At sunrise in Munnar, between peace and craving: the ritual begins.

India’s sun is unpredictable in the mountains around Munnar. In the morning it has good intentions. By midday it’s akin to sitting beside a fire, waiting for the sulphurous odour of  burning hair. 

I smoke and watch the kaleidoscopic heat haze flutter above the bitumen. My third  beedi since breakfast. Three days ago, I didn’t know beedis existed. Now I can’t go an hour  without one. 

‘You’re sure the bus is stopping here?’ I ask Rosie. 

We’re standing on an unassuming corner of road somewhere up the mountain, about a  25-minute tuk-tuk ride south of Munnar Town. Shade is a precious commodity today. We’re  crammed in under a thin strip afforded by a restaurant’s awning. Our backpacks sit just in front in the dirt and hot sun.

Three local shops, two restaurants and one massage parlour make a dishevelled row  behind us. The shops are open to the elements; dust leaves a thin film over most products. Rosie points at a nearby man who is also waiting on the roadside. He’s wearing  business trousers and shoes, a button-up and a rucksack. Sweat has spread out over his  shoulders from beneath the straps. 

He is the answer to my question, apparently. 

A concrete bus shelter slouches on the road’s opposite side. It has the pale-grey  complexion of last week’s fish and holes that look like the work of sledgehammers. Coppery  rebars jut from its side like broken femurs.  

It’s still better proof than anything we have on our side. I cannot see anything that  might indicate the bus to Fort Kochi will even slow down. I mention this to Rosie, but she is  seemingly content with this sweaty man dressed for town and the assurances from nearby  tuk-tuk drivers. 

A few weeks ago, I might’ve crossed the road and waited at the concrete bus shelter  despite knowing it was for people going up, not down, the mountain. The Western symbolism  alone would have persuaded me.  

Those first few weeks in India I pushed my Western ways on the country and I  suffered.  

I argued with Rosie. Insisted in anxious whispers that local tuk-tuk drivers didn’t  know the proper Google Map routes. I stressed for hours when our night train didn’t arrive  because there was no delayed announcement at the station or revised timings online. I  resented the chalk-board timetable for Alleppey’s ferries, which was never accurate, not even  within ten minutes.  

But we always managed to get to wherever we were going.

Now, waiting for another late bus on an unsigned road in Munnar, I concede to what  Rosie calls the ‘yin and yang’ of India’s chaos. With a smidgeon of anxiety bubbling in my  stomach, I give her an acquiescing nod and carry on smoking.  

While I wait for yin to balance out yang, I give silent thanks to King Raja for bringing  beedis into my life.  

* 

Our first morning in Munnar we left our hotel early for a guided full-day hike through the  region’s famous tea fields. We took a tuk-tuk up to Munnar Town, the morning air rushing  past still fresh and cold on our faces.  

India’s February heat is kinder in the mountains. It leaves you alone while you sleep  and gives you a head start in the morning. But it doesn’t take long for it to return with the  enthusiasm of an upstart understudy just handed the starring role. 

‘You didn’t bring a hat,’ Rosie said as the tuk-tuk scaled the mountain road, its lawn mower engine sounding close to retirement. 

‘I’ll be fine,’ I insisted. 

‘We’re hiking up a mountain. You should’ve brought a hat.’ 

‘We’ve got sunscreen. I’ve got hair. What are you worried about?’ 

Instead of answering she gave me one of those ‘I’ll be telling you so later’ smiles. We met our guide on the outskirts of Munnar Town. A fit local man in his thirties wearing khakis and a long-sleeve button-up. Average height, he shouldered a large rucksack and in one hand held a sturdy walking stick. He also wore a baseball cap with KING on its front in large royal font. 

‘King Raja,’ he introduced himself with a smile that pooled in his eyes and rippled  through his cheeks. I wished I could be as instantly likeable as that smile.

He told us we were the only people on the full-day hike. Before we left, he checked  we had enough water and offered me a spare hat to wear. I politely declined, failing to mimic  his smile.  

We trekked past homes and cricket pitches up into dense tea plantations spread over  the mountainsides surrounding Munnar Town. King Raja stopped intermittently along the  way to show us different plants and teach us their uses. Aside from the gumtrees, which  reminded me of home, I would have never usually paid much attention to these plants. They all had their uses, in one way or another.  

Some, like lemongrass, were harvested for cooking. Others for their medicinal  properties. Brahmi, with its thick leaves and cup-like white flowers, was known to help with  memory loss, anxiety and depression. He showed us another that could induce vomiting; part of an Ayurvedic treatment to purge the body. And he taught us what size leaves made white,  green and black tea.  

This information often feels life changing at the time but is rarely retained for it has  little fundamental purpose in everyday life back home. 

We stopped for lunch four hours later near the mountain’s peak. We had zigged and  zagged our way up through chest-high tea plantations. Our breathing was sharper, our necks  and backs sweat-slicked, and the rucksack two kilograms lighter of water.  

We had our own snacks, but these were temporarily forgotten when King Raja handed  us boondas his wife had baked that morning.  

My first bite of a boonda was a revelation. What had appeared as a dry, fist-sized  bread ball was as sweet and savoury as a doughnut. It first fluffed then collapsed in my  mouth. 

King poured cups of tea made from local leaves. We sat to eat and drink in silence.  An opposing landscape spread out beneath us. 

Manicured tea fields, precise and uniform, bordered unkempt forests and rivers that  gave way to grey irrigation systems. Pockets of old houses met modern hotels. Buses, cars  and scooties followed unwritten rules of conduct on long stretches of road. 

Occasionally, when the birds paused chatting and the dragonflies weren’t hovering so  close, the sounds of these engines would scale the mountainside, fight past the breeze and  reach us in a way that felt symbiotic to this fleeting space and time. 

King Raja sat down near the edge and lit a green, stubby cigarette smaller than any  straight or roll-your-own. Instead of a filter, one end was pinched shut, leaving a tiny opening  for the smoke to flow out. Thin blue string wrapped around this pinched end. ‘What’s that you’re smoking?’ I asked, curious. 

‘Beedi,’ King said. He exhaled, grey and dense. ‘Do you not smoke?’ 

He seemed surprised. As if he too knew that if there was ever a time and place to  smoke, this was it.  

‘I do, but not right now,’ I told him.  

I felt the need to explain myself in the moment, afraid of being misunderstood for  eternity. I mimed rolling a cigarette.  

‘I smoke tobacco. You know, rolling tobacco.’  

He nodded and continued smoking. I decided to explain myself further. ‘But I ran out of filters the other day and I can’t find any here.’ 

King’s eyes wandered from the ground by his boots to a nearby tree. 

‘Do you know where I’d get some?’ I asked. 

‘Papers?’ 

‘Filters.’ I held my thumb and finger close together, trying to demonstrate the size. ‘No. They’re not selling those here. You came from the city? Down the mountains?’ ‘Yeah.’ 

‘Back where you’ve come they do. Not here. Here they’re only selling cigarettes.’ He  rubbed his fingers and thumb together. ‘But they cost too much. So I smoke beedi.’ ‘What are beedi?’ 

Beedis, King explained, were handmade cigarettes sold in packs for about ten rupees  in local shops. That stubby green cig between his fingers was essentially tobacco rolled up in  leaves. Simple, cheap and very smokeable. 

When he told me this, I assumed the leaves were tea leaves. I embraced the notion that these leaves, which had ripened then aged before they could be harvested, were being  smoked. Like a mosquito to an electrified blue light, I was drawn to the romantic authenticity of this local adaptation of the humble cigarette.  

I had run out of filters two days earlier. I still had papers and a little tobacco, which I  wasn’t willing to squander on a rough cigarette sans filtre. These beedis seemed the perfect  alternative to raw dogging a roll-your-own.  

I almost asked King for one, but it felt wrong bumming a smoke off our guide. He  wasn’t paid well and worked hard for his beedi (he was leading another walk that evening).  I reminded myself that I was supposed to be taking a break. Giving my lungs a  reprieve with fresh mountain air. 

But what King was describing sounded as natural and harmless as the boonda and tea.  We were drinking the leaves, touching them, breathing them in. Smoking those same leaves dried and rolled around tobacco was surely better than a normal cigarette. 

On our way down the mountain, King pointed out a plant that could kill humans if  ingested. Its poison was so toxic, just touching its leaves would make you physically ill.  I forgot this plant’s name soon after leaving Munnar. All I remember is that it was  growing next to another plant used for making tea. The two plants had very similar leaves. 

I asked King Raja how people could avoid this suicide plant if they’d never seen it  before. He told us to steer clear of any plant birds don’t land on. 

‘They’re smart. Birds. They don’t go near anything that’s killing them.’  * 

That afternoon, I walked to a local shop near our hotel. We were staying on a main  road. Speeding cars and buses passed me in loud blurs one metre from the thin dirt path. I’d  told Rosie I wanted to by ice creams; a flimsy excuse to search for beedis.  

I do this occasionally with Rosie: mislead in the name of a good smoke. I might  convince her to take a scenic route while secretly knowing there’s a beautiful place to light  up. Once, I insisted we eat dinner in a specific part of Kalamata because it had a shop selling  my favourite tobacco.  

I think initially I’m too ashamed of my habit to be honest. But as we get closer to that  tobacco shop or leafy cobblestoned square, I’m inevitably forced to reveal my ulterior  motive. She puts up with it purely due to its infrequency, but she’s always unimpressed. 

Rosie gave me that same unimpressed look when I returned from the shop with ice  creams and beedis. They were wrapped in newspaper and had in fact cost ten rupees. Eleven  bidis in total, all hand rolled and ready for smoking. 

We ate the ice creams on our balcony overlooking three mountains with sloping tea  fields. They resembled three giant whales breaching through a green wave. The sides of homes snuck through the foliage beneath us. People moved through the  trees, tending to gardens, playing with dogs or children, or simply pottering about waiting for  nightfall. 

In those final echoes of daylight, peace descended upon the mountains.  I lit my first beedi. My heartrate quickened as the stubby end caught and glowed orange. The air’s ochre tang mingled with the rustic scent of burning leaves and tobacco. As the sun set out of sight, I smoked with a half-smile and watched those three whales change  colours, cheered on by birdsong. 

The beedi’s smoke had a bush fire’s roughness and a subtle bitter note. I savoured it knowing each subsequent beedi would lack that extra joy of first discoveries.  My moment was cut short when a nearby hotel bar started playing the same endless  soundtrack of remixed love songs that had stalked us to every beach, city and backwater  haven. I could not understand India’s need to fill every silent moment, every natural oasis,  with heavy electro or drum and bass.  

I had hoped to be free of it up in the mountains, but it was only during the day or on  the long, windswept rickshaw rides into town that we were spared. 

India felt constantly in conflict with itself. Unsure of what it should offer, it often  settled for everything. The result was a messy, contradictory aesthetic. Being a habitual  people pleaser, I could relate. It was only when India allowed one or two elements to shine  through that it finally showed its authentic, beautiful self.  

* 

3:15am. I was wide awake. 

I stayed in bed, trying to work out what had stirred my mind.  

The room was cool and silent save for the shy whirring of the ceiling fan on low.  Rosie was asleep next to me, her head hidden under the covers. 

I thought initially that my scalp had awoken me. The sun had burnt it badly on our  hike – a first for me – and left four blisters that had burst and scabbed over. They itched  terribly. 

There was something else though. A thought which had accosted me upon waking:  beedi.  

Had the thought been there before my eyes opened? 

I lay very still, trying to reconcile my disconcertment.  

Nicotine cravings weren’t new for me. I’d had many a morning where the first thing  in my mouth was a cigarette. But these cravings had never been loud enough to disturb my  sleep.  

How many beedis had I smoked last night?  

I landed on five, my last one around midnight. The cravings had come on a lot faster  and harder than normal.  

I almost relented. If not for the risk of waking Rosie, I might’ve done to be fair.  Instead I waited. The cravings eventually weakened enough for me to fall back asleep.  My alarm roused me again just before sunrise. The cravings returned immediately. I pulled on a shirt and shorts and crept out onto the balcony with my notebook, a  water bottle and the beedi packet. Rosie didn’t stir in her duvet cocoon.  I smoked a beedi as the sun rose over the farthest mountain and spread rich honey yellow light across the peaks and valleys. Dark trees became bioluminescent canopies, gold  and brown streaks between their greens. Birds awoke and flittered around the treetops,  creating a cacophony of birdsong that temporarily drowned out intermittent engine sounds  from the main road.  

Here it was, India stripped back and no longer trying to win my affection with  gimmicks. No one and nothing cared if I saw or heard the day’s beginning. It was the first  truly intimate moment I’d experienced with the place and I felt fortunate to be awake,  regardless of the reason.  

I rested the beedi on the ashtray and patted my itching scalp.  

The beedi was so small and light. I thought that surely two, maybe three, would  equate to a cigarette. I had treated this thought as gospel since lighting the first one. But it was the same self-serving bias I always conjured whenever I needed to validate self destructive habits.  

In the five years since starting smoking, I’d become very adept at turning these biases  into infallible beliefs. 

I’m going to smoke again in my life at some point so why not today. 

I eat less sugar when I smoke so I’m actually helping my body. 

My great grandma smoked every day until she was ninety so I’ve got the genes for it. A beedi is more natural and therefore less harmful than a normal cigarette. Different ways to reinforce the same piss-poor decision making.  

Halfway through my second beedi, I started looking closer at the syrupy resin it left  on my thumb. The sun was now bright enough to warrant sunglasses and I thought the resin  was a smudge on the lens. 

But hadn’t I noticed it last night? Seen it seeping from the smoking end? That previous night I’d been so enamoured with how smoking beedis made me feel  more ingrained in local life. I’d quickly dismissed the resin as a harmless effect of the tea  leaves. Yet another self-serving bias that had lasted until the stark morning light. A white-bellied sholakili with electric-blue plumage landed on a nearby power line. It  sang as I inspected my thumb. 

People emerged from houses. Clothes were hung, spiced smoke rose from kitchen  windows and children spoke in sing-song voices as they prepared for school.  I took another drag. The resin tingled my tongue. I pulled it from my mouth and  stared at the syrupy butt. More resin seeped out onto my thumb. It looked like engine oil on  the end of a dipstick.  

It wasn’t resin, I realised. It wasn’t from the leaves. It was tar.  

The sholakili flew away in search of a more present audience.

I discarded the beedi in the ashtray and stared out at the mountains and trees. We  stayed that way – beedi and boy – for a few minutes.  

I was confused. Were beedis bad? Worse than cigarettes even?  

They were cheaper, I reasoned, and healthier products usually cost more. But that  initial bias was ingrained deeply and not easily usurped by new logic.  

I convinced myself this was probably just a dodgy one. That when things are  handmade individually and sold so cheaply, you’re bound to get some duds.  Memories from the previous night fiddled with this latest bias. My tongue had tingled with every beedi. Had they all leaked tar as well? 

I turned to Google. It had just gone 7:30. Rosie was still sleeping but most of Munnar  had risen. The car engines were more consistent and people shout-talking from the main road  now supplanted the birds.  

It took me five minutes of Googling to learn four damning facts about beedis: they contain two to three times the amount of nicotine as cigarettes; they have no filter so they  leak tar; they’re made from tobacco leaves not tea leaves; and they are known to cause higher  nicotine dependence.  

My 3am cravings now made sense. 

I stared at the half-smoked beedi in the ashtray.  

In five minutes I’d learned all the ways it could hurt me. After another five seconds I  forgave it. My forgiveness came down to a single fact that overpowered all the rest: I wanted  to smoke. 

The noises from the main road quietened. A warm breeze swept across the balcony.  Someone chopped wood nearby. Dogs barked as they played around a creek. Breakfast spices  wafted up through the trees. Birds rose from canopies and flocked in a blue sky with  windswept clouds. My skin warmed in the gentle morning sunshine.

For this one precious moment I felt the allure of a peaceful mountain life.  It was only missing one thing.  

I lit a fresh beedi and sank into the chair, wiping the tar off my thumb from time to  time. 

* 

I stare at the sun-baked road, my beedi almost finished. I’m so accustomed to wiping the tar  off I hardly think about it now.  

It doesn’t happen with every beedi. Some aren’t rolled well enough. Others shouldn’t  be smoked so close to the end.  

The bus to Fort Kochi is 20 minutes late. Rosie insists this is normal. 

‘It’s going to come,’she says. 

I flick the beedi stub onto the ground and dig in my pocket for my phone. I want to  check we’re not waiting in the wrong place. I want to Google. 

Then I remember the yin and yang. Instead of my phone, I pull out another beedi and stick it in my mouth.  

‘No worries, baby,’ I say while lighting it. ‘We’re in no hurry.’  

Rosie watches me inhale. 

‘You’re going to stop smoking those when we get back home yeah?’she tells me.  ‘You’re not bringing those back with you.’  

‘Of course not,’ I say. ‘These things are bad news.’  

Sometimes I wonder if I value nicotine cravings too much.  

If I can hold out for one day, one week, one month before succumbing to that next  hit…well…I’ve not found an easier, cheaper or more appealing way to fire off those serotonin  and oxytocin neuropathways. Delayed gratification may be the secret to a happy life and  smoking is my most reliable way of accessing it. 

Sometimes I wonder if it’s the romance that does me in. If maybe I started smoking at  a time when everything felt simpler, more adventurous and rose tinted.  I moved to Paris in my late twenties to learn French. In the process I took up smoking.  I was the perfect cliché: An unpublished writer sitting outside brasseries down well-trodden  rues, sipping coffee, smoking cigarettes and believing I was writing my debut novel.  I felt untouchable back then, following Hemingway and Morrison. Now, five years  later and living in London, I have dropped the French and kept up the smoking.  Every time I roll and light a cigarette, am I not trying to recapture the sorely missed  sentiments of that time? It does temporarily transport me back to life before my chronic  physical aches, unfulfilling career, thinning hair and fear of time running out. Maybe I’m just addicted. Like my father and his father before him. 

Or is this me relinquishing free will? Blaming the apple not rolling far enough away  from the smouldering stump. How convenient to chalk this up to a fatal flaw and simply  observe myself, this fascinating specimen in genetic inevitability, as I take notes. 

My guess is all three, plus the many other reasons I haven’t yet considered.  I wasn’t lying to Rosie. I had no intention of bringing those little beedi bastards back  to London. But I knew too well that by the end of our trip, a few more ten-rupee packs later,  my nicotine dependence would be at an all-time high.  

It was a comfort knowing I still had tobacco and papers. When I was somewhere I  could buy filters again, I would happily roll my own smokes instead. I would ditch the beedis  and return to an old friend with whom what you see is what you get. I would sit somewhere  beautiful, feeding both addict and romantic while telling myself another undeniable truth. 

These roll-your-owns are healthier than beedis. A third of the nicotine and no leaky tar. You’ll be able to wean yourself off much easier when it’s time to stop.

For now, these self-serving biases drown out the niggling thought that maybe this  smoking business isn’t so great for my health. That thought is getting louder though. More  obnoxious. Maybe one day I’ll give it my full attention. Maybe then I’ll be as smart as those birds in Munnar and avoid the plant that’s killing me. 

 

London online fiction short fiction Travel Memoir