Celebrate with a cigar

These days no party is complete without an expensive cigar lounge to accompany your champagne and cognac.

In Zadie Smith's rather well-written novel On Beauty, one of the characters central to the plot, Monty Kipps, is opposed to homosexuality.

To his horror he finds that an old friend, a Baptist, is gay. Kipps, who enjoys his gay friend's conversation and, as the author writes, "not to mention his cigars", continues his friendship with the gay reverend.

And the bond gets stronger over, as Kipp's wife Carlene says in the book, "together with a cigar". That is the strength and spirit of relaxing, bonding, celebrating that cigars have become synonymous with worldwide.

India, now in sync with the rest of the world is no different. And that is getting mirrored in the demand for cigar lounges that is being witnessed in the capital for private parties.

Realtech, a firm in the real estate business, wanted to host a party with no expense spared to spread awareness about its existence. And in a city that has partied hard a bit too often, the company had to add something extra "" and in this case it was a cigar lounge.

Says Rohan Kapoor, general manager, Realtech, "We had the best of everything. Shankar, Ehsaan, Loy performed. MTV VJ Nikhil Chinappa was the DJ for the night. And we also had a great cigar lounge which was built on a elevated level. It was just fantastic."

Manish Datt, who owns a cigar store, Kastros, in Delhi's tony shopping centre Santushti, says, "Earlier women would carry cigars on trays, now that is seen as being tacky. At the same time cigars have become a way to add an edge to an evening. The question then was how to serve cigars at a big gathering. Cigar lounges are a happy result of that dilemma. It's a more dignified way of serving cigars."

A cigar lounge is to cigars what a bar is to alcohol. A cabinet humidor is created, stocked and placed strategically at a party. And experience is showing that these cigar lounges are prompting non-cigar smokers to try.

Says Datt, "Cigars are now seen to be part of any celebration. Now, be it a 25th wedding anniversary party or a party to celebrate a big business deal, cigars are first kept on the table."

So what would this cost a host? A back-of-the-envelope estimate suggests that a party for about a thousand people, of whom perhaps 200 would smoke a cigar, the cost would add just for the cigars to be about a lakh-and-a-half rupees for an evening of smokes. Any party with a budget of Rs 80 lakh or so (yes, such budgets are for one party!) are now most likely to have a cigar lounge as well.

The reason for this popularity for cigar lounges at private dos can be pegged to the growing popularity of the cigar. The market is modest in size right now "" only Rs 25 crore (consumer spend) "" but big players like Altadis, which is one of the largest cigar manufacturing companies in the world, are entering the market (in this case in conjunction with the K K Modi group) and estimating that this is likely to grow to Rs 100 crore in the next five years.

Worldwide, cigars is a $13.4 billion market with 50 per cent of it accounted for by the US. Says Eric Cauvin, export director, Altadis, "Lifestyle is just picking up in India. And cigars are an integral part of that lifestyle."

The other reason for its growing popularity, opines Cauvin, is that like wine, cigars are a great conversation point. He says, "Where the tobacco is grown, the kind of soil, the cigar-making proccess, these are all worthy of discussion. There are a great number of books that have been written around cigars."

The affability of the cigar with some great marketing tying it with glamour, celebration and effective cross linkages like cognac and cigars, whisky and cigars, good food and cigars, and so on, has taken this product to great heights.

Add to this the increasing ostracisation of cigarettes (even in such traditional smoking countries like France), a perfect setting has been created for the cigar to be the ultimate social debutant in partying circles in India.