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The hookah. By Zoltán Szekeres
Hookah.
A form of smoking that's quite exotic for us Europeans
but its traditions are centuries old and its popularity has been growing lately.
But what do people think about it?
Do they use and like it?
Or do they have doubts about it?
In the next few minutes, this will be answered.
The first hookah-like device was made around the 14th-15th century,
surprisingly not in the Middle-East,
but in India, in one of its northwestern provinces.
In the hollow shell of a coconut
they've put various medicinal herbs
then a straw was put in a hole, drilled in the shell.
After the Hindi word for coconut, we call this device a nargile.
Later they swapped the coconut shell with a water flask,
the straw with a hose
and instead of the herbs they started to use tömbeki,
which is the ancestor of the hookah tobacco we use nowadays.
But how exactly do we use hookah?
After we've filled the flask with water,
and put the pipe-body on it,
the hose has to be attached as well.
Then put the hookah tobacco in the ceramic bowl.
There are various types of bowls
as well as numerous flavoured tobaccos:
fruits, cola, coffee, mint and even rose-flavoured exist.
Wrap a piece of aluminum foil around the bowl, as shown here,
then we have to punch little holes in it
in concentric circles.
The heat for the tobacco is provided by
grill or special hookah charcoal.
There are more types of them as well:
some require a stove
and for some, a simple lighter will suffice.
After the charcoal has been put on the bowl,
wait a minute or two,
then you can start smoking.
But should we do that in the first place?
We can hear both good and bad things
about hookah in the media,
so it may be a good idea to ask the opinion
of someone who has been born into a hookah-using culture. so it may be a good idea to ask the opinion
of someone who has been born into a hookah-using culture.
Luckily, a hookah-vendor in Szeged
gladly answered some of my questions.
My name is Zendah Abdul, or Abdul for short,
and I'm from Libya.
Well, I've known hookah since I was a child,
mostly elder people smoke it in my country.
Do you smoke hookah as well?
Very rarely, maybe three times a year at best,
because it doesn't fit for me.
Could it be tied to some notable event or
maybe to some tradition when you smoke it?
Well, yes, when friends get together or
when there's a party, that's when we smoke it.
For about 3 years now hookah can be found
in some cafés in Szeged where people can smoke it.
Albeit since this new law came in
which prohibits smoking in indoor places like
pubs, cafés and such
hookah also loses ground in public places, so
people tend to use it only at home or at a friend's.
You can realize that 2 or 3 years ago
more people have smoked it, more have been sold,
and the people who have been travelling abroad,
to Tunisia or Egypt, have brought home hookahs too.
So more and more have been smoked.
Well, now it's usage is starting to decrease, in Hungary.
How harmful do you think hookah is? Compared to cigarettes, for example?
I think it's more harmful than an ordinary cigarette, because
because there's nicotine in the hookah tobacco as well,
regardless of the water's absorbing ability.
Then there's the coal which you put on top of the hookah,
you smoke it too in some way.
Abdul's opinion was really distressful about
how harmful hookah is.
But what do hookah-smoker youngsters think?
When did you first smoke hookah?
When I was about 16 years old, with friends
we went out to party and in one of the places
we could rent a hookah, of course when
it was still legal to smoke indoors.
Then we usually smoked it at house parties,
when friends bought hookah, we put our money together
so... everyone paid their part.
And.. well.. yeah, it was in a café with friends.
At a house party. One of my friends
brought his hookah with him, he said it was awesome,
so we tried it out and yeah, it was really good.
- What did you like about it?
- It's flavour. It was honeydew-flavoured and
it tasted really nice.
Well, that it wasn't really smoking, like it wasn't a cigarette
because it DID matter to me back then.
And that it kind of brought friends together,
we had great talks and drinks beside it.
- What do you think people think when they hear about
- hookah or that you smoke hookah?
- Well, I don't really know.
For example, my grandma is a really conservative type
who HAS a hookah, she maybe bought it during some vacation,
so, I don't think that people don't like it, because
most people think that it's less harmful than cigarettes and
that gives people a positive insight about hookah.
I usually hear that people are afraid of that
we smoke marijuana or other drugs in it
and not of that it has some harmful effects on health,
such as nicotine in cigarettes.
I don't smoke cigarette at all, so I haven't yet experienced
how harmful it can be, but I've heard that
hookah tobacco subsides in the lungs more
regardless that the water filters the smoke, but
I haven't smoked hookah that much
that I could feel any negative effects on myself.
Have you had any positive or negative experience
with other people who have seen you smoking hookah?
There were some people who invited us over,
if we had hookah with us we exchanged tobaccos.
I really can't say any bad experience, because
the hookah-smokers I met so far were all decent folk.
Truth be told, there were only positive experiences
concerning how fun it is, how it brings friends together,
and what good time we had with it.
Finally, I asked my interviewees to define
what hookah means to them and
what makes them smoke it despite its harmfulness?
Well, if I want to say a cliché, I'd say it's "Connecting people".
But really.. I don't know. It brought us together,
it made our little friend-community better back then.
I'm no doctor, but I say that every form of smoking is harmful.
But when friends get together and
there's a hookah or two around
it usually means good time.
Especially if there's arabic music added to it. It makes it even better.
It brings people together, creates a nice atmosphere,
it tastes good, it smells good and
it's a very good addition to friendly talks
and I really approve it.
The hookah.
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Script, editing
Special thanks