Persecuted and smoked out

I nearly choked at the unexpected put-down and, smarting from the rap, started counting the number of 8220;smoking8221; seniors in the newsroom meeting from whom I had just got an earful. Of the seven present, five were habitual smokers, from whose cigarettes smoke was curling up even as their looks made me feel like a dunce.

As the boss shifted his attention to the next item on the day8217;s agenda my admonishment was actually a digression, fast becoming a regular feature, I sifted through the long series of embarrassments I had suffered trying to defend something I indulged in. This was not my maiden effort at holding a brief for the tobacco industry, and coming out the worse for it. Earlier attempts had been staged in front of friends, family, relatives, passing acquaintances, anyone who was unfortunate, and bold, enough to try and 8220;inveigle8221; me out of smoking.

I have lost count of the number of friends who exhausted their dialectical skills trying to wean me from the habit. Some gave in8230;and took to smoking. The reason why many of them threw in the towel was that there was so little I didn8217;t know about the ill-effects of smoking. In fact these days I get my kicks by springing the latest smoking statistics which can mean only one thing on well-meaning friends.

The family is set dead against the cancer-stick, but can8217;t really help it. The efforts they have put in to reform me is material stocked for another Time Out. I was initiated into the 8220;ciggy8221; in my college days when it was the in-thing. Everyone around me, right from the economics professor who sported a Bhabani Sengupta look and bumbled in like manner to the student leader smoked and made their own statements. While the professor, in keeping with his urbane image, held his ciggy8217; in the normal scissored position, the chillum8217; style was more to the student leader8217;s liking.Those were the days when smoking hardly needed, as far as I remember and my memory serves me well thanks to the ciggy8217; which has toned the grey cells, any defending. I mean you didn8217;t really have to be apologetic unless you were blowing smoke in someone8217;s face and that someone happened to be asthmatic. In fact many of my friends took to smoking because they wanted to impress the girls, and some of the girls were sure impressed. I say this because many of my friends married these girls. It is another matter that they now come cribbing to me about their wives8217; harangues. On the flip side I know of at least one person who had steadfastly refused to succumb to the temptation, taking to it only when his girlfriend took off with a smoker.But things are changing. At an informal reunion of a few college friends, I found that a large number of them who used to swear by the stick have now, alarmingly, forsworn cigarettes. Smoking rooms are cropping up by the dozen, a sort of quarantine for Smokers Inc. Taxes on cigarettes go up every year, ostensibly to discourage smokers. Lighting up in public places is out of the question. Smokers, may their tribe increase, are the New Age pariahs. The tide is against me, but with the 8220;cigarette in my hand I feel like a man8221;. More or less.