Cigarette smoking is injurious to health!

Cigarette smoking is injurious to health. The message is all over, and everyone understands the import. These days, even if it is a film-clip from yesteryears, if the hero happens to hold a cigarette, there is an uncalled-for interruption, to flash the warning one more time. This overdose irks you, in addition to the break in the flow of the film. You want to lash out, “Yes, yes! I understand. I am not hard of hearing! I heard you! I heard you!”

Bernard Shaw famously described cigarette as a pipe, with fire at one end and a fool at the other! Back then, in the decades of yore, warnings though prevalent, were few and far between. Even a peppermint in the shape of a cigarette was sold! It was a red-color pack filled with neatly arranged white, cigarette stubs, with a red-tip to go with it! Needless to say, during the recess breaks in school, students moved around with the peppermint sticking out from the lips. Teachers had more serious things to worry about than target peppermint cigarettes!

Students perfected the “grip” in these recess breaks. If the peppermint was grasped between the index finger and the middle finger, it was the suave, sophisticated “urban style”! If the peppermint was held between the thumb and the index finger, with the palm facing outside, and to one corner of the lips, it was the “rural style”! Evidently, students were wrapped in such thought-provoking observations, back then.

Cigarette boxes were collected for the silver-foil that coated the interiors. The foil was put to good use. When you stuck it to a cardboard sword, it looked real and shiny. Only, a disgusting smell was now a part and parcel of the sword.

Back home, there were family group-smoking sessions! Yes, those times were truly modern! Before the reader goes off on a tangent, it had to do with “saambraani” or “dhoop” that was kindled at home, from time to time! “Dhoop”, a resin of sorts, lets out smoke when ignited, and serves as a disinfectant. It filled the home with its aromatic fragrance. Crouched over the saambraani, we asked father to inhale  the smoke, and blow it out through the mouth. Soon, sister wanted to try, I wanted to try, everyone wanted to try. It was as though we got a kick out of being a real smoker. Standing in front of the mirror, I watched the blown-out fumes cloud the mirror surface!

Those images have stayed with me. Even now, when there are religious fire rituals and there is smoke all around, I have toyed with the idea of repeating the saambraani act. One can only imagine the priest’s shock to such irreverent behavior.  And to go one step further, shift the blame too with- “my father taught me!”

Times have changed. We understand the evils of smoking and the habit has thankfully dwindled. Still, when we watch TV, the weather channel puts out the AQI index in terms of “number of cigarettes” smoked daily. It is strange- no one is smoking, and yet, we all are, inadvertently! Professor Godbole rightly said in the film “Passage to India” in his enigmatic style- “whatever you may do, the outcome will be the same!”

For all its evils, smoking teaches us valuable life lessons. While it is condemnable to be irresponsible and wayward in life, there is an opposite attitude that is equally deplorable. The world is filled with worry, in some form, at every point in time. It can suffocate and strangulate us. End of the day, each one must find that “space” between oneself and the problem.

We remember Dev Anand, walking with his trademark swagger and blowing out smoke in puffs. The lyrics of the song are telling- “har fiqr ko dhuey me udaataa chalaa gayaa”- “I moved on, all worries cast away, like wisps and wisps of smoke!”

And yes, cigarette smoking is injurious to health. No doubt about that!

 PS: 

Dev Anand in the iconic song from the film “Hum dono” from the year 1961!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iFqIl5XEtA