Over a shared puff of smoke

Our car was winding through the curvaceous roads by the hills in Odisha, a south eastern state in India. An hour ago, the native, Odiya teammate, had signaled the car to stop. Flailing his arms and legs after 3 hours of road journey, he declared, “It’s time for Tiffin, we wouldn’t get anything inside Naraynapatna.” Tiffin is what they call breakfast in Odisha. Smiling in my head, I nodded at him, as for me Tiffin was something my mother used to pack for lunch to school. Close to Narayanpatna, a tribal village allegedly under the red corridor, I felt like being back at school, ironically.

We got onto our journey once again. Our car stopped by only when we saw logs of wood covering an erupted piece of land. Breaking off from their chat in the local language, they told me that a local contractor was killed their year ago. Another one added, ‘Roads here are seen as state’s agenda to hold an attack on Maoists’. With it, they fizzled into a nervous smile, as if to comfort me or to brace up themselves.

Crossing a rivulet, a blue mountainous horizon beckoned us inside. The bells fastened around the cows’ neck, added music to the setup, as a herd blocked our way after taking a dip. Such scenery defeats danger, however much you provoke it.

The red flags atop cemented blocks were placed sparsely around, conspicuously marking the Maoist presence. Still the schoolgirl in me soaking in Odisha’s beauty, wondered: if I would come back again.

Getting down in a hamlet, we started talking to tribals with the help of the Odiya stringers and the locals who translated it to Kui, the tribal tongue. The language barrier made the conversation go haywire. Defeated at striking a rapport, it was time we moved out to avoid any danger. I went to the car to fetch water and biscuits, ‘our packaged Tiffin’, I gleamed at the thought. On coming back, I saw our sound man mingling with the village women, as casually as he would have with a local in Mumbai, the metropolitan he came from. Envious of him, seeing one smile from another, I saw the whirls of smoke that entwined them through the air of familiarity, easing out the mirage of threat. He had shared his city cigarettes, while drawing smoke from the leafy hand made joints in return.

‘The best conversations happen over a shared smoke’, my friends used to say, I remembered. As a non smoker, it was something I wouldn't I ever get to share, something that moment was urging me to do.