For centuries, the consumption of addictive substances has been part of everyday life, especially during social occasions or religious festivals. In West Bengal, for instance, offering alcohol is an aspect of the ritual worship of Kali. In Ujjain, many pilgrims carry a bottle of alcohol to offer Shiva. Holi celebrations in north India are incomplete without a glass of ‘thandai’ steeped in bhang leaves. It is impossible to conceive of a Holi song in Bollywood without characters chugging a glass of bhang.
In his book Bhang Journeys (Speaking Tiger Books), poet and publisher Akshaya Bahibala, who, for 10 years (from 1998 to 2008), was in the grip of cannabis, describes his encounters with other fellow-travellers combining them with conversations and anecdotes to bring out the multidimensional nature of their lives. He does not consider them addicts.
Alienation no ‘solution’
“Growing up in Puri, I saw people having bhang lassi with sweets. In many religious practices, consuming bhang has been a reality for thousands of years in various parts of the country. Nobody questions it. We’ve been doing it in Trinath Melas in Odisha. In states such as Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, and West Bengal, smoking-up is a common practice in multiple religious festivals. Nobody questions that either. But once someone gets addicted, everyone starts questioning that individual without relating it to the socio-religious structure that often legitimises and sometimes inflates the culture of addiction,” says Bahibala, who is critical of societies that alienate an addict almost as if s/he is a freak.
However, the focus of the book is not society’s double standard in dealing with the ‘problem’ of addiction. Rather, it is to provide a raw depiction of the world of marijuana addicts, one the author was once a part of. From the Japanese woman, who was madly in love with an Indian fisherman, to the Austrian boy Ricky, who died a very lonely death nearly 6,500 km from home — all had a shared love for smoking-up.
Sad ends, new beginnings
Ricky, says Bahibala, was “an internet genius”. In the days of nascent internet connectivity in India, the Austrian dreamt of running a café in a land he had little understanding of. However, that did not prevent him from dreaming big for two reasons. He felt bolstered by joints and drink, and he had made a home with a woman who sold vegetables on the streets, and had a child with her. In pursuit of a secure future, he ventured to establish a café in Puri, convinced that the internet would change the world someday. His dreams were shattered —the local mafia took down his café. Bahibala does not explicitly write what follows except to say that he suffers a lonely death without proper medical attention and that his parents were unable to perform the last rites as the police cremated him in an unknown place.
The book also includes happier tales; not every story ends badly. There is the story of a British biker, a heavy cannabis smoker, a spendthrift, who keeps returning to the UK but can never remain put in one place. Drifting is the central story of his life. The biker’s story is much like that of the ‘Brahmin’ bhang seller — caste ‘pride’ is the bee in his bonnet. He draws on it even when selling addictive substances.
“Sir I am a Brahmin bhang shop owner. My father was a very reputed Brahmin of good social standing. I do not do anything wrong. I just sell pure bhang drinks. After selling 30 kilos of bhang, I make a small profit of Rs 15,000 or Rs 20,000 a month. Very difficult to manage a family of five with this, sir. Thank God, we are Brahmins and I can make some money doing pooja-path for marriages and other ceremonies. This is how we survive,” he tells the author.
Such ‘pride’ in his caste identity amazed Bahibala, who never expected it being connected to substances. Since the beginning, purity has been a part of the country’s food and cultural ecosystem with multiple castes taking pride in their respective practices. Nonetheless, the author had no idea the caste question would make an appearance in the world of addictions and someone would make profits by emphasising his caste identity.
The uncensored style
Bhang Journeys is a semi-autobiographical account of Bahibala’s experiences in the most honest and uncensored way possible. Not surprisingly, this book is written with no judgement on its many characters. Instead, Bahibala’s emphasis has been on portraying the psyche of those who take these substances. With several parts of his state Odisha (especially Puri) in the backdrop, the author shows how the consumption of bhang and marijuana has been an important aspect of people’s culture. With an endless list of experiences, the author wishes to keep depicting the social world of bhang.