The Woman with a Cigarette

The Woman with a Cigarette

Arundhati’s photograph

a cigarette between her fingers

and suddenly the world panicked

caught naked

in the mirror of its own hypocrisy

The moment a woman inhales

she is stamped

immoral

characterless

a whore

shameless

loose

loud-mouthed

brazen

as if the smoke itself

could etch her soul

into disgrace

Your outrage reveals

what still burns within you

patriarchy’s throne

the Manusmriti buried

like live coal

in your chest

How strange

a man smokes,

blows rings into the air

and it is leisure

A woman smokes

and it is sin

Nehru’s cigarette was culture

Che Guevara’s smoke

revolution

But from a woman’s lips

the same smoke

is a crime

I am not astonished

I have seen women of my lanes

the aunt with a bidi in her blouse pocket,

the old grandmother

sitting on the doorstep

lighting up

No feminism

no slogans of freedom

no revolution in their throats

only a small treaty with fatigue

or an evening circle

to share sorrow and laughter

Manto once wrote:

cigarettes destroy lungs

not character

Yet your masculinity is so fragile

a single picture can shake it

Yes, smoke is poison,

everyone knows this

but it is only a woman’s smoke

that chokes you

It isn’t smoke you fear at all

It is the mirror in your own mind

where the Manusmriti

still smolders

refusing to die