back to life...and I live now

We talk about death so casually most often. “I can die for ….. (Anything that you prefer to die for)” is so easy for you to say when you are at the best of your health. But then you just say…..

I tell you, its not easy dying. And why on earth would you believe me?

Believe me or not. Take it as a joke, a prank or whatever, but its true…..I escaped death.

It was not easy, it was so painful. Not in terms of the physical pain…because that is what becomes easy for you to resist. But then at that very moment the mental pain is so intense with the feeling that you are gonna die, that any physical pain is very bearable.

I donno. May be I was in such an intense pain just because I want to live. But ya I now know one thing for sure. I love my life and don’t want to die so young or even “ever?”.

As most of you must be familiar, I fag. No it’s not cigarette that was the reason for that lifetime experience but in a way it is. It’s for you to decide.

So; a regular hectic day in the office. As usual 9:45 p.m. and I am out with one of my office mates unlocking the bike to get back home. Suddenly the chaiwala who has a shop in front of our office building comes to my fellow friend and hands over something folded in a white paper to him. This itself gets exciting with the fact that such a thing can never be something that’s sacred. So I ask my friend about the stuff. He describes it as weed. Weed; for people who don’t know is an herb that is taken as a drug for intoxication. It needs to be taken in controlled quantity or an overdose could take life, as it attacks the Central Nervous System. That is what happened with me.

You must be thinking so this is what the story is. But I don’t intend to tell you how this happened. What is important is the process of dying. The crux of the story is in those 4 hours when I gave up my hope and tried to even kill myself. That’s what this blog is about.

Moving ahead.

So I asked my friend to give me half of the drug as I had never tried this version before. This was actually getting exciting. So he shared more than half of the herb with me tearing the same paper into two pieces. I kept it in my pocket and left for home.

Reached home. Bhaiya was as usual watching a dubbed South Indian movie with funny action sequence going on. I asked him if he had his dinner. “Yes”, came the answer. Even I had dinner and said that I would be coming in a few minutes from the other flat where my friends reside. Its only a minute’s distance from Bhaiya’s flat.

Got in at friends’ place. Three of them there. Munnu Singh, Bhaaijaan and Hussaain bhaai. I showed the weed to Munnu. He was excited. Both of us started working on the weed. Preparing the final product takes some pain. After half an hour we had the weed nicely packed in two cigarettes and in “ready to use” mode. Only I and Munnu did all the fagging as the other two don’t smoke. In the whole process of fagging which was about 10 to 15 minutes, Munnu kept on boasting.

“Bekaar Maal Hai”
“Poona me zyada achcha milta hai.”
“Tumko banana nahi aata, saale.”
“Abe tum mujhe do mai banaau.”
“Abe yaar ek baar nahi kai baar li hai maine.”
“Yaar Avi Raina (his boss) Canada se mast quality lata tha.”
“Abe do yaar mai banaau.”
Bla...bla...bla...bla...

I was fed up. But as soon as he was half of what I had taken, his eyes started rolling and he started smiling. That was so funny. He was just smiling and then stood up like a zombie walking towards his bed in another room like a robot and finally falling on bed like a tree while deforestation. We were laughing at all this. I went to his room and started asking him about what he feels of the “Maal” now. With a smile on his face and his eyes closed he raises his hands and posing his fingers in the “mast” poise utters “bahut sahi hai be.zabarjast”. All of us laughed and then I brushed my mouth with toothpaste so that Bhaiya doesn’t get the odour. I also sprayed deo all around myself for the same reason, and walked back to home.

Starts the experience:

Very cool. I m walking and thinking about what Munnu was reacting like. I smiled thinking of the last time he smiled with his eyes closed and then I feel that I m also affected a bit. That very thought was what became the beginning. With that thought coming in my mind I thought of controlling myself as I had to face Bhaiya now. Thankfully I had the keys with me. So I went in the room without knocking or blowing off the bells. More thankfully Bhaiya is asleep in his room and there’s total darkness in the room. I try very hard to find my way towards my room. I now know that the drug has started working. Never in my life had my legs reacted like ‘hooligans in class who don’t obey their teacher’. But because at any cost I would not like my Bhaiya to know all this I am controlling myself. Well it’s not too hard as of now. But then it’s getting harder for sure.

I am in my room now and I switched the bathroom lights on. Then I think aloud, so kind of murmur to myself “kya yaar Rahul. Kya kar raha hai. Its cool. Control kar yaar”. But contol to abhi bahut tha. Aage to waat lagne waali thi. I try to wash my face but the water won’t come out of the tap. I then went to the other tap. I turn the knob around and then I remember that I didn’t turn the knob of the other tap and that’s why the water is not coming. So I come back to the older one while the other one is gushing out water. Now when I analyze all this in a sec, I feel that ‘now you are gone man’. You are heavily intoxicated. Anyhow I manage to come out of the bathroom after washing my face and noticing what am I looking like. Not a big change. Just that my eyes are burning red and eyelids are half closed. I come on to my bed and lie. But then this was like I took a plunge into “nowhere”. I don’t know what to think, I m getting blank and then suddenly I hear loud noises, like an earthquake, volcano erupting, and suddenly a face with all white paint on her face with blue eyes. I am afraid. I say “Rahul this is just happening because you are intoxicated. Think something good man.” Then for a moment there is silence utter silence. I try thinking about Mom and Dad, so that I may also emotionally black mail my ‘inner beast’ that’s eager to come out by now and make me do all what he wants. So I try thinking about my parents. But then the silence is embedded by a very slow squeaking sound. It’s getting louder gradually. It’s like the sound of train horn which is coming closer. And it’s not ending. I am not able to store any thought in my mind. I am restless. A bad thought then suddenly another one and then another one….. Ugly faces…. All the people whom I hate… an old lady who is looking at me… and suddenly in between, ‘one of my best friends?’….. What is this? Why a good image in the midst of a long chain of bad things and then again a long bad chain of thoughts… No relevance with each other. All different. But most of the times; thoughts that I have always avoided enter my mind. I am not a believer of ghosts but then even the faces of the people coming in the chain seems like ghosh faces. I try very hard to stop thinking. Provoke myself to think of flowers, sky, colour. But in few seconds the flowers change to ugly looking babies with six irregular heads, the sky changes to barren land with deep cracks, the color becomes swamp and I don’t even want to stop thinking of the bad things now. Its becoming more clearer. I am very evil it seems. Then at a point Bhaiya’s thought comes in my mind and I sit on my bed. I say “abe Idiot kya kiya ye tune. Kya ho raha hai tujhe. Kuchh bhi karna, lekin ye zroor dhyan me rakhna ki Bhaiya  ko pata nahi chalna chahiye ye sab.” For half a minute I am OK. But then Only for “half a minute”.

Now the physical effect:

Have you ever felt your nails normally. I felt them. I felt my hairs. It felt like all the cells in my body have started some conspiracy against me and are shifting positions. I could feel millions of small, infact microscopic movements in my body. It was: “I don’t know; amazing or bad”. Could not decide. I was restless. I was so restless that I started moving to and fro on my bed. I was sitting and moving front and back. You may have noticed people when some bad spirits enter them. It was exactly the same. I was moving and repeating “ Bhagwan… Bhagwan… Bhagwan… Bhagwan…” coz at that time I could only think of him and no one else. But then suddenly I started thinking that if I act like this, I will remind myself that I am under influence of the weed and am not OK. So I need to come out of that. Therefore I decided not to move. And suddenly STATIC. I didn’t move I was just thinking of the consequences that may arise later in the night. Even that did not stay long in my head as I already told you that I was not able to keep a thought in my mind for long. My mind moving at a speed of millions of kmph but body did not even move to an inch for about ten minutes. And then again there came a series of chains of thoughts. I now felt that I should go to friends’ place and then ask them to take me to doctor. Now thinking of that reminded me of Munnu who was also under affect. What’s his position now? Is he Ok? This made me more restless. Now again I think of steps Involved in going to their room. No but I can’t go because Bhaiya will wake up at the slightest sound and then I would not be able to stop myself and then worse things will happen….Along with all this there are those faces and ugly things returning again and again in my mind. Now you can get a clue that how fast things are running inside the grey matter. I am sure even Albert Einstein could not have made his mind run so fast like mine. To worsen things in that situation I thought music would help but then lemme check for some lemon first. Lemon is a good anti intoxicant. I crawled to the kitchen to maintain full silence. Very hardly managed to get the lemon out and cut it to two pieces. I had that whole lemon juice in five minutes directly without any water and just the acidic taste. I plugged in the earphones in my ears for music to take over the effect. But the first song was like some thing that I have never heard before. It was some alien language and gradually inaudible, and shockingly again audible at the next moment. Audible and then Inaudible. This then what I figured out, was my heart beat, which was like the base drums of the music. The other sounds were only audible when the Base drum was not played in the song. And my heart was what I could hear even after all this. I could feel my heart running. It was pumping blood at an amazing speed. And this is very true. I could feel my blood gushing in my body so fast. I was afraid now. What if the blood pressure is so high that the body could not cope with it that means an attack. A heart attack. This made me more uncomfortable. I suddenly started feeling pain in my fingers. And then my hands. And then my stomach and then …..my HEART. An intense pain. I tried to pinch my self to overcome that pain. But the pinch was not even felt. The heart was pumping about 2 to 3 times in a second and I was listening to all of it. I then felt for the first time…..i m dying….

I havn’t felt such a pain in my life. Its something that I can’t express. It was actually not very painful to be honest. Just that I dint like it. It was such a pain that I just thought of giving it up. I got up once again to give it a last try. Tried thinking other things. But you see no help. I went to Bhaiya’s room. I was at the door and felt like going in and saying “ Hospital le chalo. Mai mar raha hu”.  Then again the same thought “Abe Bhaiya ko mat utha Idiot. Mom, Dad ko pata chalega to kya hoga? Lekin Kal tu mara hua milega to kya hoga? Bhaiya ko kaisa shock lagega? Doston ka kya hoga? Are munnu kaisa hai? Kahin wo to .....” this is how the process was. One thing to other. But thinking of the same things I walked with my sleeperless feet for half an hour. I kept walking from one room to another. Then I started crying. Coz all through this, my heart’s pain and the thought of dying covered me. I started crying with only tears in my eyes. I am dying. Tonight is the last night. I held my hands up and then decided to twist my neck with my own hands so that I get a better death. I did not want such a restless and painful death. But this voice held me doing it every time “think of your Mom and Dad Rahul, Think of your friends, Think of your Bhaiya, Think of people whom you love, think of People who love you….don’t die. Try. Try once more”. I decided to sleep. Either the next morning I’ll overcome this intense pain or there’s no morning for me…..I sat on my palm so that I keep myself in control and don’t twist off my neck. I plugged in the earphone again. Things were getting black. Thoughts still running in my mind, I lay down. Kept on telling myself that I won’t create a scene, whatever happens. Bhaiya should not wake up.

I closed my eyes wondering if they will reopen ever.
The pain was no less, no more.
Mind was not working.
But eyes were closing.

The Central Nervous System was nearing a breakdown.
I thought I was dying.
I stopped breathing…..
The iPod was at its loudest but not audible to me…
The heart was so fast that I felt that blood is just going to ooze out of my nose and eyes….

I was now very calm….ready to die.

“Oye saale haar gaya? Jaa apna chehra dhoke aa”

Heard these words like some one has directly hammered me on the head and was shouting these words in my ears.

I got up at once.
I am not dying.
I won’t cry.
I want to live.
I WILL live.

I got up and washed my face, closed my eyes and saw a few faces. Maa, Paa, Bhaiya, Bhaai, Munnu, Yusuf bhaai, and every one in my life, whom I love. Because of whom I want to be here on this earth. Who will really be sad when I die. I won’t make them sad. They were revolving in my mind one after another. All smiling like angels. I will live… I will live…..

The happiest day in my life was the next morning. I heard my Bhaiya saying in his same old tone “office nahi jaana hai kya?”. I opened my eyes. I was alive. My heart in my control. Normal.

I felt like kissing my Bhaiya and hugging him.
I thanked God.

I am alive……..

The reasons are:
1. Bhaiya’s presence: If he was not there in the house. I would not have had control or the desire to control myself. That would have increased my excitement and restlessness and I would have surely had a major Heart Attack, which I was very close to.
2. My parents and my friends: They are why I want to live. They are why I fought to live. They are why… I am living.
3. The voice: I always used to think “Yaar ye logo kaise apne mann se bolte hai ki ek shaitaan hota hai aur ek achcha angel. Shaitaan bas ulta kaam karta hai aur angel sahi kaam karwata hai.” You know this is true. I had that demon that was showing me all the ugly faces and giving me reasons to die. It actually was over me and my mind throughout 97% of the horrible time. But the voice that came to give me reasons to live was the better part of me, the angel. Both reside within us. But you chose who wins. I chose angel (the good one)…so I live….

One thing that I have learnt is respect life….enjoy it.
I may sound preachy, but live and let live.
Love everyone. Do as much good as you can do.
Because that is what will give you reasons and power to fight when required.

I love you all and I am still alive because I know you love me too…………….