That Puff of Smoke

Cigarettes no longer intimidate me with images of hellfire and damnation....

Cigarettes no longer intimidate me with images of hellfire and damnation that featured predominantly in my parents' homilies about the sorry fate that befell bad girls. Neither do they conjure up images of gaunt bodies and asphyxiated lungs that statutory warnings in miniscule print caution against. There was a time though, when smoking translated into addiction, bitch, loose morals and all the negatives one had to avoid while negotiating the perilous tightrope walk into adulthood, [and if one wanted to avoid sterile spinsterhood].

I was warned about various dangers before my parents boarded their 5 p.m train and left for the rural hamlet which is home to generations of Mukhopadhyas and where my father now also works as one of the faceless, nameless file pushers in the mammoth administrative state machinery. Among these dangers were: boys, cigarettes, alcohol, conversations with strangers, lifts in cars, flouting the landlords' deadlines, the lures of nightlife, and wasting time and money.

Left alone in the big bad city, I inevitably flirted with the taboos of middle class morality ----hostels changed according to unreasonable curfew time, 8p.m sojourns to Dilli Haat when summer afternoons became unbearable, Kernal Kebabs and The Big Chill when dabba fare was worse than usual, pubs and discos with boys in flashy cars that would drive us home, lifts off strangers when waiting-time at bus-stops seemed to stretch to eternity, splurges on clothes, books, and movies to add excitement to dull academia [and which left us bankrupt at the very beginning of the month], and walks at night for ice-cream or cigarettes while ostensibly going out to make STDs to parents.

And that first puff of smoke marked my rite of passage. Not into the forbidden world of illicit pleasures from whence my decline into spinsterhood and a wasted life was a foregone conclusion [or so believe the wagging tongues back home], but into a world that forced me to re-examine values I had unquestioningly accepted, and where I learned to make independent, informed decisions for which I and I alone, am responsible.

During our fagging sessions, I didn't just learn how to take the smoke in or how to blow circles in the air, how to hold the cigarette upright so that it didn't burn up too soon, or the proportion in which to mix tobacco and ganja. Smoking for me, was more than an act of misdirected rebellion, more than an act of buckling under peer pressure, more than some pathological addiction, more than, oh, the usual constructions within which smoking is defined and judged.

The sutta sessions with close friends were times for " bonding", for exchanging our fundas about how life is and how it should be lived, for heated debates and bitching, for soul searching [when we'd all admit to being the biggest hypocrites around], for shared laughter, memories, and insecurities. As each philosophised amid puffs of smoke on the terrace of our hostel, or during furtive assignations within closed doors, we raved against injustice in the world, held forth on love, sex, shapes of clouds and multiple orgasms, deliberated on the power equations in the sub continent and on why certain pathetic professors were allowed to ruin our futures under the guise of teaching. We contemplated the world; lost ourselves in semantics, confused ourselves over discussions on reality and illusion, prioritised and reprioritised our goals, and planned budgets for sales and discounts. We also sang, in fact it is these discordant choirs I miss most about our sutta sessions [our group of five has separated as we've graduated and gone forth into the world to make something of our lives].

I am not saying that revelation or inner peace came to me from smoking [in fact I doubt if we can ever be rid of angst as long as we are vitally alive and desist from the comforting, crippling numbness complacency brings, and I am convinced that happiness and peace, that elusive something which gives meaning to our lives, lies within our selves]. What I am trying to say, rather inarticulately perhaps, is that the act of smoking taught me to be non-judgemental. It changed my attitudes the same way a near-death experience or a book, or a person can reorient one's perception. I have learned not to be afraid of experimenting, more importantly, to say no if I don't feel comfortable with something. I have realised that self-control is not necessarily self-denial, and that I am not prepared to be "with it" if abusing my freedom or my body is the price I have to pay. I have come to the conclusion that I as an individual am more important than conventions and moral dogma, and I prefer to make the distinction between good and bad myself.

Post Script: I have not become a chain smoker nor have I developed lung or mouth cancer. And each time I pick up the cylindrical passage of tobacco and nicotine, I do not seek to make a statement or to fit in. I have not found meaning in life because of, or in the wisps of smoke occasionally blown into the night spaces, but neither has the meaning in my life dissolved along with the disappearing swirls.