Sunday, March 7, 2010

My experiment with "bhang" on holi


Motivation:

Indian IT's poster boy Infosys didn't (doesn't) declare holiday on Indian festival holi. Me and my friends were in no mood of going to office on the day of colors. So once it was decided that none of us is going to office; next step was to have a plan to celebrate... so thought of  having some drinks & the day being holi bhang was the obvious choice...

Preparations:

First of all we bought two packets of bhang for 100rs. each from a local panvadi (betel leaf shop). Though the wise man told us that one pack was sufficient for as many as 5 people, we were just over excited and bought two though we were only four guys.
Bhang is not supposed to be eaten raw or smoked.. it needs to be mixed with solvents such as thandai or milk. We bought 6 liters of thandai
Just when we thought the preparations were over, wisest of the friends suggested to have some sugar sweets so that bhang hits faster, bought 1 kg of sugar coated rasgullas...
Returned home with all the items ... and here comes another expert advice(it  really proved to be life saver)...after having bhang one feels like starving so need to order lots of food. Food should arrive by the time we start drinking so lots of food was ordered as well...

Execution:
Once the chilled bhang ki thandai was ready everyone started having.  I was a bit excited since whenever I had it before it never hit me. Also I was one of those guys who have enough alcohol in their veins and strongly believed that the effects like “continuously laughing or crying” or “feeling in air ” or “feeling heaven” etc etc.. are just not possible. “I was wrong”.
So we were having glass after glass but it didn’t hit ... almost after 45-60 minutes one of the guys started feeling something and looking at him I thought of having one more glass along with sweet to get it done this time... and IT DID HIT...

Bhang effects:

So what happened exactly...
It started with laughing... lots of laughs ...until one of the friends started crying saying he needs to goto office tomorrow ... he was too worried that literally tears were dropping from his eyes...
I remember till then only about others after which I started feeling strange...

I felt as if I was continuously being put back and forth between two parallel universe(sounds hilarious now)... basically two parallel levels .. in the one there were friends around me in other one I was alone.. I was not able to differentiate between the real and the virtual, the conscious and sub conscious.. I was unable to exactly comprehend that if I am saying something is it that I am really saying to others or its just that I was thinking in my mind...
It Lead me to a situation where I was continuously explaining to my friends what is that I am feeling... only point was I kept repeating since I was not sure whether I was really saying or just thinking... whether friends were there and they were listening OR they were not there ... anyways ... I can recall the most hilarious thing I said to one of the friends was “please tie my hands and legs , otherwise I may jump over the balcony or do something else ”.. he didn’t tie me.. he slept ...

Effects In a nutshell:

  • Ability to distinguish between the thoughts and actual statements is affected a lot... this was the most common effect among us.
  • Continuously Laughing and crying
  • Makes you s...l...o...w... very slow...
  • Feels hungry very hungry...
  • Everything is temporary but its scary....
  • Very large quantity can lead to serious incidents.
  • If you will have a good amount of it e.g. 6 glasses(my case) of dense thandai-bhang. You will not be the one enjoying... others will be enjoying.. you will feel like just get over it ASAP.
  • Two of the friends felt like they were characters in some comics.
  • You can recall everything later about yourself.
  • Its clean..you won't feel like vomiting...

Lesson learnt:

  • Have small quantity if you must , may be just 1-2 glasses.
  • It takes time to hit you, almost 45-60 miutes.
  • If you will have a good amount of it e.g. 6 glasses(my case) of dense thandai-bhang. You will not be the one enjoying... others will be enjoying.. you will feel like just get over it ASAP.

Glossary:

Bhang:   A preparation from the leaves and flowers (buds) of the female cannabis plant, consumed in the Indian subcontinent. It is consumed as a beverage."  

Thandai: A cold beverage prepared with almonds, spices, milk and sugar

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