HOW TO START SMOKING ?

Turn 18. You are in a stage where your hormones make your decisions. Coincidentally, you are also in your first week as a freshman studying photography/ creative writing/ oblivious engineering college. Now is the time to think about your image and how you want to be portrayed for the next four years. A bully ? A Gunda ? A Dude ? Or just an another 75 kg of worthless mass on earth. Buy into the whole “young 20s’, don’t-give-a-damn-about-you-attitude.” Immediately run to the nearby betel shop to buy your first pack. Squint, stare and be intimidated by the never-ending rows of mysterious color-coded societal coolness behind the counter.

What brand should you get?

Your dad smokes Marlboro Reds, or Navy Cuts, so maybe you should too. But your dad is way out of your league. Your college roommate smokes Classic (the regular ones, right?). Strain your memory to remember what you smoked your senior year of high school — and by smoking, you mean taking a few light puffs from your over-hyped yet proven cooler friends — was it lights? Oh right, menthols. Aren’t those worse for you though?

End up with a pack of Gold Flake Lights.

Walk quickly back to your hostel gate, lean effortlessly against the wall—but make sure you are still in plain sight of everyone when enters and exit the building. You are now a smoker and want the world to know it. Pretend you’ve always been a smoker.

Light up a cigarette and wait for the girl you have a crush on to pass by. Maybe she smokes too. This moment will forever be ingrained as your gateway into the world of smoking forever. You did it all for a girl. But, that’s ancient news.



Three and a odd years later, college has almost whirled past you and you barely remember the drunken nights at dhaabas where all the pretentious about-to-become graduates were sticking their heads outside windows or sitting on porches smoking their cigarettes talking about pseudo-intellectual bullshit, the random conversations you had with strangers you met outside bars and shops while you were smoking. You barely remember the time you bought two packs of cigarettes and drunkenly smoked them both in one night(the reasons may vary: back papers for the very first time in your illustrious academic career or “Toki chakkar ” fights or family issues) the time you projectile vomited outside after excessive boozing and then proceeded to light up a cigarette, and the time, the girl you had been seeing with for two years cheated on you and then broke up with you and after she left you crying(Read: left for dead) and you commenced to have the best goddamn cigarette you have ever had.

In the end, it is always about a girl.

The bottom line is, smoking is cool and every college-goer knows it.
You are all gonna die one day, so why not your way ? Your grave can read “Smoking still” .

Smoking can be beneficial too. Helps you deal with all the stress. You can just blow away all your troubles in a puff. Gosh ! I wish.
Helps you in socializing with your seniors ( the much famous “Counter maroing” concept). Helps you in building the much needed pressure for your morning potty. Whenever in a pickle, smoking makes you think clearly and logically. And the stuff you can do with that 69mm piece of beauty !!
The rings of holy smoke and what not ? Just the way Shah Rukh Khan did in DON.
You may not be like him, but atleast you can compete with him in this department. You can light it with a traditional matchstick, hands clasped into a loop with the flame inside or even with a lighter. Seen Rang De Basanti ? If there’s a bonfire nearby, take a lit log and make merry.

Smoking is living your life a little desperately every single day. But then again, so is everything. For some unbeknownst reason, you just can’t stop. Your friends glorify smoking, but what would happen if you quit? You would lose the social aspect of it. You would miss the conversations, the plan-making and the juicy gossip that goes on outside of tea-stalls and parties in the smoking section. You already lost your dignity and self-respect years ago—you just can’t stand the idea of losing the few perks that come with smoking. You’re still young, right? You’re barely 22, your lungs can deal with another few years.

Recognize that this rationale is all bullshit. Now recognize that you are bullshit. Quit smoking.

Go out for drinks the next day. Get tipsy. Take some more tequila shots with your guys. Or else 2 bottles of beer would do. Get drunk. Remember the girl that you desperately loved once upon a time, all the time in college, your first real adult relationship. Miss her desperately. Miss everything about her. Wonder what she is up to these days. Miss smoking even more. Bum a cigarette from one of your friends. God it has been so long since you’ve smoked. It’s been two whole days after all.

Realize that smoking has been the one stable relationship in your entire life.

One day, light-years and ballparks from the day you bought your first pack, you’ll wake up next to someone. Realize that you aren’t the same little shit that you were at twenty. You are starting to bald, your career is stable, you’ve paid off the majority of your student loans, your circle of friends aren’t the same as they were six years ago, you’ve dated half the population of the firm you work in, you’re thinking of going back to graduate school—and you think you love the person sleeping quietly next to you. For once in all those years that you started smoking, feel self-conscious of your vices. Stroke her hair gently and make your first real adult decision since you turned 18.

Quit smoking for real this time. Of course you did it for a girl. You are so predictable. But this one is actually worth it this time.

BRB fellas ! Have a date with Gold Flake :P