The Gutkha Menace: How a Gross Habit is Trashing Landmarks and Becoming an International Joke

The Signature of a Nation

Let's get one thing straight. When you build a brand-new, state-of-the-art, forty-thousand-seat cricket stadium—a supposed monument to national pride—and it gets tagged with blood-red graffiti on day one, you don't have a littering problem. You have a cultural crisis.

I’m talking about the Rajgir International Cricket Stadium in Bihar. Before the celebratory confetti even settled, the "Gutkha Men," as one local observer called them, had arrived. The video is almost poetic in its bleakness. Bare brick walls, meant to be a canvas for future glory, are already splattered with the tell-tale crimson stains of chewed tobacco and pan masala. One commenter on X, in a moment of what I can only assume was profound resignation, called it a "signature mark."

A signature mark. Think about that. Not vandalism. Not a disgrace. A signature. It’s like a dog marking its territory, a primal, thoughtless act that says, "I was here, and this public space is just an extension of my personal spittoon." This isn't just about a lack of civic sense; it's a fundamental misunderstanding of what the word "public" even means. The space belongs to everyone, which, in practice, seems to translate to belonging to no one.

This signature is being scrawled all over the country. Take Kolkata's Howrah Bridge. This absolute beast of engineering survived Japanese bombs in World War II. It was built without a single nut or bolt, a testament to a bygone era of ambition. And now? It's literally being dissolved by spit. Engineers first sounded the alarm years ago, finding that the acidic mix of lime, tobacco, and saliva was eating away at the steel. They had to replace the steel covers with fiberglass. The bridge that bombs couldn't take down is losing a war of attrition against millions of tiny, corrosive bursts of apathy. The internet, offcourse, thinks this is hilarious. "Ajay Devgn supremacy," they joke, referencing a Bollywood actor who hawks pan masala. It's all a big meme until the bridge collapses. Is this how empires fall? Not with a bang, but with a million little pfft sounds into a corroding girder?

The Debate in the Sky is a Joke

The absurdity reaches its peak at 30,000 feet. A video goes viral showing a guy on a flight to Thailand, casually grinding up his gutkha mix in his palm, ready for a good chew. The internet, in its infinite wisdom, immediately fractures into a "debate." A debate! Some people are outraged, but a shocking number leap to his defense. "What's the big deal?" they argue. "They serve alcohol on planes, don't they?"

This is a bad argument. No, 'bad' doesn't cover it—this is a weapons-grade stupid comparison. Drinking a beer doesn't require you to hold a toxic, foul-smelling slurry in your mouth for hours and then find a place to dispose of it. It’s the logical equivalent of saying, "Well, they allow you to eat peanuts on a plane, so why can't I start a small campfire in my seat?" The comparison is so fundamentally broken that it reveals the real issue: a defiant, almost aggressive sense of personal entitlement. The logic is, "If I'm not actively spitting it on you, then my actions have no effect on the shared environment." It's the philosophy of a toddler.

And let's not forget the guy on another flight who, apparently as a "prank," asked the flight attendant to open a window so he could spit his gutkha out mid-air. We’re one step away from someone trying to flush it down the airplane toilet and bringing the whole system down. But hey, as long as he minds his own business, right?

This isn't just a quirky cultural habit. It's a massive, often illegal industry. While the internet argues about etiquette, a recent Pune Police Seize ₹17 Lakh Gutkha, Cannabis in Major Raid saw authorities arresting multiple people and filing cases under tobacco control acts and food safety laws. This isn't some harmless vice; it's a gray-market enterprise that flourishes in the space between what's legal and what's culturally tolerated. So while we're debating the "civic sense" of one guy on a plane, a whole criminal ecosystem is humming along in the background, making sure he's got a fresh pouch for his next flight. But what does any of that matter when you can just…

Maybe I'm the crazy one here. Maybe the slow, steady decay of public infrastructure and the complete disregard for shared space is just the price of doing business. It feels like watching someone meticulously paint a beautiful mural, only to have someone else come along and use it for target practice, pebble by pebble. The damage is slow, incremental, and after a while, you just get used to the holes.

The Stain Won't Wash Out

Let's be real. This isn't about spitting. It's not about "civic sense" or etiquette. Banning gutkha won't solve it. Fining people won't solve it. This is a symptom of a much deeper rot: the complete and utter disconnect between the individual and the collective. The stadium, the bridge, the airplane—they aren't seen as "ours." They're seen as "the government's," a faceless, abstract entity whose property is fair game for casual desecration. Until that changes, you can build all the shiny new monuments you want. They'll just provide a fresh canvas for the next signature.