Being attracted by the world of charm and desire, I was drawn to work in the city of dreams, Mumbai. As the only son of a middle-class family, I knew I was letting myself loose into a world of wonderment to which there was no coming back to a life that my parents had ever imagined for their first-degree graduate in commerce. I tried to convince them by making them talk to my mentor in the college theatre group, who believed that I was cut out of the same fabric as most successful Bollywood actors. I even told them how I could work full-time at a corporate office in Mumbai as a marketing professional and would occasionally go for auditions via the twenty-plus WhatsApp groups I was already a part of. I was taken aback by my father’s opinion of how I have failed him as a son, but I knew that he had also failed as a father. On one of these days, after our late-night rehearsal for a grand production by a theatre group in Central Delhi, I even confessed to Vishwas how I felt helpless at home and would not go back to that hellhole if I had my own place. I clearly remember him creating a perfect smoke ring and telling me how I would never have to worry about any of this, once I made a mark in Bollywood. He, among the other members of this group, would dearly call me ‘hero’, as I had the conventional looks of a film star, and I acted quite decently. Yet, my parents were still unconvinced, and I… left! 

When I reached the city, I was completely prepared with how I was going to start in the industry, and where I was going to live, thanks to the valuable links I had generated in Delhi over social media and personal interactions with my seniors at the theatre group that I was associated with. In a week after I had settled myself into the life of what is infamously called a ‘struggler’, I was searching for a more stable form of livelihood – the “marketing professional”. But what may not be a surprise to somebody who knows how most tales of the Mayanagri unfold, is that I didn’t find any. What was shocking to my senses was that I didn’t get any work in the film industry for two months, either. Not even an ad. Waiting in the long queues to audition for the suitable role, though, I made some friends whom I would constantly meet at every other audition that I was going to. It seemed like everybody had the “links”. What I did discover was that coping with this stress of not finding work and savings getting exhausted, required spending time with them – the strugglers, the casting directors/agents and their allies. I started spending days with them, the evenings and nights too. I had found my new set of Vishwas’s in this city. I could talk to them about the miseries in my life because we were all sailing in the same boat, hustling to make it big in Mumbai. In this series of conversations that would consume the time of our nights and the discomfort in our hearts, we would smoke… smoke our worries away. It was also important to attend one or two of these fortnightly parties that we weren’t necessarily invited to. My network was surely expanding with significantly insignificant contacts, but I still had no work. 

Around Diwali, which is also the time when almost every other actor has at least one contract in hand, I had none. The parents who weren’t talking to me for about half a year didn’t call to ask me how I was even on this day. I wasn't bothered. Well, at least that's what I constantly kept telling myself. The routine of meeting up with these friends at the auditions, even otherwise kept on mounting up. It's the only place I felt comfortable at my haven. They would mostly pay for my quota of doobies. This sort of strengthened our bond; after all, what else was friendship if not giving each other favours. But getting stoned was gradually becoming a habit for me, to an extent that somebody stole my phone on the way home and I didn't realise it for one full day. Regardless, from drugs to rent, they were now even paying for my groceries. I had to find a way to return the money, but I postponed the effort and strength to do that for about three months. It got much worse from here. 

Around December, I had finally made it to one of the ads for a big clothing brand, and I was also quite ahead in the process of being shortlisted in a web series. I showed up hungover at the sets on the day of its screen test and was obviously fired. It wasn’t difficult for them to dismiss a fresher who puts up an act like this, unlike the many lead actors (and actresses) who are known for having "bad tantrums". I was depressed. I lost the place I had for the longest time due to the non-payment of dues for a couple of months. I shifted immediately to a friend’s place. It was a chawl, where 5 people lived in what was essentially a room. My body that was accustomed to a 3BHK in Delhi could not bear living in a congested setup for too long. My fingers were trembling more often than they were stable; I couldn’t hold a plate in my hand for more than five seconds. I would only wake up in the afternoons even if I had slept early at night. I knew that it was more than the living space that was troubling my body; it was my dependence on the drugs. I had to be dragged to the hospital in the next couple of days when I fell in the room as soon as I got up from the bed. It felt like my legs have no bones, only muscle.

My parents finally came to visit me, not to watch me on the 70mm- screen as I had imagined, but through a glass pane in my hospital ward. I had developed (acute lethal illness), and I remember my mother weeping the entire time that she was there. Surprisingly, I wasn’t embarrassed by this as I would have earlier been in Delhi, because I was the one who was responsible for this. It surely brought tears to my eyes as well, as I had never seen my mother so shattered, and my father that numb and unconscious. I wasn’t the son they had ever wanted, definitely not with a motionless body, swollen eyes and chapped lips. My mother always told me that my greatest asset was the smile, it was the biggest source of her strength. In a week or so, it was decided that I would be taken back to Delhi to be treated at home. ​It was the de-addiction centre where I was actually taken. Six months into it, I was discharged to go back home. Therapy started, and a couple of months later I am currently working as a scriptwriter for a local theatre group in Delhi. Yes, my parents gave in to my choice. They didn’t care anymore if I was a director at a multi-national company or for a stage play. I still get withdrawal symptoms where I constantly sweat even when the AC is on, some of my nights are sleepless. Last week, I got so irritated by my mother persisting on me eating the apple that she had cut for me, that I banged the door of my room on her face, and went straight in for a cold shower to get relieved from the terrible, spontaneous headache and gradual breathlessness. I am not absolutely okay, but I am learning to cope with the “need” that arises repeatedly in my body to go back to using the substance. It’s hard. What makes it even harder is the fact that it’s not very difficult to access them, probably anywhere in this country. 

In one of the wedding affairs that happened in the near future, I overheard my mother explaining to one of our relatives that drugs were very common in the film industry and those who become a part of it must “adhere to the norm” as they wouldn’t want to be typecast as being “out-of-the-league” or “anti-social”, or plainly a “newcomer”. Sadly, this was almost true. While I do not blame the people consuming drugs to have wholly influenced me, into trying it out for that one sensational, utopian moment, it can’t be denied that we have incorporated drugs and alcohol as a part of this industry. It is prominent. The networks, the dealers, the gangs, the dependents – nothing is hidden. In the parties, where I would go as an uninvited guest, I saw several actors I was in awe of, high on one thing or the other. It begins to seem like the only way to be successful, to have a way at all. It’s everywhere. The only reason I have written all of this here is to let everybody know that this may not be your story; you could end up being the next superstar without getting caught by any of these vices. But, unfortunately, I am the only one among the thousands who couldn’t.  

The Author is OSD to Minister of Health, GNCTD.

(Through this story, the author has attempted to summarise his engagement with Young Drug users.)