Me and my brother go outside near the park that is a bit distant from our home. It might be due to some work or just without any reason. So my brother used to smoke, and whenever he goes near the park, he proudly opens a pack of cigarettes and lights it up. It’s not because he is proud of smoking; it’s just because there is no one who could identify him smoking. But one of these days, something strange happened. He had his cigarette with him but he forgot to bring his lighter. So I started thinking what he would do. Apparently, I thought that he would buy one and light his cigarette. But that was not the case.
So we were walking through the road, and he suddenly started looking towards everyone, and he found one person having a cigarette. He asked that brother for the lighter, and without any hesitation, the other person gave it to him and my brother lit his cigarette. Well, that is not the part that astonished me, it was when they started having a conversation out of nowhere. It started from where they live and how they come there frequently. Well, I stood there quietly in my deep thoughts, is that all true that we have learnt in college about communication? How can two strangers start having a conversation just by sharing a lighter? Well, I gave it a thought for a couple of years.
While I am not promoting smoking, still this one piece of lighter worked as the catalyst of a conversation. I have heard people stating that they started smoking just because they wanted to have conversations with people, and they found smoking as the conversation bearer and later they started doing it regularly.
Another such incident—one fine evening, I was with my two friends, and it is better to not disclose his or her name. But a guy wearing a kurta was smoking beside us, and suddenly he had to be in class and he couldn’t throw the cigarette, so he gave it to one of my friends. I asked him/her where he/she knew him from. He/she replied with, “No.” I asked again, “So he gave you the cigarette out of nowhere?” He/she replied again, “Yeah, I have seen him here most of the days. One time he asked me for the lighter. And for some reason, I asked him for a cigarette one of the days. We actually don’t know each other but we have seen each other here only.” And again, it made me think and not just as a smoker’s bystander—why does smoking of all things become such a powerful conversation starter?
Maybe it is the shared ritual. The small pause or the moment of collective slowing down in a fast-paced world. Smoking carves out a break in time. And in that break, people feel less obliged to wear their armour.
This again made me think about the concept of the stranger. I have once read sociologist Georg Simmel’s definition of “the stranger.” He defines the stranger as someone who is near but far, present but detached, a figure unique to modern life. Strangers, paradoxically, have the freedom to be honest. We shed the weight of identity with them, without any expectations and judgments. Perhaps that might be the reason that my brother could speak freely, and perhaps that is why the other man could listen and vice versa.
Because in the presence of a stranger, we are allowed to become someone else—or perhaps, finally just be ourselves.
Let me remind you once again, I am not promoting smoking, and I am no one to give moral advice on whether to smoke or not too. If anything, it is an attempt to deconstruct why something as unhealthy and destructive as a cigarette often becomes a common element to talk about.
This all reminds me of something I always found beautiful in Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Anand, where Anand, played by Rajesh Khanna, walks up to strangers, slaps them on the back and exclaims,
“Murari Lal! Kya kya kar rahe ho yaar?” (Murari Lal, what are you doing?)
And when asked why he does that, he replies simply by saying,
“Zindagi badi chhoti hai, dost. Agar koi achha lage, usse baat karni chahiye.” (Life is too short, my friend. If you find someone interesting, just talk to them.)
He embraces his spontaneity and just talks to anyone he wants to.
We live in an age of paradox. We are always connected—digitally, virtually—yet perpetually alone. Our conversations are instant, but often shallow. Amid this chaos, we long for something that is raw and real even if it comes in the form of an ask for a lighter on a busy street.
Or it might be the ending of one another that pleases us, that we do intently without full consciousness. Well, who does not like to feel equally destroyed, even though being a stranger?
Hope we all are finding that Murari Lal in the form of smoking someone who is equally devastated and feels similar to what we feel. Because we, as humans, find a connection through similarities, and have something to talk about in general. We human beings seek connection—in another person, a pen and paper, the tap of fingers on a keypad, or sometimes, something as simple as a lighter.
