A Different High

Happiness delivery: Once drug addicts themselves, the couple now runs a drug rehabilitation centre in Guwahati

Amrit Baishya was a brilliant student at the Kendriya Vidyalaya he studied in at Noonmati in Guwahati. The only son in a middle-class family, he was highly pampered, every wish of his fulfilled as soon as he uttered it. That his father ran a successful travel agency business and mother worked as a government school teacher also helped. Being among the toppers in every class, he also gave his parents no reason to complain. Nothing seemed off limits, even drinking with senior school students when he was in Class 10. When his parents did intervene, he would flaunt his marksheet at them.

He was in Class 11 in 2010 when Amrit decided it was time to graduate to something bigger. He first experimented with drugs out of the Rs 500 he had taken from his parents to buy a book. Experimentation soon gave way to addiction, and the high scores to a downhill journey away from classrooms and in the dark alleys of Guwahati. Several temporary stints at rehabilitation centres followed, to no avail. Eventually, tired of his constant demand for money, stealing and uncontrollable aggression, Amrit’s parents threw him out of their house on June 24, 2017.

It was something that Amrit had not expected. He had taken the support system for granted. With that withdrawn, he either had to take control of his life or hurtle towards unimaginable disaster. Fortunately, he chose to give life another chance and reached out to a friend he had met at a rehab centre. A reformed soul himself, the friend called him to Margherita, a town 500 km east of Guwahati. In the next 10 days, a group of former addicts instilled a sense of purpose in Amrit’s mind, and he vowed never to touch drugs again. He returned to Guwahati and started doing errands at var