Cultural Dra

 Hello folks. Lets get this blog started. It's been quite some time since I last jotted down words on my own. I have been wondering if I should write one for the Dra. 

We were taught that our beliefs were not just something we could practice when we felt like it or when the weather was nice outside. We were taught that there were certain times when we had to be in a specific place at a specific time. These times were set by ourselves and we would tell ourselves what those times were depending on what season it was and where in the world we lived. It is about dra. 

It meant more than a lifestyle to us, from dusk till dawn we practiced this religion. We were devotees to the omnipotent spirituality of dra. This is why we're always smiling and laughing at everything—even when we're sad or angry.

The first time I heard the word "dra" was when I was in college. A friend of mine and I were sitting around, talking about something mundane, that i don't remember now, when he said "dra" out of nowhere. I had no idea what he meant by it—I thought maybe he was trying to say something else that sounded like dra. He loosely borrowed this word from someone else. But then he kept saying it, and I realized that's what it meant: "I'm going to go smoke some dra now." It was a small lot of us devotees who used the lingo. We'd meet up at Tiku's room, get high together… and then just kind of hang out on our own for awhile until we all got hungry again.

One after another after another after another… until all the ashes started piling up on top of each other like bricks on a wall. Then all these norms and values started emerging from them: what kinds of things went together with other things; who could do what with what and when; how much more can one take; and a long list of more. By then, we had already forged a culture unknowingly. 

I have always been fascinated by the culture of dra. I am a big fan of the practice and constantly compare it to my personal experiences. I began to notice this when I was puffing a bunch of dra with a friend, not the one who called it dra. It was cultural— they called it by different names. Some called it pot, some called it maal, some called it gangza, some called it happy and indeed it was. The names were different, but it was one thing and everyone followed a similar trend. 

We had norms among ourselves while dra-ing. Let me tell you how we executed our dra norms back in the days. Everyone would assemble at Tiku's room. The one cooking and serving was the DJ (Dra Jockey). He is the legitimate authority: he decides whom to serve and whom not to, he decides how much to prepare, how much to load, and how much time should be spent on each course. He is a servant and he is a master. Not everyone gets to be the DJ. His orders are sacred and the ones disobeying gets skipped. He is also responsible for keeping track of the number of people attending the liturgy (so that no one could arrive late or leave early) as well as making sure that everyone had plenty. For us, Tiku was our DJ for almost all the time, unless sometimes he is seen passed out from consumption of other intoxicants.

The gathering is a daily ritual. Everyone convenes almost thrice a day or more and it begins only after everyone's seated in a circle on the floor. The one's not seated is not a part of the ritual. A stopgap bubbler made from coke bottle which we called a "pot" was then loaded by the DJ. The DJ always smokes the first load. This was the most important rule. The pot was then loaded again and passed to the one left of the DJ. After the pot was cleared, it was passed back to the DJ for clearing the left-over smoke. This was his daily job, hence the name DJ. The process was repeated and the pot made several rounds until the dra got exhausted. There was a mix of draheads among us. Some smoked like a chimney while some could only pull off half of it. The DJ always rewarded the "turbo draheads" with a heavier load in the next round for pulling off a mind boggling chunck of dra without any trouble. And sometimes, there are novices who cannot pull it off and the hot ash leaps out of the shooter. Kung Fu was what we called it. We can catch sights of the carpets being punctured with holes all over by the practices of these Kung Fu masters.

As the ritual comes to an end, the last pinch of dra is meticulously imparted from the paper onto the shooter. This is the most sacred of them all, the golden pot. The one left of the last smoker gets to pull it off unless the DJ discretes. There is none after that. The ritual has ended and the miracle has just begun. Our eyes squinting hard, eye-lids popped out with oozing veins  and disjointed motor impulse. We laugh out loud in a miraculous euphoria, while some are lost beyond the euphoric grip, trying to summon sobriety. This is truly a work of art, this is the work of a magical dra.