attaining dreams

there are a lot of guys whom i like from my childhood: both real and protagonists from books that i love. they have affected the way i see the world and the way i actually am. in short, in one way or the other, they moulded me.

i read this book, the title of which could be loosely translated as `the black sheeps'. in it, the protagonist is not a `hero', but an average guy who spends his usually miserable life with his father and sister. he goes to cut his hair on a rainy day to a saloon which is crowded. like me, he also loves rain and started walking through it and once he is done with the walking part, its was time for the saloon to close. he forgets to cut his hair for the next some days. then his uncle, a well off guy, calls him home and gives him some money to cut his hair. our man feels offended, decides not to do so. his misery starts there.

for all in the society, he is a misfit; a hippie (it was written in the 70s). He gets really, really fucked in life for the simple reason that he got long hair. it was written in the prologue: ``once it was a crime to grow hair. this book is written at that time.'' the year was 1975, when the whole of the country's thinking youth could be divided into romantic naxals and dreaming hippies.

that caught on to me. i started to grow my hair. though the opposition was not as much as the protagonist faced, it was still bad. imagine a class C town/village where everyone points at you saying ``drug addict'' even before you have actually seen even marijuana. now i cannot picture myself with neatly cut hair and beard. its a political statement for me now.

but the tragedy is that other than looking like a badly pirated form of a hippie, i dont have any good things like ideas and dreams that they had.

the title of the first book that i read could be translated as `to the lap of himalayas', a travelogue. in it the author, a distant relative of mine (i make it a point to say it) goes up to the himalayas on foot. on the way, a tripper he is (and a real hippie), he smokes pot with every smoker he meets - sadhus, coolies and foreigners who are there to attain nirvana. i read the book when i was pretty young to understand what is weed. but once i realised what it actually is, i tried hard to get a a little stuff. when i got it and smoked for the first time, i knew that i'm gona be an addict. smoked for 6 years or so. now stands quit.

there are lots of them among my friends and relatives who are drunkards. i loved the way they trip on it, though i could never get the taste for liquor. and on top of that, i believed that weed and booze are mutually exclusive given the difference in the trip that they take you.

but i badly wanted to be an alcoholic for some reason.

now, after taking this as-long-as-possible break from weed, i drink brandy every night - mornings too if possible. i love the trip. unlike how i was earlier, i'm not violent after drinking. all i need to do to relax after a long day is to pour a drink into my coffee mug, mix some water and light a fag.

i love my dreams. they are so attainable..