Cigarette smoking is injurious to health

Those rings of smoke ... exhaled ... little clouds. The white fluffy clouds in the sky reminded me of them.

When I was a little girl my father used to smoke in his office and I would happily take in the smell of the cigarette. Though he would put it out at once when he would be aware of my presence. That burning tobacco sniff in the air always reminded me of him. Over the years he gave up the habit but the smell was saved in my mind as “dad”.

Few years later, when I moved to London, I found the white stick to be quite omnipresent. I put it down to the wet and cold weather. Waiting at the bus stop, people would smoke to hold on to whatever little warmth the humble cig offered.  Many friendships were formed at that bus-stop. People waiting there asked politely if they could smoke and I would happily nod my head as it would take me on a trip to nostalgia ... in my dad’s office. One such woman who used to travel on the same bus as I did, formed a close friendship with me later on. She told me that every time she thought of giving the habit up the weather would turn colder, the buses would be running late, she would have a work deadline or a tiff with her partner ... hence making her reach out to the solace of the smoke. We shared our heartaches and joys all under the bus stop, with the whiff of a cigarette. I never really made a close friend as her ever.

A few more years later I moved to India. The anti-smoking campaign had certainly picked up everywhere and many public places now prohibited smoking in their premises. As if that actually made people give up the habit though. Every Sunday I used to go for a walk beside the sea and I met him there for the first time. He was trying to capture the huge orange ball in the sky into his camera. I smiled and asked him if I could see whether he had done justice to nature’s beacon. To say that it was magnificent would be an understatement. And while my eyes were taking in the visual delights, my nose sniffed a familiar nostalgic smell in the air. A cigarette in his hands. I looked and he apologetically offered to put it out. I said “You do that and you will put out a part of my rekindled memory”. He laughed and said “never before has someone said ‘no’ so poetically!” That was the first of my regular weekend meetings with him over the months to come. Often he had his camera slung around his neck ... as if it was a garland that celebrated his profession. While our conversation was varied, his cigarette was constant. I started looking forward to Sundays for more than just the break from my working weekdays.

Then, one Sunday, he met me and with a glorious twinkle in his eye said “Do you know that job that I had applied for in Delhi? Well, i have bagged it. They want me to start from next week itself and I have to move there in these five days. I am so happy that I will finally be working with international brands and media companies. You are the first person with whom I am sharing this ...” The rest of his words were lost to me. I listened to him but couldn’t soak it all in. He stopped and asked “well?”

I mistakenly told him “I am so happy for you. You truly deserve this. Let me know if I can help you. My friend lives in Delhi. I’ll give you his number”.

I met him once again in a farewell party given by his friends. He went away to Delhi. I stopped going to the seaside for my Sunday strolls. Many people there but not the one whose company I wished for. It has been 4 months now. I am in touch with him but his erratic schedules meant that our chats were never consistent.

You might think ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Well, it may have been so. Except for the fact that whenever anyone around me lit up a cigarette I was reminded of him instantly. Him, my close friend in London, my dad. They take me down on a memory lane of people whom I would have loved to be in my life forever but instead was left with the numbing ache of being away from them.

It’s true about the warning on the cigarette packs, only it had an addendum for me.  “Cigarette smoking is injurious to health ... and perhaps to memories as well”.