I know I know...I am being politically incorrect and for this I can almost feel all the brickbats hitting me hard and those intellectuals gunning for me...but since I am suffering from the writers block so all I can write now is inane stuff...my intelligence got the better of me and left me... and then people who matter to me have been telling me that I write heavy stuff that weighs them down so I decided to write about something that takes you on a high...

AN OBITUARY TO THE LAST BASTION OF THE MACHO MAN- THE CIGARETTE

You look so seductively chic..
Long, slender with the perfect finesse

He looked at you lovingly as you stood delicately poised 

Between his perfect fingertips making him look so polished

He cannot resist your irresistible tips

Your one end is fire and the other end is a cool attire

And he holds you possessively between his lips

The contented look on his face says it all 

As he puffs you out slowly as if it his last call

And my first crush on him is because of you…

You made him so mannishly appealing ….what could a girl do

And how I drooled when my ‘Amitji’ held your poor cousin so passionately

I think it was the ‘bidi’ that made ‘deewar’ a hit…

And your country cousin the rustic ‘hukka’

Made the oldies survive all the pastoral feminine  'thumkas' and ‘jhatkas’
And your rich and city cousins the cigar and the pipe

They made Freud so intellectual and bright…

And Sherlock Holmes couldn’t solve a mystery

Without the assistance of the tobacco dynasty

And not to forget the super Rajnikanth too

Who finished the fight soon to catch the cigarette the villain threw

Pran and Shak Rukh too became a hero and heart throb thanks to you

Because of those roundels and ringlets they huffed and puffed and blew 

How I’ll miss watching Gregory Peck, Clint Eastwood and those Macho men with you in their hand

Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe and those oomph gals added to your glamour and glitz and stand

Now where will we get to see those Red and White Knights

Protecting damsels from villains so uptight

And you taught us our earliest lessons in guilt

When we tried our first stint at being masculine

And got caught coughing and wheezing

Ah!!! You stood for emancipation too

It was a portrait of cerebral zenith…

My philosopher and guide smoking the cigar and pipe

And all those intellectuals we know

Got their ideas from inhaling and exhaling you alone

But Alas!! Those days of smoke storming are gone

And brains are all we will have to use to get ideas and write poems and songs 

It is sad we shall see you no more openly

You have been labeled bad and are banned knowingly

You who made a man macho will no longer exist

You who helped him in tragedy by helping him smoke away reality 

Now you have become the villain in totality
And to substitute you and your masculinity

Maybe they’ll show them chewing a pencil slowly bit by bit

Or for an orally fixated culture the Chewing gum is better

But your masculine smell is difficult to beat

The Sheesha is a poor surrogate for it

But thanks to your doom

The laxative industry will bloom

And people will be forced to think on the throne

And hopefully creativity will flourish even more 

Still I mourn your death and miss those times

When a man was a man…not supposed to be so emotionally labile

And need I say …all I’ve said is direct ‘dil se’…and true

Sometimes we shed tears for the tabooed things too

And all this is written in a jest

Cigarette smoking is injurious to your health

*****PS For those who are not inquisitive…I do not indulge in active or passive smoking