I relinquish. My eyes are my enemy.

Prologue

" I was taking notes at a fantastic rock-n-roll concert going on in my head "

- Morrison

(telling his future band mate that he had been writing songs) 

Six to seven years ago, I asked the most important and revered person of my life an out of the blue question. I asked him, why Gods were always depicted with half open eyes.

He smiled an omniscient smile and said that it was a very good question, but didn't answer. That question remained etched in my mind and a few years later I asked him the same question again. He asked me to sit in front of him and to listen carefully. He said, that when Gods meditate, they keep their mind impervious to all distractions and for this reason they choose to keep their eyes half closed. I asked the next obvious question that, what stopped them from closing their eyes completely, to which he smiled again and jokingly asked, "what if  they fell asleep?", but soon with a serious tone said that the reason why they left their eyes half open was that the Gods need to keep a keen vigil upon the universe and they don't risk taking their eyes off it. It all instantaneously made sense to me and every moment of that conversation got etched in my mind.

Circa: yesterday-2012

The day began in a familiar manner, with me suppressing my incomplete sleep due to the midnight travel from Bangalore to Chennai, to get ready for office at 9 a.m. and subsequently returned a little tired, but happy nonetheless at 8p.m. My new room mate came in shortly after and told that his birthday had just passed by last week and that there was a major party in our flat, fueled by beer and joints, and that I missed out a lot as I was out of station. Curious about the 'joints' part, I wished him a belated birthday and inquired how he managed to get them and not to my surprise, he said that one of our flatmates had access.

The faintest trace of an age old wish resurfaced in my mind. The wish to try out Marijuana and see what all the fuss was about. I was absolutely sure of myself that I could just stave off my high in a blink, because I had an impermeable control of my head, and I wanted to test my will. So, off I went to cajole my flat mate, whom I had never spoken to, along with my roomie to let me in on his stash. The guy agreed and made me, what my roommate called, a 'small joint'. I was impressed by the guy's skill, the joint had the aesthetics of a piece of art. He passed the final 'piece' along with a lighter. My roomie asked me to light it and I didn't give the occasion too much hype, but I was very visibly a complete noob, at lighting it. The guy noticed my struggle, even though I faked the panache of taking the joint to my lips, and to my displeasure he sympathetically said "You've never lit a cigarette, have you?". I wanted to protest at his false allegation, but chose to keep mum and proceeded to light the joint with the lighter, but much to my pleasure the other person sitting there suggested that I light it in the balcony as it'd get very smoky inside.

After getting aid in lighting the joint, I keenly took a few puffs, and coughed loudly soon after. My roomie said that I was doing it wrong. I dropped all my pretensions and openly asked my roomie, about how I was supposed to 'take' the joint. He said that once I took the smoke in, I needed to take a short breath through my mouth, while making the "ssssss" sound. I tried it his was and SUDDENLY THERE WAS A BIG EXPLOSION IN MY HEAD. I voluntarily stopped thinking. Another drag. "Sssss". Peace. Silence. ANOTHER EXPLOSION IN MY HEAD. I, still cynical, told myself "huh! That's nice. Heh, nothing I can't shrug off.". The flat mate took the piece and took a drag himself. I felt kinda grossed out at the lack of hygiene," Wtf! I didn't know this had to be shared!". But I gave in with a 'whatever' shrug. After a couple of drags, shares and EXPLOSIONS, I realized that I was laughing. The flatmate noticed and looked at my roommate, with a 'haha! it has started' smile. My confidence still strong, I declared.."I'm normal........haha. *Pffbbth* ". With the joint done I walked back to my room with my eyes droopier than usual. I sat up an tried watching the Tv, but I noticed that there was a giant tunnel inside me, from my lungs to my brain with an opening at my mouth. I felt I was under a giant thumb, getting pummeled into the bed. I was looking at myself in first person view, but as if  a frosted glass was in front of my eyes.

There was a pressure of sorts on my chest, as I said, I had the feeling that I was being squished into my bed by a giant thumb, but trying to retain logic, I realized that I hadn't inhaled air and my breathing was slow, deep and intense. This made me laugh. I was now laughing for nothing. Nothing at all. It was involuntary, like a twitch. My roomie laughed and said to my other roommate that "He's OUT!!". I protested, while my roommates sat grinning.

Five minutes in, I was OUTT but still thought I had THE WILL. I lay my head down and thought that I was fighting the high, but soon realized that my fight was my hallucination and was the high in itself. Upon seeing this, I relinquished 'control' and I let the giant thumb squish my rib cage to pulp. SQUEEEEZE and everything is okay. The giant thumb has vanished. But the remnants of my logical mind said to me that I had just inhaled. I let go and closed my eyes. My head was light, I thought to myself "fuck control....I'm gonna enjoy this moment!" and plugged in my earphones to play some 'Kashmir - Led Zep'
.

SQUEEEEEEEZE DID THE UNSTOPPABLE FORCE FROM THE ALMIGHTY THUMB. My mind had a mind of its own and was twisting inside my skull. My closed eyes were like my personal theater screens, showing me the most random motifs and abstract images, which all seemed old yet familiar. The riffs of Jimmy Page were making my soul twist, the bass plucks of John Paul Jones was like pebbles being dropped in the ocean in my heart that contained my soul, every drum beat by John Bonham was making me writhe in pleasure. The constant chatter of the Tv and of my roommates was annoying and I asked them to "let me be!". I was self conscious because I thought they were poking fun at my 'condition' but realized that it too was a hallucination as one was almost asleep and the other was working on his laptop. I requested them to switch off the light as it was interfering. My feet and toes too had a mind of their own and were stretching, twisting and twinging randomly at the beat of music. 

Interestingly, I noticed that whenever I opened my eyes, my high diluted and the presence of other people annoyed me because I felt I wasn't left to my own tools.

I thought I wasn't supposed to get this high and might die, but was unable to give a flying fuck, and " HAHA BITCH!" was all that I could manage to say. 3 hours passed with Led Zep and The Doors.I think I drifted to sleep with my earphones still on and woke up suddenly to the pain in my ears. Tore away the head phones and was OUTT again for the rest of the night.

Epilogue

The reason I talked about the event in the prologue was to bring to surface a, now tested, fact that although what you see is what you get, but there's more to the bounty than that your eyes let you loot.

I always had told myself that I'd smoke up in the company of someone special, preferably of an opposite gender, not because of the probability of invoking carnal intentions, but just to make the moment memorable. But yesterday was me saying "BALLS TO YOU" to myself because I didn't know that I'd like my high better in a completely opposite way, alone, just how a friend had told me, not all that long ago.

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZE.

Sometimes you can't...

Breathe easy. \/

-Askios

Nature.

So you built your houses, harvested your food,

earned your wealth and bore your brood.

You sold your sweat, and tears for a cost,

never a thought to the one who really lost.

Now as you rest in your final recline,

With empty hearts, hands that never declined,

The hour has come, to repay your debt,

I am Nature, you owe me a death.

-Askios

Bandwidth.

Does anyone remember my old post about my experience with my fellow traveler on a train trip?
Well, yesterday saw history repeat itself, but with a mild twist. Read on..

It was my nth trip back from Bangalore to Chennai in the 6 a.m. train, and in all those journeys, I had realized that the probability of a good looking chick sitting next to you was as big as that of a T-rex inviting you for tea and cakes. Therefore, I found myself laughing at me for even entertaining that thought while boarding the train.

Looking for 'Seat no. 16.- Window seat', I quickly found to my dismay that it in fact was the 'Middle Seat' and the discomforting image of me fighting a proxy war with my co-passenger for the arm rests, instantly flashed in the back of my mind. While looking for luggage space I saw that there was just this lady sitting in the window seat, with the aisle seat unoccupied. I couldn't look at her face as she was reading 'The Time Traveler's Wife' and her hair was covering her face. I thought to myself, "Hmmm...could it possibly be that this lady here is in fact a C.H.I.C.K ? No way!", and quickly occupied my seat, lest the person in the aisle seat were to turn up and claim my dearest arm-rest. Upon successfully claiming the disputed territory and with mild irritation, due to the lack of information about my seat mate's face, I decided to plug myself into Led Zeppelin world. While I sat there connecting the end of earphones into my phone, I caught a glance of the lady's left arm adorned with a 'Fossil' watch, with her face still hidden, and I thought to myself.."Well...Rich? - Check. Good looking? - Insufficient data". From there on, due to my extreme force of habit, my eyes directly shot down at her feet. I saw feet looking like those of a lady belonging to the North, with slightly chipped nail paint and two toe rings one on each foot, wearing those big purple floaters with rounded white edges that made the footwear look very comfortable.

With all the right signs and the train starting to chug along, I finally decided to probe a little further to get a glimpse of the lady's face, and to my EXTREME PLEASURE...she turned out to be BEAUTIFUL!
"JACKPOT!", a happy man yelled in my head. She was beautiful, with her rimless specs making her look sophisticated and her tiny nose ring accentuating her lips. But just as soon as I celebrated my pleasant surprise, I was faced with the daunting task of initiating a conversation with a complete, and beautiful stranger from the opposite sex. I kept sampling, ice breakers like.. "Hey that's a nice watch!"...."naah...that works with Tattoos...not watches"...."how about........Hey, are you going to Chennai?"....."NO FUCKTARD, THIS TRAIN GOES TO MARS!!......eeeeugh....lame.". Meanwhile the train attendants came along distributing news papers. I got a lame newspaper and read it in 30 seconds and went back to the drawing board to figure out a decent ice breaker. After a couple of minutes, I saw her fold her paper very neatly and something instantly clicked..I asked her if I could borrow her newspaper as mine was all about celebrities, and she managed to breathe a silent "Sure". I said to myself "Contact ESTABLISHED! "

After 5 min when I mustered up enough courage to try again, I asked her "So...you travel to Chennai often?" and her tone was encouraging enough for me to continue pursuing. Thereon, past the perfunctory introductions, the conversation went on towards work, where she told me that she was working for an Indian MNC and how she was an IT Consultant and was traveling to Chennai for just a few days for a workshop. I asked how long had she been in Bangalore and where she was from. To my little dismay, the reply I got was "Well...my husband and I..*blank* Lucknow...*blank*" and the rest of the sentence was a big blank. Quickly back to reality I asked her if that was the reason why she was wearing toe rings and promptly she confirmed. Deep inside my head, once the world's happiest man groaned, "There goes my plan to go ask the lady out for a drink/dinner/coffee".

Like all my casual conversations, this one landed up on random topics like 'Life', 'Philosophy' and lame stuff like that. I was reminded of my old conversation with the mother of a 15 year old, so hoping to find this young lady, who looked in mid-to late 20's, to be like her, I asked her about her drinking. And not surprisingly she turned out to be a teetotaler who had 'tried liquor' . A little disappointed, I asked her what she liked doing in her free time and again to my dismay she said "Reading and Stitching". She seemed like a boxed up, career oriented and highly ambitious person, who kept lists of everything that was needed to 'execute' the day. We endlessly talked about Liquor and it's 'philosophical' dealings ( 'blades' to some ;D )
and how one must to be 'multi-dimensional' and stuff, whatever that meant. She was clearly a woman of her own making and I got a feeling that her image of me would be that of a donkey with a french beard.

At one point, I asked her if she was fond of writing and if she ever wrote anything. She said that she loved writing and it was her dream to write a novel. I asked her what was stopping her and to my amazement came the reply.."It's my retirement plan, currently I don't get the Bandwidth to do all that.".  It was as if my nuts were kicked into my throat. "Bandwidth??? Seriously??? Man!", was all I could say.

It's funny how different, people are. One- a mother, who used the 'f' word, smoked up, talked about introducing her child to alcohol and kicked some serious ass. and the Other- a young woman in mid-late 20's, liked to read and stitch. WEIRD DUDE!

I finally turned to look at my other seat and it still was unoccupied. After a couple of hours silence, I asked her where she was going in Chennai, and to my surprise, her destination was a few kilometers away from where I had to go and I told her that. To my extreme surprised she offered me a lift, as her office was going to book her a taxi and she didn't know the language or the directions. I gladly accepted but on the condition that "only if she didn't mind!", just to not be imposing, and she didn't. I said to myself.."Alright! On any other occasion this would have been some awesome progress, with an unmarried chick! Dammit! LUCK..I will get you for this!".

GOD I WROTE SO MUCH........I'M BORED......YOU FOLKS OBVIOUSLY MUST BE TOO.

OK OK.
Breathe Easy. \/
- Askios