Did Bengali's [or other Indians] smoke tobacco in the 17th Century?

[ntimes9]

I'm specifically referring to natives living in colonial ports who would have come into contact with Portuguese pirates

You can't really imagine itinerant entertainers such as the Baul would have gone without a pipe since time immemorial, but how about the owners and patrons of inns and brothels; the urban working poor rather than beggars of subsistence farmers?

If they did smoke how would they usually do it? Had cigarettes made it over there; apparently the Spanish were smoking "papelate" by 1600, but had this vice made it to the colonies and the non-whites by this time or was that to come much later?

Also would [female] prostitutes have smoked, like many do in modern India?

Thanks for your time in reading this and prospectively your help -- this is for a scene in a short film; I want to involve smoke in the aesthetic of a couple of shots, but keep a degree of verisimilitude. So if you can tell me what these people [Portuguese pirates and Indian wastrels, pimps, prostitutes] should have in their hands, if anything at all, I would be sincerely grateful

[jno]

I don't know, but how about using hookahs?

http://www.thecolorso...com/hookah/index.html