Things They Won’t Tell You About Smoking

by Rahul Ganguly

Cigarettes have been a significant part of my life, as revered as the perfect early-morning dump that follows after. You know, the sort that yields even-sized chunks and no splashback. Poop jokes aside, I have been a bonafide worshipper of nicotine for a long time. I was a somewhat emaciated, ten-a-day addict who started pulling at those lovely white sticks when I was 17. I loved smoking. Oh man, puffing at a cigarette was cool. You could pretend to be all grown up in an instant. It felt great. For years, nicotine bundled up all the stress of late-night submissions, project deadlines, psychotic bosses, and well-meaning loony aunts. Cigarettes were as soothing as getting a foot massage by your very own army of midgets while sipping on liquid gold.

From the point of waking up, my first conscious thought centered around the initial drag of the day. Let’s call this Drag Prime. And god damn it, Prime always felt good. At this point, you must understand the way addiction works. For a cigarette-fiend, his/her life can be split into two parts. The first part is when they smoke, and the second when they are thinking about their next smoke. From that first habitual drag, they become smoke’s own bitch. It’s torture porn at its finest.

It’s like being in an abusive relationship. But you love him too much.

This is why you’ll see the beeline of depressed faces at the smoking lounge of any airport, as they puff away at that furtive last cigarette before a long flight. Same reason why you’ll see paanwaris making a killing (wordplay, get it? So clever), handing out magic smoke sticks to weary cinema watchers after a show. (One cigarette after regular films, two after a Bhansali film, a pack after anything by Ram Gopal Varma). For smokers, being confined without a cigarette in a hall with three hundred burping, farting, popcorn-crunching uncles, aunties, and their precious, precious children becomes nothing short of third-degree torture. If you smoke, know this — the only thing on your mind while watching a movie isn’t the movie. As you sit wide eyed in catatonic stupor, all you’re bothered about is that golden moment when you’ll be out of the bloody hall, lighting up a jubilant smoke volcano.

This is the shit, boys

Thanks to the smoking ban, train journeys become a nightmare for the hapless smoker. You can still manage and sneak in a quick smoke in the loo if you’re travelling sleeper class. But god help you if you decide to posh it out in an airconditioned compartment, or (shudders), a premium train like the Rajdhani. Long train journeys are a smokers’ kryptonite. All you can do is twiddle your thumbs, curse everyone around you, complain about the cockroaches and fantasize about your next precious puff. Once you have that long-awaited drag outside the destination station, it counts among the best moments of your entire, miserable existence. Way better than the news of your first born, or that time you managed to control yourself and not murder your neighbourhood chachu because he touched you in the wrong places as a kid. Admit it, if you’re a smoker, you know exactly how good that cigarette at the end of the train feels.

That’s right. I feel like a winner for like five seconds, motherfuckers.

That’s why non-addicts never “get” the compulsions of the habitual smoker. Besides the fact that addicts physically need nicotine in their systems to function, the act of smoking itself becomes a tiny rebellion against all those goody-two-shoes campaigns, pictorial warnings, and in-movie warning marquees. The tastefully plagarised images of cancerous lungs on cigarette packets and between trailers do not work. Thank you, nanny state. It does nothing for addicts. I used to get bored the moment they came on. Once the movie was over, I would step outside and light up. That’s because besides being a habit, smoking feels as adventurous as watching your first raunchy film, and as intimate as your first kiss. Your cigarette becomes your personal little “screw you” to the Man. A source of power. For a few brief seconds, you become James fucking Dean. Unbeatable.

Puffing away with friends builds a strange bond, on that often lasts for years. You feel like you’re part of a secret cult. To an outsider who has never partaken of the forbidden fruit, smoker gatherings are an enigma. For a nonbeliever, it’s impossible to process why you absolutely need to spend five minutes every couple of hours, breathing out clouds of smoke in your sad little designated smoking area. By instinct, you get companions to share those five minutes with. Chai-sutta breaks have been an indelible part of our growing up years. If you have never made friends over cigarettes, you have missed out on an entirely enchanting side of life and conversations. I’ve made more friends over cigarettes than I can remember. We would sneak away after classes to the nearest paanwallah and spend five minutes staring at the wall, a cigarette dangling from our faces, and a cup of steaming chai in our hands. There was such joy in making dick jokes over a nice smoke.

That perhaps is the worst thing about cigarettes (apart from horribly dying from lung cancer that is). It’s how well smoking pairs up with certain innocuous rituals in your daily existence. Cigarettes are your best buddies with chai, coffee, cola, liquor, beer, sex, long walks, conversations, project deadlines, music, and heavy meals alike. Nicotine does not discriminate. In time you’ll bank on nicotine to create fond memories. Your body and mind will seize up if you don’t internalise it. It becomes part of who you are.

My moment of reckoning came in August ’13. It was a gloomy afternoon in Delhi when I realised, after a particularly stubborn bout of bronchitis, how little control I have over my addiction. I was tired of the panic attacks over empty cigarette packets at night, of constantly planning my next smoke break at work. I was exhausted by incessant microeconomic calculations, weighing remaining salary vs number of affordable cigarettes at the end of every month. It was not even a decision to quit per se. I decided I’ll stay off cigarettes for as long as I could, and popped a couple of nicotine gums for good measure.

No one really knows how it happened, but I never smoked another cigarette. Naturally, my world as I knew it came tumbling down soon after as withdrawal appeared and punched me in the face. It’s only after you go through serious withdrawal that you realise what long-term torture feels like. Also, nicotine gums are as effective as Rahul Gandhi is at public speeches.

When it comes to withdrawal, I’ll break it down for you. Imagine if by some godawful miracle, Himesh Reshammiya and Charles Manson had a baby together. Then the baby became sentient, got a mood disorder and crawled inside your skull. As long as you’re in withdrawal, you’ll either be hearing Aap kaSuroor in your head or baying for blood. And this will go on for a full month. A full freaking month. Office meetings will make you feel like taking a small spoon and scraping within your brain, repeatedly. Your hands will not know what do do with themselves (besides bloody murder, duh). Your body will turn sluggish and refuse to cooperate. You’ll always be hungry and agitated. Forget socialising, you won’t have a night out for many days, especially if your friends are smokers. Two months after I quit, I gained a few kilos and screamed at everyone for small reasons. Also none of my old pants fit anymore, so that sucked.

Withdrawal feels like a power drill going off right next to your ear, for 24 hours, except you’re the only once who can hear it. You look at all your cool smoker friends and know things will never be the same with your buddies. You will see a lit cigarette like a sex-starved Emraan Haashmi tied next to a hostel full of attractive Russian extras. The wisps of curling smoke call out. You feel worthless. The truth is, if you’re addicted to cigarettes, you never stop loving smoking, long after the addiction subsides. Even when you start hating smoking with every fiber of your being. It’s a lifelong kinship. Like Karan-Arjun, Sonia and Mammohan, like Kejriwal and dharnas, like Dinanath Batra and textbooks, Gollum and the Ring, like a Delhiite launda and his SUV, it lasts for a lifetime.

So I decided to make peace with my addiction. It was six months into the quit when I had my first breakdown. I went down to the neighborhood paanwari and bought a cigarette. After I got home I asked my wife to light it up and smoke it. I wanted to watch, I said. My wife, who smokes on rare occasions, looked at me with nervousness. By then we had gotten rid of all ashtrays in the house. Yet I insisted she let me watch. I loved it. Now whenever friends come over, I smile and offer them an ashtray. This voyeuristic game of watching people smoke has become my source of Illicit pleasure. It is all a bit perverse, and I love it.

After 400+ smoke free days, I’ve realised a few things. The addiction will remain in your head for as long as you live. If you’re healthy and believe you can Rajinikanth* your way out of possible lung cancer, keep smoking that cigarette. It’s the best your brain will be tricked into feeling. In your entire life. I promise you. Cigarettes that way are great at taking away uncertainties. Once you’re addicted, there are one of two ways your life will unfold. After a few years, either you’ll die an early death, or like me, get bored of the routine and whine about having quit for the rest of your days. Happy smoking, or not.

*Rajinikanth is a verb, because being a noun is for lesser mortals.