And as I see it, the characters began with the drug abuse for fun and slowly as they fall victim to the addictive nature of the drug to hide from the miseries of life.
A scene from 'Requiem for a dream'
Harry is sitting in the cab, he has just visited his mother, who is on diet pills and he has discovered to his horror that the pills are in fact coke, he knows this after he observes her teeth chattering on its own, a sure sign of coke consumption, he being a junkie himself. He tries to convince her to get off the drug but she refuses in a tearful state, she is possessed by an idea to lose weight and fit into her red dress and appear in a television show. With all that she suddenly feels a meaning to her life, all the attention from her friends and the desire to look good in her red dress. What is he to do? force her to give it up? deny her happiness even if she has found it through a dark channel, something that he himself has got caught deep into? He runs out and breaks down crying at the helpless situation , click click - injection- a few seconds later, he is calm as a baby. Life is beautiful again.
A scene from 'A scanner darkly',
Bob Arctor fishes into his past- A murky remembrance of his wife and kids. He is standing in the kitchen nursing his throbbing head that he hurt on the sharp corner of the cup board's door over looking his front yard his wife and his 2 daughters and a thought passes of inadequacy of unrealistic constant life and he writes into notepad "All the elements that made up my life were right there. And nothing new would ever happen. Like a little plastic boat that would sail on forever, without incident, until it finally sank, which would be a secret relief to all." So he gives up this life and plunges into his dark shady present addicted by substance D.
Formerly i have written about 'Brave new World' where Soma - A drug with no hangover gives the sweet respite from the present.
I must say I am glad that unlike in US the situation here has never been that worse, that drugs and hallucinogens aren't so popular and freely available, that our youth aren't so hopelessly destroying their lives behind the temporary reliefs. But I look back and I know people who did drugs back in college days. So, there is a market - a supply - a demand. But what is different? Family? that India is a land of family bondage, of traditional commitments, people here are tightly bound? Perhaps. But the scene is likely to change too.. So it comes down to a personal choice. Having fun is all right but one must know where to stop. The difference between heaven and hell.. that thin line between choice and hopeless addiction..
We all have problems in one manner or other. Drugs won't help you. You have to face the ugly truth of life. There is a bravery in that.. a glory of having stood your grounds and not succumbed to temporary fixes.
