Shaheri Adamkhor

Tobacco secessionist, what the fuck is that?

I am not a ‘cutting down’ kind of a person. My style is cold turkey. The thought of quitting
smoking never occurred to me, but when i made up my mind i wanted to go for sudden
death. I wasn’t entirely confident whether i’d be abled to do it my myself, therefor enter
Reena Prasad, the great tobacco secessionist.

Whoooa

I was the only person in the clinic that Friday morning. She walked in smelling of Cinthol
soap. Occasionally a hidden smell of fresh perspiration broke through. She was plump and
wore a lilac shalwar kameez with cream-colour dupatta. She looked at my files and said,
‘Joshiji, cigarette chhorney ke liye sharaab bhi chhorni paregi.’

How do you know I drink?

You have a face of an alcoholic.

wait-a-minit… she called me an alcoholic, I only drink socially, like four glasses of wine
max.

‘That’s already a lot Joshiji’ she said.

I got a bit annoyed. These ultra-conservative, vegetarian, teetotaller health professionals

irritate me to no end.

‘Madam, I would be grateful if you stick to the tobacco secession bit, leave the lifestyle-
change to me. And please no paatth, jaap, chanting or meditation. Just give me some pills
to kick the habit, or hypnotise me if you want'

Lets me check your lung capacity Joshiji. She opened a worn-out box, that looked like the
first laptop i ever had, plugged a device that looked like a mike and told me to blow. I blew.
Her eyes widened. A few second of silence. She looked out of the window in dramatic
disbelief.

What happened? I asked.

“Joshiji normal level is green, yellow is medium bad, orange is bad and look at yours, its a
high red.” She turned the screen towards me. It looked like a CPM poster.

Did you go through the treatment?

Obviously not

So how did you you quit?

Couple of days later. Outside Kailash Colony Market. I lit up my last cigarette, crumpled up
the pack and smoked the classic milds until the bud and then flicked it far into the street.
That was ten years back. I still remember the sizzle with which the bud hit the puddle that
reflected the signboard of the Big Chill restaurant.
And you managed to stay out of it?

Yes.

Quitting smoking is a bit like quitting a relationship, you need all you muscles. Every time
you get the craving, drink a lot of water, get up, move, walk, run, go to the post-office, get
into an argument, just become really active.

In order to celebrate quitting smoking, i went for a two-week trek through Zanskar Valley.
Smoking there would be insane. By the time i got back I had mentally and physically
moved away from my addiction. If i still had a craving i muffled it with badminton. I smoke a
joint every now and then. So unless you’re measuring me through the judging eyes of a
healthy-living fundoo, i have been clean of cigarettes for over ten years

Where there side-effects?

I became a very bechain person, hanging out with me was like travelling with Mick Jaeger
in a crowded train. I made everybody around me anxious. Partly because i had also
stopped drinking. I wasn’t yet strong enough to have a drink without a smoke.

Then another thing happened.

What?

I started eating indiscriminately.

That’s Normal

In my case it wasn’t. A few days after i had returned from the trek, I went out looking for a
pair of running shoes. I am very brand conscious when it comes to shoes, Sketchers, New
balance, Tiger. I went from showroom to showroom but could find the right design. In my
disappointment I bought a kilo of jalebis to take home. But without realising it, I ate it on
my way. My mouth was paralysed by extreme sugar. I picked up some hot kababs and
gulped them down quickly while still blowing at them. As I walked the uneven footpath, I
wanted to to eat everything I saw. The peas and carrots on the vegetable stand, dates,
grapes, guavas on the fruit-stand then roses, gladiolas, lilies, rajnigandhas, polyester
textiles, protein shakes, rubber tyres, i wanted to eat them all.

Then one day at the airport a curious incident happened. While i was waiting for my flight, I
sat across a Marwari family. Mother, father, two slightly chubby adolescents. They were
eating snacks, returning home after holidays. I felt warm just looking at them. Over the
phone, the man was instructing his driver “Opel astra leke aana, Suberu-ka zaroorat nehi”

I couldn’t take my eyes off them. Soon, the father grew a bit uneasy. It was probably my
stare. I moved to another seat. Before me sat a middle aged businessman sipping Maaza,
he too felt a bit uneasy and moved away. Strange. Then while standing in the queue to
board the plane, i felt an unease among my fellow passengers. as if they were gazelles
who have sensed a leopard in the vicinity. It was not until mid-flight I slowly realised what
was happening. I wanted to eat them up. The Marwari family. The man sipping Maaza, my
fellow boarders. I wanted to eat them all. Head to toe. Along with their homemade snack.
People seem to sense it, that’s why they were fearful..
It’s probably an extreme reaction to violent tobacco secession.

Who knows. People continued feeling uneasy around me. I thought the phase would pass
but it persisted. That time, only way i could connect with people was by thinking of them as
food. I told my friends, they thought it was a joke.

I wanted to find out about my condition. I read that in certain cultures people are eaten out
of affection and respect. Like in some parts of Papua New Guinea they eat their
grandparents. Thats how they cope with the grief of losing them.

The first person I wanted to eat was a poet living in our neighbourhood. We call him the
poet laureate of K block. He is rotund, rosy-complexioned and is good looking in an edible
way. He always reacted to everyone’s facebook post with a ‘like’. His insta is full of
pictures of him with famous people. Smiling, posing, drinking in book-launches, sunsetting
in Goa. I wanted to eat him as a steak, cooked in his own fat. I even wanted to have a
feast with the colony guards and make them recite lines from his poems.

What did your friends say about this?

My historian friend Arti Sebastian said that I have what is called vorarephilia. It is an erotic
desire to eat someone up. She added that there are two types vorarephiliacs, the soft voer
who wants to eat up a person whole and alive and there’s the hard voer, who want to cook
them. I was the later type. But she told me not to worry, its a common problem. Even In
11th century England, they sold cooked human flesh in markets. She also said that in
1098, the first crusaders ate up an entire Syrian city called Ma’arra. Some say the muslim
population was eaten in banquets borne out of famine, without the knowledge of the
Christian military superiors while others say it was an done to install psychological fear in
the minds of the Muslim world.

Who would have thought?

Why? according to fossil records, Neanderthals constantly ate each other up until they
disappeared.

My other friend Haripriya Mangle told me about medicinal cannibalism. She said that
eating pulverised parts of a mummy for medicinal purposes was very common throughout
Europe. Medicinal cannibalism reached its highest point around 1680 in Germany, She
tried to comfort me by making my syndrome part of a great historical continuity. But I
wasn’t reassured. People continued to feel a sense of quiet dread when they were around
me.

That’s when you went to a therapist?

We had 8 sessions, they cost me a fortune. At the end she suggested that it could be
motivated by my desire to merge with a powerful other or it could simply be an attempt to
permanently escape loneliness.

She also said, i am have severe Vitamin D deficiency.

This was very demoralising.

Finally I was cured by the very thing that caused it.

After a great vegetarian meal at Swaati’s, I lit up a cigarette after almost a millennia. That
is when the idea struck me. A cookbook of friend, not ‘for’ friends. Samar Joshi’s recipes to
cook his friends. For practical purposes you can also replace your friends with poultry,
pork, lamb or beef, they’ll work just as well. What makes it special is that the recipe is
originally designed to cook a beloved one and which makes eating it spiritually satisfying.

Lukhimai Linniebank: my skinny fit diplomat friend would be made into thin strops of
pastramis to be placed on bruschetta and a horse radish sauce.

Rajdeep Bose: minced, marinated and mixed with finely chopped coriander made into
meatball and cooked in a tomato based sauce.

Gaston Lesalle: dried into jerkies

Abhislasha Ahuja: stir-fried with bell peppers, and green beans.

Solomen Biswas: light stew

Iram Akhtar: Palak Ghost with pomegranate

Sonam Bhasin: dry roast with parsley

Prachi Mehra: made into scnitzel, and eaten with cranberry sauce and garden salad

Seher Massod diced and cubed and slow-cooked into a goulash and eaten with corn
bread

Chandan Jhunjhunwala marinated with yogurt and giner paste and cooked in a handi

Dharmesh Zaveri, cut into stripped and cooked with saffron and coconet milk

Shelina Simone roasted, pulled and eaten with blanched green beans

Kiran Kohli minced, herbed and made into a tartaer