Smoke on the water
When Shifali Krishnan was planning her 18th birthday, all she knew was that she wanted the day to be special. Just another lunch with her friends wasn’t memorable enough. So when a friend suggested that they follow up lunch with a visit to a hookah parlour, Shifali was quite taken by the idea.
“I’d never tried a hookah before but my friend had,” says Shifali. “Since I’m not allowed to stay out late, we had to find a hookah parlour that would be open in the afternoon. It was a perfect afternoon. I chose an apple flavour and the four of us friends just lounged around for almost two hours. It was so relaxing,” she enthuses.
While hookah parlours have been around for quite a few years now, their popularity is only increasing with the college crowd over time. Shifali isn’t alone. More teens are visiting hookah parlours for not just celebratory occasions, but also just to have a relaxed time with friends after classes.
Nineteen-year-old Akash Sunderajan is one such. “I really enjoy smoking hookahs, even though I don’t do it very often. My friends and I go to places that are close to college or wherever we’re hanging out,” says this Economics student, who has tried flavours ranging from melon and grape to green apple and orange.
Others like Chirag Aggarwal don’t even need to step out to a parlour. “My cousins own two hookahs. So whenever we’re having a party, we just buy the flavouring and we’re good to go. If my friends want to hang out at home, then I sometimes take the hookahs along too.”
But not everyone is a fan of the hookah bandwagon. Dylan Ribeiro, a 20-year-old copywriter says she finds hookah parlours claustrophobic. “I’ve been to these places a few times. First of all, there’s so much smoke. And to add to it, there are these different fruity flavours coming at you from everywhere. I just hate it,” she says.
For or against the hookah experience, 20-year-old Siddharth Singh adds a note of caution. “Because it’s so pleasant, a lot of us tend to forget that hookahs do have small traces of tobacco. And because hookahs are shared by friends over a couple of hours at least, you end up inhaling a lot of it.” That’s a message that first-timers like Shifali Krishnan need to hear.
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