Wisps of Smoke

I feel like talking about cigarettes. Everything I can think of about them.
When I was in school I used to judge guys on whether they smoked. Not harshly but I preferred a non smoker over a smoker. I guess when you’re busy defining yourself at that age you come up with these list of dos and don’t. Nice girls don’t being the most popular. So I thought nice boys don’t either.
But then came the other defining realization. I don’t like nice boys.
I think it started with dating Aldair (who gave up smoking or claimed he gave up smoking for the period that we dated.) But he needn’t have bothered. I no longer care if guys smoke or don’t. I’ve grown up to bigger don’ts.
There was this para in Atlas shrugged on smoking that I love…

"I like to think of fire held in a man's hand. Fire, a dangerous force, tamed at his fingertips. I often wonder about the hours when a man sits alone, watching the smoke of a cigarette, thinking. I wonder what great things have come from such hours. When a man thinks, there is a spot of fire alive in his mind--and it is proper that he should have the burning point of a cigarette as his one expression."

I remember I mailed it to Aldair and he didn’t appreciate that I was encouraging him to smoke. But I wasn’t really. I just appreciate words like fire and man and force and tamed and burning strung together. Heh. Freud would have a field day with me. Or actually I’m too pedestrian for him.
The other thing I read about cigarettes that I like the imagery of is that the writer Amrita Pritam was madly in love with this man and they would meet and sit in silence while he smoked and after he left she would smoke the butts he left behind to inhale him. In fact she has written a few lines on that:

Ek Dard hai

Jo maine cigarette ki tarah piya hai

Kuchh nazmein hain

Jo maine raakh ki tarah jhaadi hain...

There’s an English translation that I don’t really think is right. Either way I just like the story behind it.
The only story I have with cigarettes involves a night long smoking session. Kat’s sister had a house party and the clean up involved her getting rid of cigarettes from all over the world. Somehow that packet landed with me as the best candidate to regulate contraband. So it lay in my cupboard for months with Mars and Salvatore trying to convince me that they’re smoking anyway so I might as well save them some money. I could have I suppose but I was pain in the ass sister.
And a good thing too. One night Paris and I had nothing better to do. We got into Lauran Bacall mode and smoked every single brand in that packet. More, Marlsboro Light, Classic Mild, Nice, Gudang Garam, Dunhill, Lucky Strike, Benson & Hedges… that was it I think.
There’s a cigarette brand called Elixir (pretty self explanatory) and another called Romeo y Julieta… isn’t that interesting? I wonder why they named it that and what it tastes and smells like. A little sweet, a little tragic?
That was it for me and cigarettes. In later years when some classmates in my post grad course urged me to beat the stress with the sticks I was amused and disinterested. Without wanting to sound condescending I can’t believe that’s why people smoke or start smoking. When I think of myself smoking I feel like a poseur. Like a little kid playing dress up in front of her mom’s mirror as she clanks around in heels too big for her. And now that I think about it I never played dress up either.
Cigarette aficionados can tell the smokes apart I’m sure but even to a non smoking, weak olfactory nerved person like me the smell of a cigarette is the most definite thing. It’s as distinct and strong as the smell of my first heart break.

(I think this might be part of a Pensieve tag where in I write all the associations I have with a particular word. You are welcome to throw me a word.)

picture's from flickr