Up with Hope, Down with Dope

Up with Hope, down with dope.
You always want to know how it feels when you are down with dope, “Stoned”! The curiosity of what doing drugs feels like. Similar thoughts were running through my mind when I had read Karan Bajaj’s – Keep off the grass. An excerpt from the book –
Keep Off The Grass is about a brilliant 25 year old Non Resident Indian (NRI), who is stuck with an identity crisis. A Yale graduate who makes half a million every year as an investment banker at Wall Street, Samrat Ratan chooses to return to India to discover his roots,happiness, and everything else that seems elusive. His quest in his homeland starts with one of the most popular business schools in India.  Contrary to the person he was before he enrolled himself into the B School, his grades and self-esteem fall as he gets high on marijuana frequently. His life becomes nothing less than a roller-coaster ride thereon.
Samrat remains perpetually stoned and experiences bizarre adventures, including sharing a smoke with and being almost consumed by flesh-eating Aghori saints on the banks of the river Ganges in Benares. Yes it has all the factors or the driving force – an MBA degree plus identity crisis, money, search for happiness, incidents which make you avert from the real life to a life of a druggist. The herb is healing the nation – Cannabis has been used in a religious and spiritual context in India since the Vedic period, Greek mythology mentioned about powerful drug that eliminated anguish and sorrow. But, nobody told Shiva the ambassador of marijuana had supreme powers which a normal human being cannot attain. Nobody told the druggist that the drug they are buying is messing up with their body, mind and of course hurting their wallet.
We need to understand “Why people take drugs?” Consider the socially reinforcing nature of drug use. People use drugs socially because it’s a shared activity and makes them part of a group – they get happiness using the drugs. It is sad that people have to rely on external substances to make them an individual in a group or keep them happy.
I certainly do not wish ever to dope. I live on hope that others as well don’t do it.
Up with Hope, down with dope. Life will cope, just hand me the dope.
I never felt so relaxed, but I was cutting down my life with an axe.
I realized this bitter truth, before it was too late. Or I would have been standing at Hell’s gate.

Saurabh MBA(ITBM) SCIT 2013-2015