that we could watch the slide show on drug abuse…. Dimmed light also translates to private discussions during lectures .


“Cocaine is considered to be a recreational drug that heightens sensitivity to stimuli and has no side effects. Famous personalities like Freud and Rimbaud were known to use it. Even Sherlock Holmes was portrayed as someone who used cocaine since it was believed to accelerate cognitive performance and enhance creativity….”


“So addict, what do you freak out on?” this question was accompanied by a painful nudge to my ribs and I mumbled “Cocaine my dear, cocaine.”


“Why cocaine?” queried Yo. “Didn’t you see? All smart people use cocaine” I managed to say while trying to soothe my sore ribs and pay attention to the presentation all at once.


“Oh wait! Is it because Rimbaud is a poet and you write too???” Well, if that was the case” I replied “then FYI Rimbaud was also gay so you might want to jump a few seats away from me?”


We burst into giggles at our own ridiculous joke and managed to stay awake through a boring 8 o’clock lecture early in the morning


“Oh man! Why do they want to teach us about drugs? Like we don’t know already!” commented a guy to our right with his perpetual hey-I –really-am-so-smart-to-be-bothered-about -what anyone- else-has-to- say look on his face to which his friend replied “It sounds more like they are informing us about what drug to use and how to use it. I am so sleepy!”


“Let me guess…” I said feigning an expression of profound thought on my face and whispered to Yo “Is it the lecture on drugs that is making her sleepy or taking the same drugs before the lecture?”


Smothering a fresh string of giggles we resumed listening to our foundation course lecture on drug abuse and other social problems since the lights had been turned on.


“I wonder why people would want to do that to themselves!” exclaimed a girl in the row in front of us when a gory picture of an addict inserting a needle into his arm was shown.”


“I know!” said I corroborating the statement. “Can’t they understand that the stupid ‘high’ that they keep looking for is going to kill them and totally destroy them?”


“Maybe this ‘high’ is so great and drugs are the only means to experience it so then they forget all else.” Yo contributed.


“I wonder what feeling or emotion could be so great that you'd want to sell your soul to the devil knowing that it’s the point of no return during the take off towards your own destruction.


“I wonder……” was all my friend replied and that was the feeling we left with when we walked out of our FC lecture that day.


A number of rich, well to do kids in my class are established drug abusers. Their rave parties and well, parties in general are not news to us. They don’t peddle drugs or force it upon others. They just get sucked deeper and deeper into the quagmire of addiction and before they realize it it’s too late. They think it’s fashionable and that it’s acceptable. Most start doing drugs because they feel stressed or ‘strung up’ about their life in general. Well if tension is the reason that people do drugs then like my friend Yo says I should have been an addict years ago. I am one of those people who love worrying about everything and nothing in general and hold myself responsible for everything. {BTW I am responsible for everything that happens to me and oh I am not a junkie he he}.


That evening when I went for my violin class my music teacher finally taught me to hold the violin between my shoulder and chin and pluck it with my fingers. I played a couple of exercises and he praised me saying I had practiced and it shows. I was over the moon since learning to play the violin in it self is an achievement for me so being told that I was doing it well enough was a bonus. I was really happy. I think I went a little loony and was singing quite audibly in the rickshaw on my way back home. Come to think of it I think the rick driver reached me home in record time because he thought I was demented.


I practiced my violin lessons with more gusto than usual and felt like I was floating mid air for the next few hours and then the good feeling died.


I then logged on to this very blog and saw sweet comments from total strangers and again that wonderful feeling that set me free from within got hold of my system and I was deliriously happy for some more time. The buzz crashed in 20 minutes and then I was back to normal.


My baby cousin woke up and I went to play with her. She rewarded me with a wide toothless grin. My heart and head grew wings and flew to some remote paradise at the sight of her merry face. Later when I was listening to my favorite songs after eons, again that weird sensation grabbed me from within.


At night I was speaking to my mother on the phone and her voice laced with concern, irritation {because I didn’t call her for two days} and tiredness after a hectic day at work suddenly sent a warm feeling trickling all over my body: like someone had switched a heater on somewhere in the region of my heart. I smiled to myself.


It was 11:30 in the night and I had to go and sleep. It was quite cold and I was snug and warm in my bed wrapped up in a cozy blanket and suddenly realization hit me hard like a cricket ball hits a window pane and I searched frantically for my cell phone in the darkness. On finding it I clicked away a message to Yo that said:


u dnt need drugs 2 feel high. U need luv a sense of being belongin and achvmnt. D feelin tht u get due 2 dese emotions is a high. music in gnrl helps. For me the strings of d violin trigrd it. I was high bcoz of strings. High-strung hahahahahah. Gn Luv Falak




I only wish I could pass on the same message to those classmates of mine.


Yours addicted to little joys in life


Falak