�People start smoking cigars as a trend, then it becomes a lifestyle statement and they get hooked onto it. The actual cigar connoisseur, of course, is passionate about his cigar.�

TO describe Ameeta Seth as a Cigar Woman is right and wrong. She is Delhi-based Cigar King Chetan Seth�s daughter; she runs his cigar retailing and distribution business in India; and, evenings when she goes out, the dusky and attractive Ameeta smokes a Romeo y Julieta puritos. But... Ameeta is a double major in international business and marketing from the Georgetown University in Washington and she has put in two years of hard work in a Wall Street financial services firm before coming back to India to follow her dream. �Which is to run Dad�s cigar business,� she says.

She returned in June 2002 and in eight, nine months, learnt more Chetan Seth than she did in two years abroad. �I am working in the cigar business,� she says, �Dad�s there, but he handed it over to me, I�m running it now, and I�m loving it and enjoying it.� Cigars, fortunately, are a new product still in India. �People start smoking cigars as a trend, then it becomes a lifestyle statement and they get hooked onto it. The actual cigar connoisseur, of course, is passionate about his cigar. He wants to learn more about it. Cigar smoking for him is not a trend. He�s really enjoying the experience,� Ameeta says.

She did a short two-week training course in Cuba before she took over from Chetan Seth in which she visited the plantations and cigar factories. �I wanted to know where and how the cigar comes from. I figure if your understand your product, you can sell it better,� she explains. And Ameeta began smoking cigars in Cuba as well. �You get absolutely the freshest cigars straight out of the factory there,� she says. Her preferred cigar, the Romeo y Julieta puritos, is actually a mild cigarillo. �Although it can be a fashion statement, I smoke a cigar only because I enjoy doing so,� she says.

Selling cigars to people who know about them, like the established cigar smoker, is not a challenge to Ameeta. �They are happy that cigars are now available at their door-step through us. And that our prices are competitive and cheaper than anywhere in Europe. But it is a challenge to educate people who don�t know about cigars. The people who start smoking them as a trend, because trends don�t last, and I have to change their focus so that they start enjoying the cigar,� she explains.

It has been a great experience already for her and she is enjoying her work immensely. �Now lots of people in the younger generation too are smoking cigars,� she adds.

Chetan Seth was always a distributor for Habanos, the Cuban government-run cigar company, but now the Seths also have a retail shop called Cingari at The Oberoi in New Delhi. �We have been selling cigars from 67 outlets in India, like premier hotel restaurants and bars, but Cingari is something else... the cigar-smoker can walk into the humidor, he can look through our collection of 144 varieties of cigars before making his selection, he can buy cigar accessories, leaf through the Cigar Aficionado magazine. We sell more from Cingari than out of any outlet. That�s why we are looking at opening a Cingari in Bombay in the next couple of months. And a Cingari in all the major cities of India. Plus Duty Free shops in the international airports, starting with the Indira Gandhi in New Delhi.�

Her job takes her around India. They have 5,000 customers already, and, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of cigar-smokers in India during the last three years. �They are in Bombay, Goa, Bangalore and Delhi,� Ameeta reveals. She visits Cuba three times a year. �It�s wonderful each time,� she says. �I learn so much from the other distributors around the world attending the annual marketing meetings in Cuba because India is a new market, and I am always looking at emulating their strategies.� Ameeta Seth has a life beyond cigars, naturally, and in New Delhi, it is a glamourous life. She features on Page 3, quite often with a Romeo y Julieta in hand. But, she likes music, a good book, and great food too. The cigar she takes for granted.