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Thanks to our health minister, I am soon going to miss smoking. While technically I don’t smoke, I’ve inhaled everything from Four Square to Rothmans.

That’s the beauty of passive smoking. It doesn’t cost anything. Besides, I am told smoking is a nervous habit where it’s the act of lighting a cigarette and taking a deep drag that’s more important than the actual smoke. The history of smoking can be traced back to the native American Indians who used to blow smoke rings to communicate with each other. While two smoke rings meant lunch was served, a third smoke ring was a warning that the menu consisted of yesterday’s leftovers.

Then Christopher Columbus brought a few tobacco leaves and seeds with him back to Europe, which he passed on to Frenchman Jean Nicot who carried it in his coat pocket until one day itcaught fire while Nicot was trying to make some French fries. Thus Nicot ended up smoking his own pocket—and nicotine was named after him.

By the way, cigars became popular only in the 1800s. Because until then most people thought cigar was somebody’s idea of a vulgar non-vegetarian joke. This was long before Bill Clinton found you could actually do a lot more than with a cigar than just smoke it.

However, nobody thought smoking was injurious to health until 1938 when Dr Raymond Pearl of John Hopkins University discovered that for some reason smokers did not live as long as non-smokers.

Which was indeed strange, considering smokers seemed to have more fun blowing smoke rings and exhaling smoke through their nostrils. But it was some silly Portugese sailors who brought tobacco to India in the 16th century and offered it to Emperor Akbar. Of course, the Emperor was thoroughly confused and didn’t exactly know what to do with it.

That’s when the royal hakeem suggested that Akbar would smoke only if the smoke passed through water. But the smoke not only passed through water but also came out dripping wet and asked for a bath towel. Well, that’s how hookah was invented.

Since then India has progressed by leaps and bounds in tobacco territory. A few years ago, it was only the fourth largest producer of tobacco in the world, and Indians reportedly smoked 90 million cigarettes in a year. And just when we’ve thought we’d put India on the world map, the health minister is stubbing it out!
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