Tobacco Makes Me Sick

Tobacco makes me sick. And no, I don’t intend this as a diatribe. I mean it literally. We had a wonderful day, the other day. Watched a movie called Juno at PVR Saket, and UC made a big fuss and didn’t let me or SM pay. So we bought him lunch at Nirula’s. The movie was lovely, the day was perfect, I was at my hippie best in my rubber chappals and big orange pyjamas. So we were hanging around in the PVR complex and generally just gassing away in the stiff wind. SM wanted a smoke, but UC knew this place only too well, the boys used to come here to underage drink and watch bigscreen matches in some seedy pub; he said Why cigarette? Have you ever had a cigar?

So that’s how we got hold of the cognac flavoured forty five buck thing, I didn’t get to see the packing. So we lit up and it got passed around like the joint that it wasn’t. SM got thirsty soon enough, and suddenly UC disappeared and got four Breezers. So NS, me, SM and UC were sitting around there with a couple of Cranberries and a couple of Lemons which tasted divine in that weather. And then there was the cigar, one to four. Which was sweet and warm, and tasted like brownpapered candy that grew up. I was feeling nice and happy, I didn’t know whether it was the tobacco, the cognac, the sugar, the cool something-point-nothing alcohol or whether I was just in a good mood. I think it was just a good mood.

So we buzzed off from there, in search of pyaaz ke pakore. Which I knew you get the most amazing ones at Amar Colony next to that CD place that charges a hundred bucks to convert tape to CD. Off we went, hogged, then looked around for something sweet. Found an ice-cream place next door and had some kick ass cones and for some reason I had a deep craving for that highly jeera and salt-full chhaas or chhaach or mattha or moru or whatever the hell you care to call it. Then, since it wasn’t curfew yet, and we were more jobless than usual, we went over to GK to that park right after Zamroodpur that’s on the way to M-Block and City Café and all. We hung around there playing dumb charades with me and Tikku on one team and the other two on the other, and more than the usual share of crazy made-up movies with fancy names like Qutub Minar Ki Saathveen Manzil Par Pyaar Ho Gaya and Choodail Ki Aatma till curfew time and then went off back to hostel feeling pretty good.

That night was one of those good-bad nights when your mind works, but then if you’ve got something on your mind it’s like working with an overload. I was composing. It was happening again – the ideas just came. What I wanted to do was get stoned, but that was just a passing thought. After a while I got stuck, the roadblock was reached, and I really could do with a cold whisky. Then I remembered that damned cigar had been so huge it was stubbed out and saved, a relic, as UC said, of SM’s First Cigar Experience. I wanted something, my mind was crying out for a lift, so I said what the hell. SM was asleep, but if you can sleep through somebody pounding on the keys, you can sleep through smoke too. So I lit it and got my ashtray back from K’s room. Yes, yes, I own(ed, now it’s K’s) an ashtray. V had given it to me, it wasn’t intended to store smoke-dregs. It had some glass beads in it. Anyway, I didn’t know the bloody thing would be so strong, I guess UC had known what he was doing – there were four of us doing the thing in the morning, but alone it was like two or three shots of the kind of vodka you get on ladies night and don’t want to smell but just down to get it in the bloodstream, and fast. I felt twitchy and my legs felt like rubber. Duh, I thought, nothing happened with weed and this bloody cigar is killing me. I went and took a crap, they’re right, it really makes you want to shit. And then I had to throw up. I just couldn’t control it, and it was really sick. All that nice grub came tumbling out. Gross. I was done for the night, I didn’t even turn keys off, SM thought I was lying somewhere in a heap on the floor, but I don’t let myself get to that. Ever. It’s a policy thing.

A couple of days back we went to City Café after a long gap, and it was PB, NS, SM and me together, even that was after a long, long time. Zon and Zeri (the pups, John and Jerry) were missing, if that’s a yardstick. And the place was shadier (it had more baize on the ‘roof’) and cooler (it had a cooler and more fans). And they were smoking before dinner and asked me, but I didn’t care for one. And I do actually find it terrible for the smoke to go into my nose, even if it’s me who’s smoking. So I sat tight anyway, thankful for the fans and that it was just one pre-dinner. Of course I got lots of plusses for how tolerant I had become.

Anyway, we had lots of cheap Chinese and walked, very full, to M-Block in search of a Breezer apiece. We couldn’t find any even at Prince Pan and it was too late to go to Kailash Colony, so we got a couple of smokes instead, and then I got a Godang Garam for a lark. I didn’t reckon it was just plain old tobacco that did me in the other day with the cigar, so I lit up, and felt really queasy really soon. I stubbed out half of it and we made back home. That night I felt terrible for a long while because the nausea just wouldn’t die down. Finally when it did, I wasn’t sleepy at all by then, so I spent the entire night chatting to PB and telling my dukh bhari daastan which had recently been resolved with a few words and some major salf-reflexivity. And some help from N.

So I’m off tobacco, after some half a dozen brief encounters with it and nothing coming out of it.

I’m not off weed though. And Carl Sagan had some five tries till anything happened to him, so screw.

Now I feel sheepish and fifteen. So I think I should cut this post short here.
Yawn.