LE SMOKING

I've done a lot of thinking lately. The thinking that only occurs when you're snuggled down between the covers and the clock is blinking bright red digital 3am figures back at you and your mind is playing a constant loop of memories you'd rather forget. What is it about smoking that makes a person persist despite everything?
Smokers have their own group – you gather together at places where you have things in common, places you can unwind at. Occasionally if you’re in a new place where you can’t see anyone you know, you put the pack in front of you on the table as a signal. People tend to drift over if they smoke your kind of cigarette and then you drift into conversation.
Everyone thinks it’s the advertisements that tell you about cigarettes but actually, like most things yes, you look at the ad, but then it’s the cigarette itself that draws you in with its taste and flavour. With those first few puffs, you have a choice – whether to go with it or find something else that is more you. Yes the pack is important because the pack becomes your passport to the world when it sits there in front of you. And as you grow up you sometimes shift brands but that is because you have evolved as a person and you want the brand that you’re smoking to keep pace with you.
Cigarettes are useful – they give you a pause to think while you inhale and gradually exhale. They give you something to do with your hands when you’re feeling nervous or self conscious – which is why actors in Indian cinema spend a lot of time juggling cigarettes and packs when they’re not doing anything important in a scene. And of course, the smoke adds such an atmospheric effect to any film scene, curling up into the air and making nightclubs hazy.
When you’re young, you find yourself holding the cigarette in the same way as someone who you admire does. You even try the same cigarette. But then your own personality gradually kicks in and you can laugh at jokes about smokers being a desperate breed.
A cigarette is the perfect companion. Who is really great for you, who brings out the best in you, your partner in crime – a companion who is not going to second guess your relationship until it's lost all meaning. You can draw on it walking down a rain soaked pavement and use it to bring extra meaning to art or cinema, can actually consult it like a friend by the simple act of drawing on it.
The French had actually taken smoking to a new level by calling it ‘Le Smoking’ or ‘The Smoking’. You had special smoking jackets and whole line of couture designed by the likes of Yves St Laurent to complement the individual statement that you were making.
Smoking is me, the essential statement of who I am. Very few things can change that.