In a huff…over the puff

So at last, with its ban on smoking in public places, the government has done it for me. Allowed me to exhale. I've inhaled enough, I can tell you. What with having key women in my life – dear friends, close colleagues, and favourite aunts – smoking at me over the last 20 years. At last, their wings are clipped, good and proper.

And why in my gloating do I single out the women smokers? Well because, and here I'm going to come right out and say it, after years of behaving politically correct and staying diplomatically silent on the subject: women (us urban types) have always been far more inconsiderate smokers than most men. Men can be glared at, sneezed upon and coughed over, and they are more than likely to apologetically stub their ciggy or remove themselves from your vicinity. And many men, over the years, have got used to putting themselves in the dog-house, on their own, once they light up. This they do by simply stepping right out of the house or going on a little walk, or massing with other smokers in some corner, when they need to smoke. Without being told to do it.

But most women smokers will just narrow their eyes and give you a withering look if you dare to ask them to desist, and will simply keep smoking superciliously. At the most they may point you resentfully in the direction of the balcony door – go there for some fresh air, is the indication. And I doubt if any man has ever asked a woman to stub out her ciggy because it irritates his eyes and his sinuses. He would possibly not live to tell the tale, if he did.

The thing I want to submit, m'lord, at the risk of being lynched by women smokers in general and my many dear friends, colleagues and aunts in particular, is that at one time, a lot of women had gone and confused the 'right' to smoke with other rights – up their with the hard-won right to vote, to have control on contraception, a place in the workforce and equal wages. The 'You've come a long way baby' type ads simply re-inforced the smoking-equals-having-arrived imagery. So there was a time (that lasted far too long, if you ask me) when you simply had scorn and derision heaped on you if you told a woman to give you a break from her smoke. And being part of that whole atmosphere, where as women we were all inhaling happy lung-fulls of freedom from various things, this too was seen as part of the 'spirit of freedom' – in fact a cigarette brand used those very words to advertise its sticks, if I remember right. So with all this 'celebrate your freedom' kind of smokescreen surrounding the act of women smoking, I kind of never pushed the point about smoke being bothersome, especially not with my women friends. At that time I called it being tolerant and making allowances for the sisterhood, and all that jazz. Today I call it being a wuss.

So in my wuss sisterhood days, I have eaten many a delicious masala dosa ruined by a woman friend's smoke blowing and curling all over my plate – while most of the men in the tiny Udipi joint would not dream of lighting up in the place. My woman friend was either making a point, or was so full of herself that she didn't see what the problem was. I have had the subtle fragrance of gossamer-thin momos overpowered completely by my lunch companion's smoke swirls. I have had borrowed sweaters and silk saris returned sprinkled liberally with ash holes (ya, ya, it sounds like I'm swearing, but that's what they are: holes made by ciggy ash). I have cleaned out tea cups in which some woman friend has stubbed out her sutta. I have aired my guest room by putting everything in it (including the dog, whose fur begins to smell like a tobacco processing unit) in the sun for 8 hours.

And of course I have inhaled passively massively. Or massively passively. Same thing. In less 'aware' times, I have at times been in an average-sized Mumbai sitting room in which 12 women have smoked together and continuously, like their life depended on it, stopping only to once in a while yell at their kids to stay out of the room. Not a pretty picture.
Somehow this didn't quite look like those divas from Hollywood 1930s films who made it look all so delicious and chic and prompted us in college to practice smoking in front of a mirror with three panels, so that you saw how you looked from the front, profile, and three-fourths! Bothered more about how we looked smoking than how it tasted or felt, some of us were fortunate enough to simply savour the thrill for a few days and move on.

But many of us did get hooked – to the nicotine as well as to the posture. Hooked so hard, that even today, in a house where the hosts clearly indicate that you just cannot smoke in there, and there are a couple of wheezy 80 plus year olds present, there will be one woman who will just simply light up, or spend a sulky three-fourths of the evening pointedly standing near the lift shaft and making a big smokey point of it all.

True, I am not one of those anti-smoking terrorists who bans smoking in my vicinity (no friends, this is not a signal for you to stampede down to my home and light up in large groups). I know the horrible stuff that smoking does to the smoker's as well as my insides, and yet I have never been one of those anti-smoking crusaders. But finally, it is the crusaders, especially women like Monamma Kokkad, who have put an end to the puffing in public spaces and helped people like me stop silently huffing over other people's puffing.