Smoking One-self into the Grave

 "Smoking yourself into the Grave" is the sentence which welcomed me in a swanky private hospital of Delhi today. That turned out to be the hospital's way of deathly reminder  to me, of fragility of my own life, the one which has the penchant of digging its own grave. It made me pause. Wrong. It sent shivers deep down to my marrows. And the seminal question which came to mind- When will I leave smoking?-. On way to grave or when I rest in grave.

The cardinal question remains unanswered. In few hours from now, the World observes Anti-Tobacco Day. I can give a day lecture on harmful effects of smoking. Like every one else, I know Smoking Kills. And I also know that it kills  @ one person every eight second.  My interest in the damage that smoking does, is more than perfunctionarly. It has been my strange bed-fellow for last three decades. A constant companion taking my life away every nano-second with every puff.  I  also am a pollutor personified- for every three hundred cigrettes smoked by me, I destroy one tree. Quite a sullied record for a person who champions the cause of public transport for environment friendly sustainable urban mobility. I call it dichotomy of my life.

My daily quota of consumption of cancer sticks is 20 Wills Filter Navy Cut. When my love affair with smoking began in 1981, it was the era of "Made for Each Other" the romanticised marketing of the deadly cancer stick. Today nothing has changed ,except the writing on the pack. It just says "Smoking Kills". Its vague pictorial warning does not scare me. The deadly picotrial warnings in Europe and Singapore, used to force me to tear off that portion of the cover but they never deterred me from being the walking steam engine. I have been a valiiant carrier of my own death bomb.

I have been a loyal brand ambassdor for ITC. It has been three decades of Wills Filter Navy Cut. And I will do any thing for the love of it.. I will lie at home. Pickpocket money from my wife's purse or children's wallets
which they could decipher instantly. My quota of Wills has made me break custom laws of the nations I have visited-I call my self as Ethics Counselor in Professional Life. I would always carry sufficient numbers of packets  in my foreign jaunts, which were many. Only time, I changed the brand loyalty was in favour Charms, the filter version of  Charminar, in an era when I found ten rupees for a Wills pack costly. For a year in Manila I was a Marlboro Man. In one year, I consumed what I would have consumed in ten years.. Marlboro man might have died of cancer, but Marlboro pack of 20, came dirt cheap in Manila in 1999,  one rupee for every  cancer stick for taking few seconds of my life. It was a story of blown to bits, blown to smoke.

I have defied the law of gravity so far.. my smoking has ensured that I am admitted in the Escorts Heart Hospital in the emergency. I do await a heart attack. My cholestrol level is still manageable. Multiple linear ulcers in my esophagus nearly took my life. But at the time of last endoscopy two years back, they had not yet turned malignant. Who knows about tomorrow. Smoking kills. I smoke.

Smoking Kills and before that it makes life hell. Still i smoke. I did not start smoking because of its romanticised charm nor did I start thinking it would add to my smartness. I casually tasted it in State Bank Staff College, Hyderabad in 1981 and before I knew I became an obscessive-compulsive smoker. My journey to grave continues at accelerated pace. On a normal day, I light twenty cancer sticks. I live in a false world- my mistaken belief that I take only few puffs and that per cancer-stick I consume  much lesser nicotine or tar than my soulmates.

My younger son was with me in the hospital today, when the message "Smoking Yourself into the Grave" was doing the break-dance of death before my eyes. His concerned question was- Dad what Next?. My usual answer was "Betu I would think". I promised my wife and kids a week back. This Anti-Tobacco Day i will call quits to my lady love-the ubiquitous Wills Filter-made for each other. Will tomorrow ever come. Will it come in this life, or after my accelerated passage to grave. The question remains... and I am momentrarily petrified.

Why do I smoke? It is a million dollar question. Smoking my self into the grave has been a merathon hurdle. My home is smoke free. I have to visit the road to smoke- in the wilderness of night, in the chilly winder, on a hot sun filled day or a day when incessantly rains. I will get drenched in my car but my winter shutter will be down for a puff of cigarrete.

I live life dangerously. I dangle closely to death. I know smoking kills. I still smoke. I donot want to die. I have  unfinished dreams in life-for self, family and society. I am a pathological dreamer and obsessive compulsive smoker. I promise to quit and donot deliver on promise. My first line treatment of bipolar disorder controls me from above, it drives closer to depression and substantially reduces my intellectual prowess. I can not leave medication as non-conformity to medication will drive me to madness. My smoking enervates me physically. The combination of two is deadly-one eats my mind like a termite. Another kills my body by the second. When will I stop smoking. Smoking Kills.

I have tried to stop smoking several times. I am a strong willed person. I had promised my father in law before marriage, I would come to mandap as a non-smoker. I have given and broken the promises thousand times to my wife in last twenty three years. Have tried nicotine patch and chewing-gums which only doubled my smoking.. Have taken professional help. Has gone to faquir and tantrik and doctors.  Smoking kills but I smoke. I know its pitfalls-digging my own grave.

Is there some explanation of my inability to stop my fast-farward march to grave. Probably yes. probably no. In United States of America 45 percent of cigarretes are consumed by those who are mentally ill. In India there is no such statistics avaliable. But co-morbidity  of obsessive-compulsive smoking with mental illness is as established a scientific fact as the realization that smkoing kills. The latter is believed. The inability to quit smoking is deemed as character  flaw, lack of will, a criminal conspiracy against life.

I want to live. Still I kill myself bit by bit. All the scientific evidences point to my early departure to grave. There is a finer point we all miss in India. Smoking in case of most people is a fad, a fashion or a deadly addition. Obsessive compulsive smoking for a bipolar or some other suffering from serious mental disorders is a facts of life and eath. There are studies galore- be it Lancet and Nature the most respected medical journals or studies for Harvard Medical School or others. The sad part of bipolar disorder is that comorbidity with  substance abuse is very high-smoking, drug abusing and alcoholisms. It can be as high as 60%. Smoking kills but i smoke.  To me it is co-morbidity. Honourble, Chief Justice of India, Are you listening my Lord. i want to live, still I kill. Your statute of ban in public place makes my life more miserable. It does not help me. It has made my work life a living hell. I am not allowed to smoke even in the compund. Do I have a right to live sir. Your statute gets disobeyed. I am mentally ill, comorbidity is my obsessive ompulsve smoking. As aresponsible citizen who suffers the double whammy of rightlessness and non-person status, I still travel down fifteen floors to take one cigarrete. Your judicial pronouncements are profound your Honour, except that it is killing the messenger. Not the culprit-in case of million smokers in India their mental illness-a non-subject to Indian pysche, to policy makers and other stakeholders

But here is my resolve. A public one. I will not  smoke myself into grave. I will stop my silent march to grave before it becomes a violent departure to pit. I believe  can. I give life to me. I will quit smoking. Smoking kills. I still smoke. The  silver-lining is- I have driven my debilitating Bipolar Disorder to slumber called remission that was more difficult thing to do. I will quit smoking, sooner rather than later. I want to embrace life. Want to say yes to Life and No to Grave. God help me if u are there, and I know u are there. My rainbow coalition is intact. Hope I will soon get steely resolve. Else, it will be too late in the day



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