Of Smoking & Graduating!

Mouth still filled with acrid bitterness and last puffs of smoke quickly slipping out of my lungs, for some moments, I felt nothing, and then my hands mechanically reached for another cigarette and kept the bitterness alive. The fading smoke got new life. The lights around, however, were fading gradually. Everyone around me seemed to enjoy the party, I felt nothing. Not any bust of excitement, neither a pinch of despair. The emotions had deserted me long time back. I saw people dancing, smoking, cracking jokes and enjoying, and then I suddenly observed the blankness that appeared not promptly though, but in bits and pieces, flashing for fractions of seconds, and then vanishing. I felt relaxed. Unlike all other emotions, jealousy stayed loyal to me.

The cigarette, clutched tightly between my index and middle fingers, was burning out slowly or rather unceremoniously. Its only sparkling moments were the ones with my lips, I sucking life out of it and feeding its soul to my lungs. For those instances, my entire focus shifted towards my right hand, lips and the pair of slowly dying lungs. In those short moments, I actually enjoyed the life. The life with smoke stuffed lungs and vacuum conscience. The moment I released the smoke, several thoughts emerged into my mind. Career, job, family, academia, recession – though colors were different, yet they shared the same shade of uncertainty. Indecision increased their brightness and there was no contrasting solution. I restlessly moved the cigarette up for an escape- short but sure. I puffed again.

The bitterness, that started from my lips and conquered my tongue and mouths in span of few cigarettes, was now extending its territory to my throat. I decided not to smoke another cigarette, and the decision fetched soothing happiness to my otherwise confused persona. I wished that I could hold the happiness for long, but it died out with the cigarette and buried with the crushing of the cigarette butt. The void prevailed. Everyone else surrendered – music, people, dance, lights, smoke, jokes, thoughts, worries, indecision, happiness and regrets. The vicious cycle began with no warning and I was lighting another cigarette.

Amidst another round of a thoughtful inhaling-exhaling session, I realized that completion of my under-graduation was very similar to burning of a cigarette. There were busts of excitement-and-fear as well as celebration-and-determination, at that time. The world seemed eager to accept us, the friends rejoiced the completion and we looked forward for an exciting career. The graduation, on the other hand, is analogous to the transition from one cigarette to another, occurred in void - with no emotions.

Under the spell of intense numbness and the company of a regularly reincarnating cigarette, I witnessed rest of my graduation party.

PS: This piece is dedicated to graduating class of 2009!