Thank you for smoking

Yesterday everybody was walking with a bulge in their pants. Imagine what that must have done to my fragile ego. No, it had nothing to do with Sheila ki jawani or Munni's badnami. Trying to tune in with the World Anti-Tobacco Day campaign the poor sods were too shy to pull out their pack of cancer sticks from their pockets. Thus, the swell (thank God!).

I'm informed people pledged against tobacco everywhere around the country. In Jammu and Kashmir, the Minister for Health & Family Welfare, Sham Lal Sharma flagged off a rally of school children. For once everyone had a common enemy they could put the blame on ufffd smoking cigarettes and not smoking guns. The Gujarat government announced 'Tobacco Free Gujarat' campaign and around 50,000 cabbies in Mumbai took pledge that neither they nor their passengers would smoke in cabs.

The National Cadet Corps at India Gate collected tobacco products and distributed chocolates in return. Ciggi Babu's wife, I'm informed, after an intimate legover, was elated when he pulled out a bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk from under the pillow instead of his Wills Navy Cut. So you see, doctors, members of voluntary organisations, intellectuals, prominent citizens and government officialsu00a0 across the country were saying the same thing ufffd quit smoking.

Thankfully, someone chose to educate us on the benefits of smoking ufffd a Padmashri awardee doctor. Among the few points he mentions are firstly ufffd smokers have serene and peaceful married life. Many of them have erectile dysfunction so no chik-chik from the wife about why he was staring at the neighbour's wife. She knows he is a dog who loves to chase cars, nothing more than that. Secondly, a family that smokes together stays together. The cost of treatment is so high that there is nothing much left in the name of property to brawl over. Of course, you can add to it your own ones like smokers are never bitten by dogs because they always walk with a stick or their houses never get burgled since they are awake coughing all night.u00a0

But Ciggi Babu's point is simple ufffd hold his ears this way or that way he isn't going to pull out chocolates every night. For a problem which is termed by health organisations around the world as a 'preventable' epidemic, we sure haven't been able to prevent it after the customary hue and cry each year. Now it doesn't take smoking up a sacred pipe to see the real picture. Those responsible have managed to keep our vision hazy and clouded. Chocolates can please the wifey but Ciggi Babu needs more than that to quit.