India's Best (Slow) Cigar Smoker

By smoking a cigar for 100 minutes, Pranav Raj Aggarwal became the first Indian to qualify for the Cigar Smoking World Championship being held this month in Split, Croatia

- Murali Menon

In late July, Pranav Raj Aggarwal, 29, was adjudged the country's slow cigar smoking champion at the first ever Indian qualifier of the Cigar World Smoking Championship.

Before we go any further, there actually is a Cigar Smoking World Championship. The ten-year-old competition, devoted to the slow smoking of cigars, was founded by Croatian cigar enthusiast and businessman, Marko Bilic. Local competitions are now held in around 30 countries around the world to choose a national winner who travels every September to Bilic's hometown of Split on Croatia's Adriatic coast, to compete for the annual world title for smoking a cigar at the slowest possible speed.

The 2021 world champion was Henrik title Krisstenson of Sweden, who with a timing of 162 min, seven secs (two hours, 42 minutes, seven seconds). But his timing is way below that of the world record of 232 min, 55 sec (three hours, 52 minutes, 55 seconds) held by fellow Swede, Igor Kovacic. In fact, Krisstenson's timing was only the 20th best in the overall world ranking of 20 best timings ever.