Cigarettes and Mehdi Hasan

Siddhartha, Omi and Jai enjoying a smoke while Mehdi Hasan’s “Yeh Dhuaan Kahaan Se Uththa Hai” plays in the background.

Siddhartha, Omi and Jai are close friends and roommates, studying in the Delhi University. Siddhartha is studious, wants to pursue a PhD in Economics, and considers women to be trouble. Omi and Jai, on the other hand, are goofball romantics having the time of their lives chasing girls and spending afternoons at matinees. The only thing that brings them together ? Their love for cigarettes. They’re staying back during summer vacations in a Defense Colony apartment, Siddhartha with the purpose of preparing for his PhD, and Omi and Jai with the purpose of getting their heart broken by as many women as possible.

It’s New Delhi in the summer of 1981, they’re all broke, they have a cigarette credit line with the local paanwaalah, Mehdi Hasan is playing on the record player as they’re smoking their worries and heartbreaks away — one puff at a time.