“Bidi is a leaf-rolled cigarette made of coarse, uncured tobacco, tied with a string at one end” (Lal 2009: 1335). Also spelt ‘beedis’ or ‘biris’ they are the main way tobacco is smoked in India. It is estimated that for every cigarette in India, ten bidis are smoked. Another calculation, by the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, is that about 8% of Indian adults regularly use bidis compared to 4% using cigarettes (GATS 2017). The majority of bidi smokers (approximately 90%) are men.