“Life is visceral rather than intellectual and the most visceral practitioners of life are known as intellectuals.” This line from a Sydney Blu song was constantly going through my head that day.
I was sitting in my room wondering what to do about securing my next meal. It was Saturday, the holier than thou weekend. Then my phone rings.
“Anon I need a gram of cocaine.”
It was a friends little cousin looking to get a gram, not that morality matters much but his cousin and me get down often and this guy was a regular feature in our GT’s. With the unique ability of scoring cocaine at half the market price it was something that I may have been unwillingly looking forward to.
After securing availability within a two mile radius I was waiting for this guy to show up. Meanwhile the phone rings again.
“Hey bro this is Shariq how you doing? There are a couple of chicks that I need to pick up, what’s your scene?”
Upon hearing this there was an instantaneous 360 degree turnaround in my thought process which was was not in line with my regular life in anyway.
Ok. “So where you bout bro?” I asked.
“Just dropping family and coming to you and then we go and pickup the chicks”.
It almost sounded like going to KFC.
The ride to the dealer was a smooth one, easier than getting anything done in Pakistan in my view, the procurement was increased to 2 grams as we needed ‘Substances’ to get us through the night, with unknown faces and in unknown places as it turned out.
Life is rather paradoxical, some people take control of their lives others let life control them; I was wondering what side I was on as I sat into Shariq’s car. Turns out we only had to go till Defence Mor to pick up the chicks as they lived there.
“I had to pull myself back to see who it was. It was one of the ladies who wanted to know if there was something more that could make her happier. She asked me if I have anything else that can be consumed so that she can get higher, honestly I could not see how that could have happened.”
After a call was placed to the ‘Chicks’ it was revealed that the pick up point is Chungi Ammar Sidhu which is a slum by any standards. But us two being from Karachi thought that it might be a funky name for one of the towns that is nearby, Google maps showed that it was only about 10 kms away so we decided to go and get them.
Now this Chungi Umer Sandhu looked like either Lyari or Landhi no better, the grip of paranoia along with the nala broken roads and everything gave a very confusing image of who I was about to meet.
After waiting for about twenty minutes and confronting the randomest people who were wondering what the fuck a car was doing in the lane which barely had space for a small Suzuki stingray we figured that the provided location was not accurate because the lanes were very narrow, it was decided that we should go to the main road.
The chicks that I met were nice easy going people one of them was married, the other one was a masters of literature student. It appeared that they had popped the night before and complaining about how fucked up their ‘trip’ was as there was no electricity generator fuel and no music at an underground rave in a Bediyan farm. Their names were Mary and Erica respectively(not real names). Also we found out that some guy got upset majorly and told everyone to vacate the farm in the morning.
A mention of what time we picked them up is extremely important, you see Lahore is all about timing when it comes to scoring liquor and hash. My friend wanted to score some liquor cause in his view a drink was extremely essential to our survival; sixty minutes and twenty calls down from all cellphones in the car we decided that it was a futile search. The clock was ticking around 1 Am.
It was decided that we go back to where I was crashing, it was a decently maintained apartment in DHA, as we got there we sat and started chit chatting about the most useless things on the planet with an excessive mentioning of words like pakka(joint) plate, line(of blow) and goli(ecstasy).
Upon further inspection I discovered that I had a goli from a long time ago in one of my jacket pockets. It was the Yellow Rolls Royce rumored to be one of the strongest pills in the (black) market in Lahore.
Between the useless banter while listening to music on usb speakers and unreliable Internet chatter started about going to someone’s studio where there is good sound. Tocadisco’s Welcome to Miami ‘set’ was playing and my friend had other ideas, after disregarding and toying with the idea we decided to make a move. The clock was ticking around 2 Am.
The drive from my apartment to imperial was like a discovery voyage as the recently ingested blow in copious amounts during our 45 minute stay at my apartment had started causing waves to say the least. After trial and error of various routes while clearly disregarding the Google maps route we were on the right track. The clock had gone down by another 35 minutes when we got there.
Our hosts were very nice people a couple who I later found out was engaged and appeared to be very happy in each others company. And then it struck me, it was life that was controlling me and not the other way round. In the course of three odd hours I went from wondering about what to eat to being in a studio with very high quality sound strobe lights and decent company. Magic may not be a word apt enough to describe the situation.
After smoking a couple of Pakkas(joints) and snorting a couple of lines each between the four of us as the hosts stressed on staying clean and did not partake. They instead offered to showcase their music mixing skills, a Numark mixer and monitor speakers showed that these guys were crafty so we agreed. At this point we decided to do a half and half of the pill, well I did my half and my friend being the nice guy he is decided to split his part with the others as they were already tripping and just needed a nominal dosage to reignite their buzz. The clock was ticking at 315 Am.
In my experience the level of excessive serotonin in your brain after a certain level leads to extreme simplification and behavior that is normally considered vile or unexpected. I find its most exhilarating description in an Anthony Browne article where he states
‘It makes you feel so positive about everyone and everything. You feel so open – you can talk to strangers like they are your closest friends. You feel so sensual, so tactile. I want to dance, dance, dance,’. ‘It’s the best, the most positive experience in my life. It’s life-enhancing.’
I started feeling it in my head after a while with the music becoming louder and more meaningful. I was cursing myself for not wearing my proper jacket as the hoodie seemed inadequate in that warm area. I pulled the hood down so my eyes were covered by it and I was not able to see anyone properly. The lights started dancing more brightly and I started moving to a rhythm which sounded better than any symphony I had ever heard.
The music became louder I saw everyone dancing on the floor for a while, everyone seemed so intune yet so unique in their own worlds. I felt a connection which was so real and yet so surprising as all of these people were the ones who I had just met except for my friend.
While some cherish what they have a few are always in pursuit of more, so while I was somewhere between cloud nine and nowhere someone pulled my shoulder, at first I thought it was nothing but as it intensified I had to pull myself back to see who it was. It was one of the ladies who wanted to know if there was something more that could make her happier.
She asked me if I have anything else that can be consumed so that she can get higher, honestly I could not see how that could have happened but being the nice guy that I was I offered her a joint which she happily took and started rolling it expertly while sitting next to me.
In no time the smoke was contaminating the air. The lights had started dimming as the trip of the half pill had started wearing off, resorting to the left over blow to get a kick or keep it going seemed only the most natural option.
The clock was now ticking at 5 am, we decided to make a leave from the studio and decided to go back where we were, over there a certain sense of mystery prevailed as Shariq wanted to leave with the girlies not too adamant on doing that. It was decided that Shariq would leave with the girls staying over.
Because of heavy partying the night before the girls seemed quite exhausted, one of them was courteous enough to ask me to come join her and we started a little chit chat about things, in the wake of the downer the topics under discussion were various and funny with no mention of the details required.
The ‘downer’ or the period of coming down from the overwhelming chemical changes in the brain is a rather indescribable feeling, it comes through as a deep sadness that eclipses you and you feel like you have lost everything that ever mattered. An overall state of being consumed utterly by a lack of energy and intensity.
The Drug Diary is a series of stories about the drug culture of Pakistan based on true events. Names of people and places have been changed to protect the identities of those involved.
