TRASH THE ASH

Shweta from blue Print conveys to us very diligently the Passive effects and Active excuses of Smoking...

“To quit smoking is easy. I have done it a thousand times" — Mark Twain neatly summarizes the dilemma faced by thousands of smokers worldwide.

If you're a smoker, chances are you have recent­ly discovered you have serious creative differ­ences with the Union Health Minister. His ‘beautiful law on paper’ may have thrown your entire life in disarray — you can't smoke in your office, you can't smoke on your way there, and you most certainly can't light up while sipping your end-of-the-day drink at the pub.

As a smoker you read the statutory warning "smoking is injurious to health" each time you pick up your pack of ciga­rettes. You invariably try to stub the words of advice and dismiss it along with the ashes lying in the ashtray. But yes, somewhere along the line, you do make a promise to yourself, give yourself yet another dead­line, which seems to look hazy in the midst of all the smoke you puff out the next moment.

Can a ban or a "grisly" image on a cigarette packet make smokers quit?

Says Shikha Johnson, PR executive, “I hardly smoke, maybe a puff or two but have definitely cut down on the frequency since I feel lazy to go all the way down on the road”

Sutapa, another PR executive with Blue Lotus, is a habitu­al smoker, who has 3-5 ciga­rettes a day and wants to get rid of the habit. But the job itself seems like a "Herculean task".

Moreover she detests the fact that there’s no ‘smoking zone’ in Blue lotus, hence she has to step outside the office building for a smoke. “People see me with mean eyes as if I am committing a crime!”

Clearly, the rules for men and women, when it comes to smok­ing are different. A male smoker is acceptable, macho even. But a woman smoker — at best she's 'liberated', at worst she's of 'questionable' character.

Mr Piyush Jain, Business Head, Blue Bytes, is of the opinion that the ban has surely triggered an urge to quit smoking, and he initially did succeed in considerably reducing this habit.

For some, rules are meant to be broken, Prathamesh (PR executive) and Ravi (Art Director, Design Mustard) are absolutely unaffected by such bans. Umesh Bhogle, Principal Consultant, does feel guilty to smoke in office premises.

I as a BL ‘passive smoking’ employee, find it quite miserable to stop my own colleagues to smoke around me or in the office premises who defend themselves with silly excuses. ‘Why don’t you put a NO SMOKING board’ or simply a ‘I don’t care attitude’!

So all you active smokers out there, stay unhealthy, flaunt your not-so-cool attitude, but let us helpless passive hitters stay fit and survive to tell the tale. So, let’s get active in raising our voices against becoming passive smokers and when you find someone smoking next to you, remember, YOU have to survive to tell the tale...