The Conradian Gland

26 May 2012

I've been persuaded to quit smoking. This is day 1. So far I've torched an orphanage, ridiculed some nuns, tried to run over a dog, eaten too much and gone for a long bike ride. The ride was the least fun; however, it was the only thing that didn't take place in a part of my mind that has just moved front and center. No, the ride was real. I rode around the island. During the trip, a duration of about two hours -- and, it strikes me now, why isn't 'durate' a word; for instance, I could have written: 'During the trip, which durated about two hours', making the noun, 'trip', much livelier; but, admitting this time that, indeed, I have digressed, to continue -- I wandered around various jungly corners, past old British military buildings, tropically classical, that had been converted into a museum in one case and into a restaurant in another, which strongly appealed to my Conradian gland, the part of my anatomy that makes me sit and stare across the straits, seemingly mesmerized, or which takes over whenever we fly low over islands out here, endlessly fascinated.

This isn't the first time I've quite smoking. I managed it about 22 years ago when my wife got pregnant with our daughter. I stayed clean for about 18 or 19 years, not a puff during that time that I can remember. Then, about three years ago the two of them, mother & daugher, both occasional take-it-or-leave-it puffers, a subspecies that I cannot abide because I cannot be like them, were arguing loudly and I made the error of getting involved, picked up a cigarette and was off. It took me about a year before I managed to quit again. Why I started this last time, about six months ago, I don't recall; it may have had something to do with a new job, moving back to Asia, my Conradian gland (all of his characters puffed on cheroots or pipes or, if I'm not mistaken, cigarettes -- and, by the way, what is the origin of the word 'cheroot'?), or the fact that the unconscious memory of the pleasure derived from a nicotine hit with a coffee or a glass of wine is something that cannot be eradicated. Whatever it was, I was soon up to a pack a day.

No one needs to tell me they are not good things for your health but there is something that is deeply and quietly pleasurable in a smoke. I hope that I will be mourning them in the days to come and not wallowing in the pleasure of that stab of nicotine, contemplating the sinuous trail of smoke that snakes around my chair, rises and then dissipates.

By the way, to digress again, 'cheroot' come from the Tamil, 'curuttu', a roll (of tobacco) and 'curut' (roll) which morphed into both the English version, 'cheroot', and the Portuguese 'charuto' (cigar). The French also have a version, 'cheroute'. The cigars which the term refers to are open at each end and not tapered and were very popular with the British in Burma and India during the raj. I suspect they were a useful anti-malarial prophylactic. Most self-respecting mosquitos prefer a sweeter odor.


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