A love story of addictions through fevered memories.
🜔 The Incident
Today, in Delhi, an array of spontaneous events started to unfold; the meaning of which only ‘Reality’ could explain. But as you might be aware ‘Reality’, has no obligation to explain itself!
There is Satori — A lover of drink-shrink. A degenerate lazy dreamer. Curdled in the venom, his thoughts float in contemplation of the variety of ways he should end his life.
His desperation, today, is understandable. A lot has happened in the last few days — The lockdown, an intense fight, eviction from a hostel, absolute-utter-and-adolescent heartbreak, isolation, addiction, arrest, et all.
But in this experience gone mad there are also random occurrences that have no meaning. Spontaneous insights. Like meeting Mr. Phool Sing who gave him a postage stamp the size of a thumb that read — Eat me, get posted!
He puts it on his tongue.
Before the next breath arrives a massive silence sinks in. The cosmic tune that plays in our beings gets stuck midway. And as the breath releases from his diaphragm, the fabric of his existence shifts.
🜁 The Concept
This is a story caught in the spiralling dance of addiction, mental health struggles, broken relationships, and the fragile joy of recovery. The Thousand arms is told in a dreamlike rhythm of memory and hallucinations.
Satori, a boy who is loud when sober; louder when drunk; is madly in love with the haze, the hurt, and everything in between. Satori isn’t a hero. At nineteen he is become a fog of smoke, chatter of drinks, and forgotten music. Blackouts are his superpower. He emulates those that he worships — Jim, John and Bob — Imitating them as, mostly, intoxicated; he persists in his patterns and behaviours.
Until the hounds are let loose.
Generally unprepared, his mind starts to voice immature, drunk and delirious thoughts. Forcing his hand to make choices that lead him down a surreal journey of life’s misgivings and adventures.
The Thousand Arms is a walk through addiction — particularly the kind that begins young, when alcohol becomes more than just a drink. It becomes a memory-maker, a relationship glue, a ritual, a myth. Sometimes even a god.
About
The Thousand Arms is scheduled to be a radio show with 10 to 15 minute episodes. Our approach to storytelling borrows from available psychiatric research, published literature around addictions and substances, while blending it with the wild hilarious spontaneity of Zen — No fixed truth, only reflections. Chance. And humour.
We look at addiction not as failure, but as pattern. Not as flaw, but as a fog. Everyone has addictions. Some obvious. Some poetic. Some justified. Coffee. Nicotine. Ego. Yoga. Approval. Concepts. Love. Self.
But here we might consider the poison as medicine. And the medicine is poison.
—
Join us for more — Instagram, Youtube.
*This story contains themes of mental health and addiction. Reader discretion is advised.
By god there are September Updates
A project that takes shape slowly and spontaneously.
Worldbuilding with Speculative Policies
A blueprint for a more humane and integrated response to alcohol-related harms in the thousand arms.
Thousand Arms | Project Update
A do over of the front end along with massive story updates.
Prohibition: A Hangover of Failures
India’s confused experiments with alcohol prohibition.
Alcohol in India: A Bottle of Contradictions
In this episode I explore governance policies around alcohol and speculate on probable futures.
What is Alcohol Addiction?
A primer on alcohol addiction and everyday substances that contain alcohol.