Bhang Journeys

For ten years, from 1998 to 2008, Akshaya Bahibala was in the grip of bhang,of ganja-drinking it, smoking it, experiencing the highs and lows of anaddict on Puri's beaches with hippies, backpackers and drop-outs fromFrance and Japan, Italy and Norway. Then he drew back from the edge andtried to make a life, working as a waiter, a salesman, a bookseller. He startsthis journal-cum-travel book with startling, fragmented memories of his lostdecade. From these, he moves to stories about people across Odisha whoselives revolve around ganja-bhang-opium. There is the owner of a governmentapprovedbhang shop who takes pride in selling the purest bhang available andinsists it can make people as forgiving and non-violent as Jesus. The opiumcutter who learned as a boy how to massage a lump of opium with mustardoil and carve it into little tablets. The girl who survived cholera by lickingopium and became a lifelong addict. The goldsmith whose opium de-addictioncard entitles him to 20 grams a month, but who wishes it were 25. The ganjafarmer who came from Punjab in a helicopter. A young man, a victim of ganjaand-bhang-fuelled paranoia, who believes Indian and American spies are outto get him. Excise department men who go to destroy ganja plantations andare beaten up by angry villagers. Interspersed with these stories are officialdata on opium produced, seized and destroyed; UN reports on the medicinalproperties of cannabis; and a veteran's recipes for bhang laddoos and sharbat.Full of surprises, utterly distinctive, this entertaining, often trippy book ofmemories, journeys, facts and figures about the popular intoxicant is both acelebration and a warning.