People of Kashmir: Man with the hukka

People of Kashmir

This is one of those images that HAUNT you once you have clicked them. Been postponing processing this for many days, finally found some creativity and patience to process this one.

This is not my usual subject area, so your feedback is very valuable.

The Story:
This was at Sonmarg, it was drizzling and this tent just near the snow area (make-shift tea shop) was almost completely dark with this man making some tea.. i looked into his eyes, and i knew i wanted a good photo of him with is "hukka".. I did not have a diffuser, and bare flash was just killing the whole scene. And i just had 2-3 minutes till my kids were done with their milk, and they were so excited to get into the snow, i did not want to delay them.
So all i did was to hold my hand in front of the pop-up flash, which allowed to light up the smoke at the top but then diffuse the light across the scene.. Happy about that quick idea.. now i will let the "Experts" comment whether this has turned out good-bad-ugly!

Boring bit technical details:
Canon 550D + 18-55 Kit lens (@18mm) + pop-up flash fired at low intensity (with my hand used as diffuser)

f/3.5 || 1/200s || ISO:400

 — in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir.