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Smoked out
And I thought untouchables existed only in India! Smokers, it occurs to me, are facing the same predicament and ostracised in almost all corners of the world. Your argument that it harms only you is discounted with a counter of the concept of passive smoking.Rajbir Deswal writes
And I thought untouchables existed only in India! Smokers, it occurs to me, are facing the same predicament and ostracised in almost all corners of the world. Your argument that it harms only you is discounted with a counter of the concept of passive smoking. Not to talk of being given to the 'habit', one should also not be seen around; hence, you go out of a building to quench your urge.
At Atlanta airport, a nearly one-mile distance has to be covered for finding a 'smoking-room', which is as spooky and scary as haunted. At Frankfurt, they have those sieve-like harbours and kiosks, where smokers do take a puff but not without being spurned, frowned upon and nearly scowled at. At Sledgely Park in Manchester, there is a big cauldron placed at the feet of a huge chimney, with a 'special place' created for smokers. The chimney and the cauldron full of butts, keep reminding (rather reprimanding) smokers of their unhealthy and uncivil indulgence.
Heroes once inspired smoking. I remember cine-lovers trying a jugglery of letting off a ciggi flying on to the mouth, 'ably demonstrated' by Shotgun Sinha. Pran made puff-circles, making them pass through the earlier puffed. Who can forget the inimitable Rajnikant? Churchill chilled with it at the international level, leaving many a smoky fumes during the war. Ashok Kumar and Dev Anand dangled a cigarette on their lips, while talking indistinctly, adding value to both their style and dialogue. Dev's puffy invocation 'Har fiker ko dhooen main udata chala gya' may now be taken with a pinch of salt, besides contempt.
In their own way, biggies always made it big with ciggies. Remember Amrita Pritam's-My life is like a cigarette and there are some poems that I have dropped like ash (apologies Ms. Revenue Stamped); and "It's easy to give up smoking. I have given it up many times" (apologies again, Mr Mark Twain). I think I'll have to resist the luxury of an urge -O'! To have a puff on the Tower Bridge!
Cigarettes once came not in packs but boxes. Cigars and pipes sort of graduated on cigarettes only to open and twist the mouth a tad differently. Now they come with a disclaimer!
My country cousins in Haryana have their ubiquitous hukka, which is more culturally relevant than for health concerns. The joke goes that a Haryanavi asks for a match-stick to light his beedi from many people who said they didn't have it, when he ultimately quips, "Okay, it seems to me that I'll have to use mine own only."
Smokers' predicament the world over has become that of Shylock, the merchant who bit off more than he could chew, and in having his pound of flesh, had to pay with all his merchandise.
