Those
rings of smoke ... exhaled ... little clouds. The white fluffy clouds in the
sky reminded me of them.
When
I was a little girl my father used to smoke in his office and I would happily
take in the smell of the cigarette. Though he would put it out at once when he
would be aware of my presence. That burning tobacco sniff in the air always reminded
me of him. Over the years he gave up the habit but the smell was saved in my
mind as “dad”.
Few
years later, when I moved to London, I found the white stick to be quite
omnipresent. I put it down to the wet and cold weather. Waiting at the bus
stop, people would smoke to hold on to whatever little warmth the humble cig
offered. Many friendships were formed at
that bus-stop. People waiting there asked politely if they could smoke and I
would happily nod my head as it would take me on a trip to nostalgia ... in my
dad’s office. One such woman who used to travel on the same bus as I did, formed
a close friendship with me later on. She told me that every time she thought of
giving the habit up the weather would turn colder, the buses would be running
late, she would have a work deadline or a tiff with her partner ... hence
making her reach out to the solace of the smoke. We shared our heartaches and
joys all under the bus stop, with the whiff of a cigarette. I never really made
a close friend as her ever.
A
few more years later I moved to India. The anti-smoking campaign had certainly
picked up everywhere and many public places now prohibited smoking in their
premises. As if that actually made people give up the habit though. Every Sunday
I used to go for a walk beside the sea and I met him there for the first time.
He was trying to capture the huge orange ball in the sky into his camera. I
smiled and asked him if I could see whether he had done justice to nature’s
beacon. To say that it was magnificent would be an understatement. And while my
eyes were taking in the visual delights, my nose sniffed a familiar nostalgic
smell in the air. A cigarette in his hands. I looked and he apologetically
offered to put it out. I said “You do that and you will put out a part of my
rekindled memory”. He laughed and said “never before has someone said ‘no’ so
poetically!” That was the first of my regular weekend meetings with him over
the months to come. Often he had his camera slung around his neck ... as if it
was a garland that celebrated his profession. While our conversation was
varied, his cigarette was constant. I started looking forward to Sundays for
more than just the break from my working weekdays.
Then,
one Sunday, he met me and with a glorious twinkle in his eye said “Do you know
that job that I had applied for in Delhi? Well, i have bagged it. They want me
to start from next week itself and I have to move there in these five days. I
am so happy that I will finally be working with international brands and media
companies. You are the first person with whom I am sharing this ...” The rest
of his words were lost to me. I listened to him but couldn’t soak it all in. He
stopped and asked “well?”
I
mistakenly told him “I am so happy for you. You truly deserve this. Let me know
if I can help you. My friend lives in Delhi. I’ll give you his number”.
I
met him once again in a farewell party given by his friends. He went away to
Delhi. I stopped going to the seaside for my Sunday strolls. Many people there
but not the one whose company I wished for. It has been 4 months now. I am in
touch with him but his erratic schedules meant that our chats were never
consistent.
You
might think ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Well, it may have been so. Except for
the fact that whenever anyone around me lit up a cigarette I was reminded of
him instantly. Him, my close friend in London, my dad. They take me down on a
memory lane of people whom I would have loved to be in my life forever but
instead was left with the numbing ache of being away from them.
It’s
true about the warning on the cigarette packs, only it had an addendum for me. “Cigarette smoking is injurious to health ...
and perhaps to memories as well”.