“This remarkable, sometimes incoherent transcript
illustrates a phantasmagoria of fear, terror, grief, exaltation and finally
breakdown. Its highlights have been compressed on this recording to make their
own disquieting points.” – Voyage 34.
Straining in the eerie environment of a single bedroom with
an attached kitchen and bath, the sounds found their way into my ears with one
word resonating clearly. Ingesting the saturated sugar cubes, the feeling was
way too exciting to be experienced. Standing on the cusp of reality, ready to
take a step into a phantasmagoria of a fresh new world of visions, the moment
was rife with the energy that would keep you on your toes all night long.
Yesterday someone bought a tumbler of coke, the plastic one
at the movies but didn’t feel like finishing the god damn thing. For some
reason it was stored in the fridge. Possibly to be drank a day later.
The sun rose up to brighten up the day and with it started Saturday.
Slow, yawning and progressing into the weekend. The time is now 8 am when my
eyes find light trickling in. The phone Is vibrating next to the bed and
uncannily enough I always sense a vibrating phone, no matter how inebriated or
dreamy I am at that moment. My hand reaches out on its own and the phone crawls
its way and nestles itself square on my left ear.
As soon as I pick up
the phone, I realize it’s my dad on the other end yelling for me to get back
home. Aah what a night it had been, leaving behind traces in its wake. There
are countless cigarette packs strewn all over with some alcohol on the floor
next to the fridge. There’s a big ass bucket I bought home from the NH7
weekender a week before which now serves as a king size ash tray.
Ash and cigarette buds have occupied the entirety of the
bucket with most of it threatening to spill on to the floor. And as luck would
have it, the alcohol on the floor spills out in a moment of ecstatic euphoria
that has began to seep slowly into the consciousness of the mind.
Right and wrong, stand empty. But as I have read and as I expected
the manifestation of this phantasmagoria isn’t as pronounced as I wished it to
be. The alcohol on the floor seeped slowly into it, soaked up by the floor. As my
perception alters, the floor disintegrates, separates and re aligns. It opens
up in 3D as a geometric entity that is separating and re aligning every second.
Derealisation sets in and the floor is suddenly fractal.
Going berserk with the music possibly, the geometric progressions multiply
somewhat like how you would imagine a niche watch video presenting in
fragments, each and every component of the watch in a 3D 360degree video ad.
Moments later, I step out for a smoke expecting the world to
present itself in colors unseen, in visions unviewed and in sounds, unheard. As
soon as I take a left for the lighter on the window sill, oblivious to the
happenings, or more accurately oblivious to our altered state of minds – I pick
it up and light my cigarette. As soon as the smoke gets soaked into my lungs I walk
to the other end of the lobby and start peering out of the window.
As soon as my eyesight falls on the road, my eyes draw
themselves to the wall im standing against. With cracks running across the wall
from the outside, I suddenly hear the drowning notes of a lady’s voice which
presents itself visually in my mind as a group of women standing and dancing in
unison with a positive feeling running around them.
As soon as I tune into the sound of ‘Room 23’ by Shpongle, the wall starts moving to the music with the cracks smoothing out and moments later reappearing as freshly inched lines all across the wall. Alternating between the two states, the wall becomes an ocean of yellow that’s flowing to the music.
Right at the far corner, my eyes are now transfixed on a drop of wax that might have been at the same spot since the last time the wall got painted. The drop immediately gets soaked back into its point of origination and starts pulsating to the music. The drop then goes on to slide down the wall to its current location and is full of life.
As soon as I tune into the sound of ‘Room 23’ by Shpongle, the wall starts moving to the music with the cracks smoothing out and moments later reappearing as freshly inched lines all across the wall. Alternating between the two states, the wall becomes an ocean of yellow that’s flowing to the music.
Right at the far corner, my eyes are now transfixed on a drop of wax that might have been at the same spot since the last time the wall got painted. The drop immediately gets soaked back into its point of origination and starts pulsating to the music. The drop then goes on to slide down the wall to its current location and is full of life.
With ripples across the drop, the wall is an ocean of paint
that joins the women in their chorus.
Fascinated by this, I try and look all around to sense if I see
something out of the usual. I remember the street right in front being flooded
by lights, as if some car was approaching.
This was quickly wiped off as a half baked thought as no car ever appeared. The building across the road has some light coming from every point, the architecture agreed in an angle. As soon as I look up to the building, the water tank on the top presents me with a portrait of a lady who looked strangely Victorian. The portrait was a classic image of a lady, possibly a helper at home, a bat woman.
This was quickly wiped off as a half baked thought as no car ever appeared. The building across the road has some light coming from every point, the architecture agreed in an angle. As soon as I look up to the building, the water tank on the top presents me with a portrait of a lady who looked strangely Victorian. The portrait was a classic image of a lady, possibly a helper at home, a bat woman.
Right after looking at it for a couple minutes, my eyes
proceeded further down and suddenly I felt the entire building move. The song playing
then was ‘Dread inn Babylon’ by Bluetech, and the building was moving in a ‘Rasta’
groove with vibes that felt assuringly calm. Right when I was jiving to the
groove with a building for company, the entire world stopped for a split second
when I felt that I was the center of the world at that moment. Exactly then I heard
a deep bass note take over my body from the head to the toe. The moment
subsided exactly 1 second later, with my sense of the environment fading into
the sound.
As soon as I took a step back, I went into the room and sat.
The weirdest bit would be me calling up Dominoes and ordering a pepperoni pizza,
later forgetting what to order on the side. The hunger had me at its mercy and my
mouth could only muster what it yearned for at the moment.
Half an hour later I was on the floor, sitting in the lobby starting to sink my teeth into molten cheese sitting pretty on a bed of tomato sauce and toppings. The plateau of the pepperoni slices were adorned with flakes of chili, made prettier by a dust of oregano- the pizza was ready to be relished.
A slice later, my senses came back to me with my stomach egging me on to dig my teeth into another slice. Right then was when I saw the unopened box of garlic bread sticks that felt like begging to me to be digested. I open the box and tear open the extra cheese along with. Dipping the breadsticks into the cheese, my taste buds were ecstatic with so much flavor oozing from every bite. Once the pizza was sitting pretty in my stomach, it was time for a smoke. But then again, as the moment would have it, a joint was lit and the cigarette was left untouched.
Half an hour later I was on the floor, sitting in the lobby starting to sink my teeth into molten cheese sitting pretty on a bed of tomato sauce and toppings. The plateau of the pepperoni slices were adorned with flakes of chili, made prettier by a dust of oregano- the pizza was ready to be relished.
A slice later, my senses came back to me with my stomach egging me on to dig my teeth into another slice. Right then was when I saw the unopened box of garlic bread sticks that felt like begging to me to be digested. I open the box and tear open the extra cheese along with. Dipping the breadsticks into the cheese, my taste buds were ecstatic with so much flavor oozing from every bite. Once the pizza was sitting pretty in my stomach, it was time for a smoke. But then again, as the moment would have it, a joint was lit and the cigarette was left untouched.
Clouds of thc laden smoke, flowed down my throat with
every puff pushing them in further. A certain silence made the moment special
with only more smoke waiting to be inhaled. With every drag, I expected a
blurring sense of time and space, but the affects never arrived.
I felt like I was at a train station, with a one way ticket
clutched in my hands. With not a soul around for company, the moment had me
inserted into an environment which only felt like I was a layer above the
image.
Shaking this off, I again went back into the room where the
mood had shifted to ambient sounds that were soothing to my ears. Slowly the
hours rolled by and a couple hours post the hallucinations, the journey was
coming to an end. Only some slight feeling of energy remained, while most of my
body were calling out to be rested. Lying on my bed, I thought of looking at
some images I had clicked a couple weeks before.
Some of these images were multi-exposure shots taken of the
Delhi metal project, wherein the keyboardists profile had been shot thrice and
burnt on the same image. With 3 of the images stacked up in layers, left right
and center – as soon as my eyes witnessed the image, the entire image came to
life.
The 3 layers seemed like a movie with so many unnoticed elements in the image springing to life.
The 3 layers seemed like a movie with so many unnoticed elements in the image springing to life.
These multi-exposure shots made me exclaim and feel so proud
about them being clicked by me. This moment of triumph was reassured to me by
the images that followed, which spoke of a completely different viewpoint to
the original work being viewed right then.
If you wish to see some of them, click here:
If you wish to see some of them, click here:
Each frame was 3D incorporating and bringing out vividly to
the eye, the various layers that went into this one image. Crossing my mind, it
occurred to me that the park would be a strangely unique environment to be in
right now. My friend guided me to the park and we discovered a whole new world
of people.
Sitting in the park, we both lit up individual cigarettes and took a walk around. As soon as I looked up, the trees formed faces that did not look comfortingly accepting. As soon as the thoughts manifested into the leaves, I only heard the word ‘friends’ reverberating in my head. The sound went on to drown out the visuals and immediately, the trees had smiling faces all over. I could see the bushes move and the trees become mammoth sized friends who were surrounding us as this one big universal family I could only visit in this world.
Sitting in the park, we both lit up individual cigarettes and took a walk around. As soon as I looked up, the trees formed faces that did not look comfortingly accepting. As soon as the thoughts manifested into the leaves, I only heard the word ‘friends’ reverberating in my head. The sound went on to drown out the visuals and immediately, the trees had smiling faces all over. I could see the bushes move and the trees become mammoth sized friends who were surrounding us as this one big universal family I could only visit in this world.
The realities blurred and twisted, and we thought it better
to go back to the room. Slowly as more and more hours passed by, the world
became a brighter, happier place. Not that the world I experienced for a matter
of a couple hours was unhappy, it was more like a utopian land. A land beyond
perception, blurring realities and presenting a visual, entity that allowed us
to enter, this world was all bright and all knowing. Shpongleland.
Slowly receding, the world winded up and the morning was out
on the streets, fresh and free. Slightly
disappointed since the world I expected did not really manifest in my eyes, the
experience was still quite moving in terms of physical reality and the sense of
space and time.
This unique voyage into the chasms of the mind, has only
paved the way to more missions into the unknown. While I recollect and revisit
these thoughts, a part of me has been absorbed by the room which only came to
us as an embracing home which gave us all the love it had. And then some.
To sum it up, I guess all this might only be incoherent to you but let me give you a frame of reference to guide your way in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdE8_xQzUxo
