(Not) ILLUSTRATED BY ANAND NAREGAL
(a frustrating man who does not have time to illustrate friend’s articles)
My first cigarette was in the first grade when I was all of five years old. I squarely blame my father for this. He should not have looked so cool when lighting up and conversing with the cigarette stick dangling from the corner of his mouth. A coolness that could give dear Rajnikant a run for his money. It was too much of a temptation for a father-idolising child. Anyway, someone had thrown a butt outside my house. I picked it up and lit it with a matchstick that was smuggled out from the kitchen. I took a deep puff and coughed badly. A vivid experience. I went and described the adventure to my brother, four years older, after swearing to absolute secrecy. “I cross my heart. My lips are sealed forever. As long as we are alive, this stays with us.”
The problem with secrets is that having a secret itself should be the biggest secret. I also experienced my first instance of treacherous deceit and backstabbing. No sooner did my father come back from the office than my brother went jumping up to him and declared excitedly that I smoked a cigarette. He helpfully added that I might have been doing it since many days. I stood shocked, but my father, who was otherwise a strict disciplinarian, looked at me and smiled, perhaps with a hint of guilt. I cursed my brother and swore never to tell any more secrets to him.
After a long break, I started smoking in a bigger and better form during postgraduate times. My ever-cool liberal father declared that smoking is bad, but if I wanted to do that, as a matter of principle, it should be on my money rather than on his. Hence, I purchased them only after I started getting my stipend. I blame Ayn Rand for my smoking during this phase. She is arguably one of the most powerful writers in the world, and every follower of Ayn Rand eventually divides humanity into two simple groups: the super elite 0.00001% who read her works and the trivial rest who know nothing about her.
Now, this lady wrote some powerful stuff about smoking, suggesting that the burning end of a cigarette represents the fire of the thinking brain or something to that effect. It kind of challenges the popular sentiment that, in cigarette smoking, there is fire at one end and a fool at the other. The powerful pages she dedicates to smoking could persuade even the staunchest anti-smoker to hurriedly visit the nearest cigarette shop to get a smoke. Anyway, it took some effort to expel Ayn Rand from the system and a little more effort to come out of smoking.
Later, during my days of paediatric surgery in Mumbai, my roommate happened to be a heavy smoker, leaving the room strewn with cigarette stubs. My parents, staying in the same city, had this devastating habit of suddenly dropping in to my room. One day, as I hurried to the wards, I was shocked to see my dear mother entering the hospital gate. My room was a mess. I quickly turned to my senior and handed him the keys to my room. I pleaded with him to clean it while I took my mother out for a cup of tea and bought some time.
My poor senior, a multi-linguist, was benumbed as he went up and, using all the abuses available in English, Tamil, Kannada, Hindi, Marathi, and a bit of Telugu too, cleaned up the room. He also ignited an incense stick and went on all fours to scrub the floor with phenyl. To this day, this great person, who later climbed the heights of professional and academic success, uses the choicest words for me that rankle my sensitive ears. This man (whose name begins with ‘R’, who recently retired as HOD from IGICH, Bangalore, who has two children, one of whom got married recently, and whose wife is a radiation oncologist) may have the distinct honour of being the first and only senior in the history of medical residency to scrub the floors of a junior’s room. God bless him forever.
But I could not hide for long. A distressing time came when I was out in the wards overnight for continuous emergencies, and friends partied the whole night in my room. I came back to my room at 6 am in the morning and crashed on the bed. A knock came on the door at 6:30 am, and when I opened the door, I saw my beaming parents, who thought of a surprise visit after going to a temple nearby. The beams abruptly disappeared when they discovered three beer bottles and two beer mugs brimming with cigarette stubs. Caught with the pants down, as they say. My parents dragged me straight to get me married off without wasting much time. “Bachcha bigad gaya, iske paav mein bediya baandho, sudhar jayega,” they said. Translation: Our boy is spoilt; chain his feet (a euphemism for marriage), and he will straighten out. In those days, children listened to their parents without throwing tantrums. I submitted to their wishes despite many internal mutinies.
Initially, my dear wife experienced a cultural shock as she transitioned from the tranquil surroundings of coastal Andhra to the bustling chaos of Mumbai and the even more chaotic hostel life of an overworked resident. She was quiet in those initial days when she was absorbing things around her. Despite chewing mints and crushing innocent leaves endlessly between my fingers to mask the smells, she was able to surmise that I was secretly smoking. Men are certainly foolish when they think they can fool the women of their lives, who intuitively develop mind-reading abilities, especially of the husband, in no time.
One day, she asked me whether the cost of a cigarette is 1 rupee and 75 paise. I froze in shock. How the hell did she know that? She informed me that the room was littered with 25 paise coins and there was a complete absence of 2 rupee notes in my room or my wallet. She is a postgraduate in mathematics and, to top it off, a gold medallist. At the same time, she demonstrated a saving of 10 rupees from the first month’s stipend that I had given her to manage. Until that time, my stipend used to be blown off in the first week of the month repaying loans for the previous month. The next three weeks would be spent borrowing money from friends and parents. At that turning point of my life, supremely impressed, I decided to turn over my finances completely to her and never looked at money management again. My chartered accountant of many decades has not seen my face and is desperate to know how I look.
Anyway, cigarettes are harmful, and I am happy that what was once considered cool, with even doctors smoking in the OPD chambers while seeing patients or taking puffs between operations, is now an uncool activity. There was certainly an era when ashtrays were a common gift, and good husbands were those who used them instead of littering cigarette stubs all over the place. I notice people slinking to shadowy corners to get their smoke. It is also great to see people escaping to smoking chambers at airports where the whole world sees them through the transparent glass walls. The smoothest scam occurred during train journeys, where a vendor would charge desperate passengers a bomb for cigarettes. Exactly 10 minutes later, a constable would follow, catching the illegal smokers at the door and then making their profits.
Anyway, the only question that always bothers me is, why are they even allowed to be produced if they are so bad? Perhaps, the tax money is a great income for the state. Unlike alcohol, which has managed to maintain a questionable reputation for protecting the heart, cigarettes appear to do no good to health. In all my medical readings, the only conditions where smoking seems to have any vague positive effect are Parkinsonism, a neurodegenerative disorder, and ulcerative colitis, a bowel disease; however, advertisements of this nature would appear seriously odd. These are hardly reassuring incentives considering the million ways cigarettes can destroy the body. Anyway, I stopped smoking, and if you are smoking too, stop it. Good for you, your family, and the world.
RANDOM MUSINGS 