Having worked with some Indian consultants I've come to believe that it's culturally ok to sniff, and not a polite indecisive sniff - a serious snorting, a nostril distorting rip. The monotony of it gives the sound a far-away quality, it distorts my appreciation of it, makes me think of a polite farting of the nose. It's humorous and silly, but simultaneously disgusting. My day is interspersed with them. My thought process is punctuated by them. I work to the rhythm of "the hoc". I think to the interruptive inhalation of streams of snot.