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Manama: The three girls sitting in the upscale Adliya cafe were gaily blowing smoke rings in the air, laughing lightly as they were increasingly engaged in a light competition about who could make the largest circle.
Leaning back in their chairs, they seemed oblivious to the world around them. In their early twenties, they seemed on a short break from their daily office work. They did not mingle with anyone, but they were intent on feeling 'cool'.
For the older generations, cigarette-smoking stars embodied the definition of what was 'cool'.
For these young girls, and thousands of other Bahrainis, attaining the 'cool' level could be achieved through smoking shisha in a public place.
'Ridiculous' image
Interestingly, none of the serious-looking male customers sitting around the tables nearby was paying attention to the occasional giggles coming from the girls' table.
In fact, the sight of a girl smoking shisha in public is not strange in liberal Bahrain, a country where cigarette smoking among young people is turning into a tradition. According to a 2001 study by Nasser Behbehani, Randah Hamadeh and Nejma Macklai, the prevalence of shisha smoking among Bahrainis was 6.4 per cent.
"I do not see anything wrong with women smoking in cafes or restaurants and we need to overcome this ridiculous image association between girls who smoke and immoral behaviour. This is the 21st century and people should appreciate that women can smoke a shisha without being called names," said Bodoor Eisa, a university student.
She said that she herself indulged in shisha smoking with her classmates whenever they had free time between lectures.
"We were not doing anything harmful and we were not hurting people or making anybody's life miserable. It is just some harmless fun without negative health problems that men have kept to themselves for a long time. Not allowing women to smoke publicly is simply a way of controlling them."
Rasha, a public relations officer, agrees. "We must not fall into the trap that says women who smoke shisha are likely to be indecent because a woman who has the nerves to sit in a cafe with a hose in her mouth will also have the nerves to engage in any immoral act. This is ridiculous."
But to 24-year-old Information Ministry employee Salem Ahmad, the issue is the rather disturbing image of women holding shishas to their mouths in a cafe or restaurant.
"It is incredible how a growing number of young women are spending hours smoking shishas among men. Most of the men do not think of them as feminine or, worse, as respectable. I am sure that the more they smoke, the less they are likely to find husbands."
Esmat Al Mousawi, a women's rights activist and columnist with Al Ayam newspaper, said women's shisha smoking was not a new phenomenon in Bahrain.
"Maybe using shishas in cafes and restaurants is new but women in Bahrain have been smoking shishas in homes and community centres for centuries. It is a deep-rooted cultural practice that was an almost integral part of many families," she said.
The shisha, an age-old Levantine tradition that may have started in Turkey or Syria over 500 years ago, is a complex smoking apparatus that involves tobacco soaked in molasses, and flavoured with strawberry, pineapple, apricot, grape, rose, mint, or even cappuccino whose smoke is filtered through water and into the flexible, hose-like pipe through which it is inhaled.
Although public shisha smoking was popular among the adult male working-class sector in the early 20th century. In the last decade it spread among middle and upper classes and reached young men and women.
'Key to socialising'
He added that giving up shisha would amount to deserting his friends in the Muharraq cafe and building new friendships with other people. "That is like dropping a happy chapter from my life for no reason at all," he said.
For Abdullah Salman, a media specialist who makes a duty to take a shisha every evening after work, "there is some truth to claims that the reasons behind resorting to shishas are work stress, frustration and idleness".
"However, ... it would be oversimplifying matters because people take shishas for fun and to be socially with friends," he said.
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