A puff, A swirl

When I was in nursery most people felt I was not girl enough. Maybe that is why I had this strange fascination for cigarettes. I felt it was an act that involved style and dignity. I felt respect for those who could hold that style of creating a whiff of smoke into still air well.  I still remember the awe with which i watched a porter squatting  by the jagged edges of the rain washed railway platform and beautifully balance a dangling cigarette . I even told myself that one day I would become woman enough and marry a railway porter. 

  

 My dad was a chain smoker but he quit smoking because of the event I narrate here. My dad and his friends used to have occasional 'smoke circles'(the term I coined as I watched them all through the key hole) and I would dream of one day having such a smoke circle of my friends .

I used to wait outside under the window of that room counting the cigar ends that they threw out. I would collect the butts , squat beside and experiment a feel of them. But most of them were just dead end smolders...

So I finally decided to frisk a fresh cigarette for myself. I hid it in my nursery satchel for a day. In the evening I ran to my favorite hiding spot and lit the cigarette with all the style and dignity that lay in me...

But instead of the heroic feel I expected, I felt choked bitter and a horrid stench....and then i felt something hit me and  that stylish pipe with one stroke...It was my dad who had hit and I looked up at him...The style dangling at my lips still...

He gave me a good reprimand and I think within a few months my dad quit smoking for life. So that is how my first experiment with puffs...ended. And now for the swirl..... During my annual visits to kerala I was bored with the usual games and wandered into the  grove nearby. That is when I saw a man climbing up the tree like a monkey. So I hid behind a tree and watched as he clambered down again,  left a pot of 'something ' yummy to drink and climbed another tree. Since he didn't come down for a long time, I tried tasting what was in the pot..and since I am by nature a glutton I drank it down and then felt a swirl....

I woke up to find myself on a bed at home, my dad watching me with a strange look and then my mother gave me her share of the swirl.....