Shrinking club of pipe smoking is in danger of being entirely snuffed out

Think pipe smoking and you will inevitably think Sherlock Holmes. The activity, historically associated with contemplation and the pursuit of intellectual matters, was also espoused by Holmes’s creator Arthur Conan Doyle, as also Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain and Albert Einstein. Today, however, pipes are being swapped for cigars and vaping pipes. The hobby is on the decline. So much so that the BBC crime drama Sherlock has Holmes, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, even trying to kick the habit with nicotine patches.

While the story is no different in India, a small group of men — pipe smoking is, by and large, a clubby, male activity — is still holding on.

Percival Billimoria, head of litigation practice at Mumbai-based law firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, is among them. Before a big hearing or when alone at his farmhouse in Delhi, Billimoria selects a pipe from his collection of 30. Then, scraping off the residual carbon, he dabs the apparatus with Gautier Cognac to clean it out, after which the pipe goes through a full-scale purge. This done, he selects a cherry-flavoured tobacco made by Borkum Riff of Sweden and packs it tightly into the bowl of the pipe. Only then is he ready to sit back and savour the slow smoke of a fine pipe. Maintenance and cleaning also require a special kit. This is why Billimoria’s pipe smoking is not a daily or weekly activity. It’s a true hobby, a pleasure reserved only for “moments of quiet deliberation”.

Sherlock Holmes in The Man with the Twisted Lip, which appeared in The Strand Magazine in December, 1891

But then, why does he have 30 pipes? (Avijit Mazumdar, chairman emeritus of Tractors India, is, in fact, said to have a collection of some 400 pipes.) One of the reasons is that pipes come in diverse forms. They are named for their shape: there’s the acorn, the brandy, the calabash, the bulldog, and one that’s called the elephant’s foot. Each one smokes differently. Some have an intense inhale, others hold less tobacco, or are milder. Some are ornate, inlaid with ivory or sterling silver, and become collectors’ items.

Veterans tend to veer towards pipes made by Dunhill, Icarus, Neptune, Rossi and Savinelli. Billimoria’s favourite is the Peterson — a premium brand that costs between Rs 7,000 and Rs 11,000 for each pipe. He usually buys his pipes on his trips to London or New York. They’re also available at Davidoff’s stores in Geneva and other European cities. In India, you can get them at certain premium tobacco stores, but the easiest bet would be to visit an antique store.  

For some, pipes are heirlooms. For instance, adman Prahlad Kakkar’s grandfather left him two deep-bowl pipes that he had smoked for over 50 years. One was a Dunhill Straight and the other, a Dutch deep-bowl pipe. Kakkar, who misplaced both, says these were the most valuable things left to him.

Percival Billimoria with his collection of pipes

Beyond nostalgia, another reason for holding on to handed-down pipes is that the older the pipe, the better it is. The wood is made from knots, so the harder and older it is (as in the case of walnut wood), the mellower it smokes and the smoother the drag.

While you can still find good quality pipes, the same cannot be said for tobacco. Nowadays, some grey market tobacconists in Colaba in South Mumbai stock pipe tobacco alongside cigars and cigarettes. Billimoria recalls a time when there was a tobacconist in Mumbai’s Crawford Market who used to blend tobacco. Today, the lawyer has to settle for pre-packed tobacco, a standardised blend available in take-away pouches.

As in India, tobacconists on London’s busy Oxford Street too have shut shop, and finding blended tobacco has become a task. Pipe smoking, in fact, enables a huge variety which only a tobacconist can create.

Besides logistics, health concerns and heavy taxes on tobacco have also shrunk the already small club. But there are those such as Sanjiv Dewan, a Gurgaon-based entrepreneur and former air force fighter pilot, who turned to the pipe to quit smoking the cigarette. While he didn’t entirely kick the habit, the switch helped him cut down his tobacco consumption. He sees pipes as a purer form of smoking. As he says, “no paper, no additives.”

Dewan sources the tobacco from stores in Khan Market in Delhi or from the Prince Paan shop in Greater Kailash. Ask him if he knows many pipe smokers in India, and he says, “No more than five.”

Vishesh Chandiok, national managing partner of Grant Thornton, smoked pipes for close to a decade. He had a collection of over 50 pipes, but eventually dropped the hobby three years ago. The reasons: one, you need extended moments of quiet — and a comfortable  armchair — to truly enjoy a pipe. Obviously, neither easily available while idling away moments on the road. Two, pipes demand meticulous, even tedious, care. So Chandiok switched to cigarettes and then to cigars. His final comment on the pipe sums up the general sentiment around pipes, “My grandfather used to smoke a pipe. That kind of says it all.”