Life After Death

Life After Death
No, this is not something that i have heard in some temple. Its my first hand experience of dying, this holi.
Let me start from the very begining(which is not very relevant to the topic). I have my exams within four days and one day of the four days is holi. So, I took some time to decide that I m going to play and let go of one precious day. To make for it - I studied the whole of previous night and decided to sleep only after getting exhausted.
So it began. At 9:30 a.m., two of my friends came to my room. We exchanged some gulal-hugs-wishes and thus it all started in a very peaceful way. Then we went to some other hostels and wished other people and formed a group of atleast 40 enthusiatic guys. All the screaming bunch went to the mud pool that was made in a corner especially for this occasion. One by one everyone was thrown into the pool and was mixed with mud untill he was no longer spotted. Receiving the thrown mud balls was indeed painful. It did hurt. So we played an organic holi. And then one immature fellow did the mistake and all had to pay for his sin. He ripped of one guys kurta and in a minute or so, all had become topless.Then began some innovative games namely bitch slap, aadivasi dance, fashion show, blah blah blah... Lunch time arrived and as a near ritual, we went to the 'Faculty House' to eat. One good thing about it- there were girls. It all began again but with colour instead of mud and thandai instead of water. To add more fun, one miss played dholak and we matched the beats with songs and dance for almost 15 minutes. It was a desrving end to the awesome holi that i had enjoyed. We came back to our hostel, all tired and wanting to sleep. It was the best holi of my life uptill now.
On our way back someone offered me one glass of thandai and asked me not to drink more than one. It was BHANG. Now after knowing that I had drunk bhang and i might get 'high', i drank one more glass to change the "might" with "will". I wanted to get 'high'.
It is said that bhang's effects occur after 1-2 hours.So, meanwhile i took bath and sat down with friends waiting for the bhang to show its effects. After 2 hours, suddenly we started laughing and continued to laugh for about fifteen minutes. And we thought that was it. And to our disappointment it was not like what we had expected, it was much less.
So, we blamed those who had made the thandai, for over-diluting it. Life came back to routine. Feeling hungry we went to Mac Donalds and ate 2 burgers each. Came back and started watching a movie. After about 20 minutes, I suddenly felt that i could only see the scenes but could not listen to a single word and the next second my eyelids dropped and now i could 'feel' the music and i could listen to every single word like someone was speaking sitting inside my head. In a reflex I opened my eyes. I paused for a moment to balance myself but what i felt thereafter became the most (not one of the most) horrifying experience of my life. My heart rate was over 150, i was sweating and palpitating. It was 4 hours after i had drank bhang so it could not be due to it. I went out to one post-intern's(a licensed doctor) room and my first question was: " Am i having myocardial infarction (heart attack) or is it bhang?". Thankfully I was told that it was bhang but I, myself, was not assured. I came back to the room - rested myself on bed and made no movements in order to decrease the workload on my heart i.e. to reduce my heart rate. One bad thing about learning medicine is that I knew what could happen next, next to tachycardia. And so i was more worried. I tried to avoid rise in my blood pressure enough to cause hemorrhage inside my brain- i rested my head on three pillows to raise the level of my head. All in vain, my heart was racing like never before and i was having a throbbing headache now. I was also hyperthermic breathing out hot air which i sensed was burning my oral cavity. Simultaneously walls of the room started to produce music and i could see them moving in and out with every single beat. I was hallucinating!! I checked my heart rate again, but to no respite it was still over 150. My mouth had dried and i felt like i was choking. I tried to say something and was so relieved that i could still speak. Then I felt like my lungs aren't working and I m breathing only uptill my neck. The breathless progressed and finally I was only filling my mouth like balloon and emptying it. Oh wait! i had nothing below my head- no trunk or legs or hands, I was numb. Then after minutes of trying i started to feel my feet. And so i had feet and head but nothing in between. My restlessness-hyperthermia-tachycardia-sweating-hallucinations-dysnea-apnea-numbness, all pointed that I was dying.I was so sure of my death that I wanted to call mummy and say sorry for my deed. I could picture her crying over my dead-body and spending the rest of her life in pain over my death. I could also picture other people telling her that I had died of drug overdose and that they(my parents) had sent me to college to become a doctor and I had become an druggie. I was so ashamed of myself. Not sure why, but i didn't call her. But still, I was sure of my death. Every symptom worsened with time and after I took my last intentional breath, i thought i was dead.....I had died.

After some 4 hours later, I was woken up by a friend. I re-checked if i was alive. I was very very happy of being alive. I thanked God as if he had given me another life. I was still having some headache but my heart rate had dropped, a great relief. I went outside to appreciate "life". I was still feeling music in an awesome way, i could feel the beats in my head- the only one good thing about bhang. Later, I went on a long drive on motorcycle with some songs playing in my head, oh yes, I was having fun - was enjoying my re-birth.
But i still can't believe that it was only bhang that took me near death and gave me a jugdement day kind of experience. Once having had the experience, I would never try it again and i wish no one else tries. BHANG IS BAD.