Price
$17.00
About This Book
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 an addict on Puri’s beaches with hippies, backpackers and drop-outs from France and Japan, Italy and Norway. Then he drew back from the edge and tried to make a life, working as a waiter, a salesman, a bookseller. He starts this journal-cum-travel book with startling, fragmented memories of his lost decade. From these, he moves to stories about people across Odisha whose lives revolve around ganja-bhang-opium. There is the owner of a government-approved bhang shop who takes pride in selling the purest bhang available and insists it can make people as forgiving and non-violent as Jesus. The opium cutter who learned as a boy how to massage a lump of opium with mustard oil and carve it into little tablets. The girl who survived cholera by licking opium and became a lifelong addict. The goldsmith whose opium de-addiction card entitles him to.....
About The Author
Akshaya Bahibala is a bookseller, poet, publisher and library activist. He is the co-founder of Walking BookFairs, an independent bookstore and publishing house and one of the country’s most popular bookmobiles that has travelled more than 35,000 kilometres across 20 states to spread the love of reading. Akshaya has written four books in Odia. This is his first book in English. When he isn’t travelling across India, he lives in Bhubaneswar with his partner Satabdi and friend Malu and their cats.
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