Every time the government bans something, people come up with more ways to do it. When former Health Minister A.Ramadoss banned smoking in public places last year, he couldn’t have known that his move would cause the birth of the ‘smoking circle’.



The ban, which came into effect on October 2, 2008, has obviously not had the desired effect. Sure, some people started smoking a bit less due to the numerous constraints but most hardcore smokers just found out other smokers and hence the ‘smoking circle’ was born.



Like everything else in our Constitution the anti-smoking laws have enough jargon to flummox the normal English speaking crowd.But necessity prevails over everything else and here is Section 31 of the Cigarettes and Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003 which took an exception to Rule 3 of the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Rules, 2004, simplified:-


Definitions : In these rules, unless the context otherwise requires,-

1. Hotel, boarding house, guest house, restaurant including the open space surrounding such premises, refreshment rooms, banquet halls, discotheques, canteen, coffee house, pubs, bars, airport lounge, and the like.

2. Section 3(1) does not include open auditorium, stadium, railway station, bus stop/stand in its list of open spaces.

3. Public place defined in Section 3(1) of the Act shall also include work places, shopping malls, and cinema halls.

4. Smoking area shall mean a separately ventilated smoking room that is physically separated and surrounded by full height walls on all four sides, has an entrance with an auto-to them in the Act.


The law goes on for another 400 words listing the areas where people are not allowed to smoke, such as hotels, restaurants and airports. It also lists the officials responsible for ensuring that this law is implemented and the guilty penalised. But what this law has ensured ever since is the popularity of dingy alleys and ‘secluded’ corners in the smoking community. Yes, it is indeed a community, and a very closely knit one at that.



Smokers just need that five inch long rolled up piece of paper and the presence or the lack of matches to strike up a conversation. And it doesn’t need scientific research to prove this. A cigarette is no longer the anti-social animal’s muse. In fact, it seems to have become essential to the kind of bonding that happens in colleges. If you smoke, you are easily accepted into a social group; it is a kind of essential requirement for social integration.

It is no longer rebellion, low self esteem or the environment that is responsible for people to smoke; it is acceptability into certain social groups and the bonding that follows is the real reason. So even as these so-called anti-smoking laws hang like a noose above our heads, hardcore addicts continue to fight over that precious packet of Kings.