The Smoky Art

“And as the camera moves backward to take a long shot, Vishal will go towards the door and open it. Cut. Like the idea?”
As my friend was explaining the shot to the DOP, two cigarettes were consecutively lighted and puffed out. Later in the day, I asked him the reason to finish the two packets of Marlboro in two hours and making three black spots on his lung, he replied as started to open with another packet, “This provides me with an amazing sense of intuition. All this work won’t be possible without the smoke.”
I didn’t say a word after that, as I thought it would be worthless to tell the bad effects of this habit to a person who finishes 4-5 packets in 24 hours. And most of the time, the person smoking knows almost all its ill-effects but a addiction is very hard to leave, when you start believing that it is helping you to pay your bills. I have come across a lot of such persons who smoke to create a new idea. And even more than these times, I have thought how come a smoked mind can create something which needs a lot of assuidity and presence of mind.
Well, to understand the philosophy behind this universal logic, I tried it myself. Although, I am strictly against it knowing its bad effects, I still wanted to puff out of my mouth. Many a times, I have seen my favourite actors burning the cigars and looking damn cool. The cigarette getting lighted, a deep breath inside and off goes the white fumes from the nose and the mouth going up in the air. My childhood friend once asked me to try it in the college, but I refused giving him a long speech on “why not to drink cigarettes”. He stopped me midway and went away. But since, my profession wanted me to do anything I was asked, i was helpless.
The cigarette was lighted and held in front of my mouth. I asked my friend to give it between my fingers, he refused as he said I am still novice to hold it between my fingers. I touched the end with my lips and took a long breath inside and…
“Acccckkkkhh…… Auckkkkkhhhhhh…. Accckkkkhhhh”
It continued for one minute supported by the snickers by my colleagues. My windpipe was choked to the lungs and asking for fresh air. The smoke looks white outside but filled with black inside me. I was yet to settle down when my friend held it again for another shot. I was reluctant but my friend’s utmost confidence held me up. Another puff and some more.
“It will continue for one more shot. Here. Now you are ready to hold it between your fingers.”
I finished the cigarette in few minutes and my breath was back to normal. But as I was finishing, my brain started to feel the heat. I went dizzy for the most of the day and when I returned to my senses, I was in my room. As understood, the three shots scheduled for that day weren’t executed.
As I sat on my chair recollecting my dialogs, i recalled my friend asserting in a group chat.
“Creativity is all the game of our subconscious mind. We tend to think something nicer, bigger and better when we are doing something else. All you need to keep a piece of pencil and paper with yourself to jot down the ideas.”
Then the whole puzzle came clear to me. As the smoke went inside me, it played a unprofessional role in converting my mind from a conscious to sub-conscious state. When you are in a creative field and your work is constantly expecting you to produce new ideas with novelty and uniqueness, you need some external agent to do the work for you. And then you can constantly create marvels. But sometimes your principles come over your profession and you have to choose between the two, I chose my principle.
Next day, there was back to back five shots involving me. I gave my best for all of them and also for the next one month. The film was a huge hit with overall gross breaking all records.
Well, sometimes you just have to believe in yourself than the white roll to be successful.