Puff (,) the magic dragon

This post is about smoking. Or not. I mean, not smoking.

I promise not to make this preachy, not even an objective health bulletin. In fact let’s do the intro again.

This post is about smoking.

I recently went to a book fair. I want to tell you about the man who was responsible for it (I mean, this post). The organizer was a ‘mannish’ man dressed in a two-piece suit with a smoker’s voice, smoker’s teeth, smoker’s fingertips who sat about staring into vacant space and chain-smoking like a fish (?).
I’ve never actually seen a chain smoker in action -I watched him light six cigs in half an hour using the burning end of his dying cigarette to light a new one.

Confession: as a literary and a film noir device I find the man with the cigarette irresistible. But in real life when you see a ghost of a man going up in smoke, it gets you thinking.

About that article for instance- the top cash crop of the US is (fading drums) marijuana
(trivia: marijuana has more than a 100 street names)

The article went on to basically say, “Look, I’m not saying legalize pot. But it is being explored for its medicinal value and is probably driving the US economy and if you had to have a bad drug contest brother, nicotine would win hands down. So don’t go self-righteous on my pot (!), we know about the cigarette lobbies, maan.”
(my ghetto version of the article … I know, pathetic)

(trivia: somewhere on a desk in the F Block of my school is scrawled “A friend in need is a friend with weed”)

My point of mentioning the article is that we (I) easily accept the chain smoker, morally and legally. Imagine the chaos if he would have been rolling a joint instead.

Though, not everybody accepts smokers. Not my buddy (ladette?) Apu at least.

The two of us were sitting in that open air ground in Ansal Plaza (the best place for coffee and conversation) drinking coffee and conversing. There was a couple on our right and the guy was smoking.

Now I have nothing against couples. What I do not like is the PDA (public displays of affection) couples where the girl is nestling into the guy and the guy is openly checking out All The Girls on the planet. To top it, he was smoking.

Now me being crippled by courtesy and all, I might have just coughed and even, wrinkled my nose. But Apu, thank God, has no such hang ups.

Apu: “Excuse me, but you can’t smoke in public places.”

The smoker was taken aback because, I suspect, we’d hurt his “cool dude” self image. His girlfriend was still leaning on him and had nothing to contribute in terms of speech or expression.

Smoker: “Yes I can”

Apu: (giving him a prize dirt) “It’s the law.”

Smoker: “Oh yeah? I don’t see a ‘No Smoking’ sign anywhere.”

Apu: “Is it my fault you have bad GK? Do you want me to speak to the manager?”

Apu got up to leave. I guess the guy just wanted to save his face.

Me: “I’m allergic to cigarette smoke, if you could just please not …”

Smoker: “Sure”
He butted out his cigarette and dragged his dopey girlfriend to some other place.

Apu: @#!!

Come to think of it, the girlfriend didn’t look dopey, she looked drugged. So much for the “I’m watchin’ your back, sistah!”

Hmmm.

Where was I?

Yeah, in the book fair, watching the chain smoker.
I walked up to him and said “Look, don’t smoke. Get drunk - on Life!”

I walked away, glowing, feeling good about the world and all. I heard hurried footsteps behind me.
A smoker’s cough.
“You forgot your books.”