Holmes rolls in Goa

Holmes rolls in Goa by Sauvik Chakraverti

Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr Watson holidayed in Goa recently, enjoying a few days of r&r. After a leisurely walk along Palolem beach, Holmes remarked: "Watson, it seems perfectly apparent to me that tonnes of ganja gets smoked in Goa every day. This calls for a deeper, private investigation" writes Sauvik Chakraverti in his Antidote column in The New Indian Express on Sundays.

Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr Watson holidayed in Goa recently, enjoying a few days of r&r. After a leisurely walk along Palolem beach, Holmes remarked: “Watson, it seems perfectly apparent to me that tonnes of ganja gets smoked in Goa every day. This calls for a deeper, private investigation.” 

Dr Watson, as is his wont, was slow to get the point. “How can you arrive at such an outrageous conclusion after just one short walk, Holmes?” he demanded to know. “Why, you have not even unsheathed your famous magnifying glass!” 

“Elementary, my dear Watson,” said Holmes. “Perceive the loads of rolling papers that are sold in all the little shops here, in five kilo jars. You don’t need a magnifying glass to spot this singular, vital clue. So much paper means so many spliffs, which means so much ganja — simple arithmetic. Tell you what, Watson, let us score some ourselves and smoke it. You know, when in Rome etc. And anyway I haven’t brought my cocaine along, anticipating trouble with this foreign police.” 

Deprecating Holmes’ sense of adventure, Watson nevertheless agreed. The duo headed for the closest cigarette shop. Holmes bought a pack of king size Rizlas. The little shop had over 500 packs in stock. Holmes, in a conspiratorial tone, asked the shopkeeper where he could get some ‘stuff’ to smoke in his Rizlas. The shopkeeper pointed to a young Goan lad in a Bob Marley T-shirt, leaning casually against a coconut tree. Very soon the deal was done, and Holmes obtained a goodly quantity of fine ganja. The two hastened to smoke it. 

“Time me, Watson,” commanded Holmes as he began the tedious preparations that go into rolling a spliff: cleaning the grass of twigs and seeds, preparing a nice ‘mixture’, making a roach, and then finally doing the spliff. 

“Twelve minutes precisely, Holmes,” said Watson, as Holmes lit the spliff and inhaled deeply of the sweet smoke. “Let me now count how long it takes to smoke it.” This turned out to be three minutes. The duo, now suitably stoned, strolled into a beach shack and ordered some beer to tackle the inevitable ‘cottonmouth.’ The shack had some chairs on the sand facing the setting sun. The colours were breathtaking, the soft reggae music emanating from the shack was elevating, and the cold beer was heaven itself. Of course, Holmes’ mind was still ticking away on the ganja question. 

“Watson, the plight of ganja smokers distresses me. Twelve minutes to roll what takes three minutes to smoke. What a criminal waste of Time! All roll, roll, roll and no rock at all! We must therefore arrive at an assessment of not only the total sales of rolling papers and the total quantity of ganja smoked, but also the total amount of time spent hand-rolling. Let us down our beers and proceed to the first step: evaluating the only visible clue we have — rolling papers. How many packs of rolling papers are sold here every day? That is the question.” 

Very soon, the two were back in the shack, Watson bearing his notepad. More beers were ordered and Watson pulled out a calculator. The statistics on rolling began to roll. 

Twenty little shops selling 100 packs of rolling papers every day added up to 2000 packs sold per beach, per day. Assuming Goa has 20 beaches like Palolem, that means 40,000 packs of rolling papers sold every day in Goa. Now, a pack contains 50 leaves, which means 2 million spliffs are rolled in Goa every day. Hand-rolling them takes 24 million minutes or 4,00,000 man-hours. At two grams of ganja per spliff that adds up to four tonnes of the stuff consumed daily in Goa. Holmes and Watson were both flabbergasted at the implications of what their very ‘private investigation’ had uncovered. They paid for their beers and continued on their stroll. Holmes was lost in thought, almost oblivious of his enchanting surroundings. 

“Watson,” said Holmes, “let us visit the website of Rizla and try and find how many rolling papers they sell annually worldwide. This could give us an exact understanding of this ‘crime’ that the whole wide world revels in.”

The two trooped in to a cyber café on the beach, but the data could not be obtained. Rizla maintains all such information as trade secrets. But they did find a long history of the company, which has French origins but is now owned by Imperial Tobacco and headquartered in the UK. It must indeed be a very big business to attract Imperial Tobacco to it. And Rizla was just a market leader. As Holmes and Watson discovered, there were many other brands available, with keen competition between papers made of hemp and Rizla, whose papers are made of rice. However, they could not obtain any hard data on the international rolling paper industry. Disappointed, but not beaten, our heroes re-emerged on Palolem beach. 

The sun had set, the moon was out, and all the shacks had their pretty coloured lights on. They walked into one of them and ordered more beer. Holmes began to roll another spliff. The evening proceeded slowly, more beers were drunk, more spliffs were smoked, and a fine seafood dinner followed. Holmes then summed up his thoughts: 

"Watson, my good man, if Goa represents even 5 percent of the world market for rolling papers, this means 40 million spliffs are smoked worldwide every day. The total time spent hand-rolling them is 8 million man-hours – every day. Total ganja smoked worldwide every day is 80 tonnes. This is an astonishing discovery. If ganja was legal, big spliffs would be made by machines, as cigarettes are today, and 8 million man-hours of hard labour saved." 

"Why don't you write a column for The Times on this when you return to Baker Street, Holmes," suggested Watson kindly, knowing that his friend was exceptionally perturbed at his findings. "You would shake up the authorities." 

"I most certainly shall," Holmes replied, adding, "and could you please roll a joint for us now. I am too stoned to roll, but very keen on a last smoke." 

Watson did the needful, as a dutiful 'joint secretary' would. 

Holmes patiently waited the full 12 minutes; he then lit the joint, inhaled, exhaled, and raised the toast: "Here's to machine-made spliffs someday soon, so the whole world can chain smoke them." 

"Amen," said Dr. Watson.

This article was published in New Indian Express on 01 March 2008. Please read the original article here.

Author : Sauvik Chakraverti is a columnist, and is the author of Antidote

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