Who knows where I burn..
Who knows where I die..
Who knows what is my worth..
Who knows where I cry..
I am the last cigarette..
I know when I lie.
It was raining hard, like never before. Adithya was done for the day. The usual work, the mundane life and the uninteresting people had provided him with enough reasons to burn his lungs away. He started taking small steps as soon as he was out in the rain. Don't you know the craze of rain here, especially when the whole world is burning in its own ego? He thought, why not a cigarette and some rain drops..sounded quite stimulating to his long deaf ears. He knew how to use his hearing aid. It was the only flexible thing in his life. He could take it out when he wanted to avoid people and be deaf among roaring, meaningless noise and he could as well put it on when he wanted to listen to his own cry or a rain drop!
Year 2003, Chennai. He was an enthusiastic electrical engineering graduate. In a petty win on a friendly bet, he had smoked his first cigarette. It took him a while to sink in his own glory and bask in his own achievement, not to mention in front of his so called girlfriend. It was hard not to show off when he was accompanied by few half cooked minds then, as he himself belonged to the same class, singing the same song and playing the same game. Also, a pretty female in life called for petty decisions and was considered substantial those days. Little did he know then that his first cigarette would be his song of life.
Year 2008, Zurich. Snowfall, bone chilling winter and smoke all around. A lavish job and even more lavish women. Computers, movies, trekking, biking, hiking, photography, sex, mushrooms etc etc. What else could a man ask for..I think he wanted to ask for a vision..which he had lost over five years in a foreign but friendly country. Adithya was one of the most sought after creams of the company. What he lacked was constant excitement towards his own life. He did everything, literally everything to forget who he was but he could only sit and contemplate about his self when he was with one thing..his own, very own cigarette. People made noises about his life, his morality, his intelligence, his flings, his food, his family..even his bowel movements but little was he bothered as he was indulged in his only love in life, his cigarette. It took away lot of things from his seemingly perfect life. He still choose it over everything and everyone. Somewhere he knew that everything comes with an expiry date. He was too egoistic to admit that he was 'addicted' to this way of living. He was too foolish to burn his respiratory linings and too honest to realize that he would die soon.
Today, he was back in his own country. In India. In a place where cigarettes were no longer a taboo but a mark of arrogant air. A place where smoking was considered a culture amongst many. Many who didn't know what culture meant. In this place, he left his luxury of Zurich, his luxury of being luxurious, his women who satisfied him but never loved him and he gave them the same-satisfaction but no love. He also left his dreams and ambitions.. as for once he realized that they were fake. They were in the process of making him 'another man in another world'-A make belief world, a foreign dreamer, a patriotic looser and a reluctant individual. Yes, he just possessed one thing, his cigarette. He was an inconspicuous technician in a giant cable company. He choose to be a shadow in his own country. More so because he was running from his own trails of foolishness and possessions. He was engulfed by profound silence, he loved it. He managed to speak less, work more and do the needful. Nothing more nothing less. Enough to make a living and enough to fetch a cigarette for his burning desire to burn even more.
Soaked in the intoxicating smell of the earth, drenched in his own misery but still walking towards home, he recollected how his parents had died in a car accident by a ramming truck in Madras. The driver's recklessness costed him too much; loaded him with a sorrow beyond repair. His parents were the only assets..he felt, sadly after they left there bodies. People came and left. It was normal but hard for Adithya to gulp every time it happened. A Tiya, a Deepthi or a Seema left his life, for he was a lover of lovers. He never believed in one love. He loved the idea of love. He was in a phase of discovering his body and mind through these women then. He was adulterated with the thoughts of perfection and sea of desires. No fault, no ambition- just love. It was heavenly for him until he actually met someone unconventional. It happened in no time but at the right time. It gave him enough time to brood and enough to renounce. It gave him a purpose to light the next cigarette. She made him what he wanted to be. She whispered in his long ears the words he avoided since his childhood. She burnt him with her faith in him and he felt smaller like a burnt cigarette, for he knew he was not was he was told. He was not her man. He was low, he was addicted, he was uncontrolled and he was fake to top it all. He left her because somehow he genuflected in front of her honest love. He choose the idea 'love is not possessed'. Nothing is possessed. Things should serve the body, people should serve the minds. If it happens the other way round, life is a mess. He was in a mess until he met her and and he was crystal clear when he left her. He was not alone. He was full of purpose. Even burning his last cigarette seemed perfect in his sketchy life.
The raindrops were heavy on his thinning hairline now. They started to rhythm when they fell on his motionless face. He could count each drop and assess its effect. He had his ear machine on. He was aware what was happening around but he was only focused on the droplets and the ever burning cigarette. He said to himself, 'till the last burns.. I walk'. He was combating a worm in his head, big enough to make him blind, go gaga over his unreal life. He wanted to decide soon, either to kill the worm or kill the bearer. It must be a silent death he whispered-it must be a work of art. Suddenly he jerked. He was so absorbed in his own smoke, little did he realize that he almost ran into a mob. A bunch of activists from Southern Mumbai. Thats where he was living now, although he ignored any sort of geographical location being attached to his identity. For him, in the year 2018, it didn't matter where he was. It didn't matter who he was. It didn't matter how many did he burn...an 'n'th or an 'i'th. It just made him aware that he still had some organs intact in a brain dead body. 'These activists are all over', he thought. The noise made his head burst. He wanted to pull out his hearing aid, just then..yes exactly then he saw something beautiful.
A woman he knew long ago. She was draped in a white saree with red border. It was red as blood and pale as his life. But the person gave the cloth a purpose, an energy he had not witnessed in years. She was speaking for her people, but she was not a part of the mob looked like. She was doing the same thing she did for him fifteen years ago. She was inculcating love in loveless souls. She was trying her best to bring them face to face with reality. She was protesting against domestic violence. She was speaking for her sisters. She was fed up of seeing men drinking, smoking, beating there wives, raping their daughters, killing babies, prostitutes who dreamt out of their world. She was for womanhood or manhood I dont know but I think Adithya understood. She was not on anyone's side. She was fighting her own case. She was trying to build a peaceful place in a filthy pond, but atleast she was trying.. he thought. She was a prostitute when he met her. He went beyond her body in his first account and rest is a puzzle. She managed to escape that world but still connected through her work. She looked mesmerizing in the saree, drenched in torrential rain of her emotions and spirit. He just wanted to hug her and pat her shoulders for living with a purpose- unlike him. He wasted his strong infrastructure and she was just building hers, in her middle age. He inherited his foundation, she achieved it. She fought for it and she was fighting now.
Moments passed, hours passed and he wanted to pass the mob too. He was stuck to the ground realizing something was immovable. It was his vision, which captured her after long tormenting years. He choose not to let the hours pass but freeze them for eternity. He stood till he could, smoking, sucking, releasing. He saw events as flashes of light; her hands, her hair, her voice in his ears, her smile in a dark dingy room, her smell of honesty, her fearless welcome, her purpose of using her body, everything. She was no different now. She was powerful. It happened again. He saw what he was blinded to for 10 odd years. His cigarette had burnt enough to be only discarded. His empty pocket only rich with cigarette packets now seemed worthless. He moved effortlessly. He understood a basic thing in his life. 'It takes a moment to breathe again'..he smiled. He had to go home and wait for a new day to welcome him. He felt the urgency of a new beginning. A life without the 'last cigarette'. Fresh air, no smoke, no addiction. For the love of love, for the respect of her purpose, for the value running in his blood, for his dead parents, for his fleeting dreams, for the lost man found again- Adithya lived.
