Smoke screen

May went past in a blaze of heat and there was a lot of smoke too, over World No Tobacco Day.

Suddenly every one, electronic media to NGOs to we in the print media sat up and began to talk about smoking and gutka and the cancers caused by tobacco.

There were facts and figures, photos and quotes and discussions.

Like for any other Day, be it International Women’s Day, or Father’s Day (coming up soon), or Be Kind to Your Head Lice Day…well meaning scribes tried to whip up awareness. But to what avail?

Tobacco has been around for centuries, and like the cockroach, will not be eradicated. One of the strongest habits of man (and women), it continues to hold generations in its grasp, and cuts across socio economic, caste, religious and territorial strata to almost act like a great equaliser.

A smoke is a smoke, and a smoker is linked to others by the very act of lighting a cigarette.

Don’t we see it in the movies? The jailer suddenly finds compassion lighting his eyes and as he lights his weed, hands one to the condemned man, who accepts it gratefully and shares the poison like it was deliverance! Smoking has always had that inherent quality; it is a sign of belonging, of being part of the boys club, or now, the liberated women’s club.

Crafty advertising, direct and surrogate, ensured that we have that fixed into our psyche and our genes probably pass on these images to the next generation.

Even more insidious is the gutka. Despite the ban, the long strings of glittering packets drop like invitation cards from every corner shop ceiling, and if the ones that are displayed are tobacco free, there is no doubt that the laced ones can easily be bought by those wanting to do so.

And it is not the unlettered man in the street who alone seeks out his wad of chewable tobacco; more sophisticated versions do the rounds at social dos, never you doubt it.

As does the pipe and the cigar and the hookah, oh so fashionable, and decadent. So what if in the process the hookah pipe comes away layered with seven shades of lipstick as it passes from mouth to mouth many times over. Yuk!

Don’t blame the smoker and the chewer who opens his SUV car door and surreptiously spits on to the road at a traffic signal. He is a victim, though often a willing one.

The tobacco lobby is, world wide, a rich, powerful and formidable one. The cockroach comes to mind again, a mutant this time.

Nothing can keep it down, nothing can annihilate it, its feelers reach into people’s minds and homes; and seek out the vulnerable, the impressionable, the ones who do not have the will to say no.

Its genetically mutated claws are deadly; and once it gets hold of a people, or a section of the population, nothing will make it let go.

And under its hard carapace ticks a brain that will find loop holes in every law, routed to reach the political powers in any country and connect with them for its own protection and survival.

So taxes and laws, banning and warnings… nothing can quite impact it. It continues to thrive regardless; and even in the ‘evolved’ West , there is no sign that the tobacco lobby is faring worse than it did in past years.

Yet we make believe on May 31, and say we have done something to create awareness and whip up a fear of cancer, or the ills of indulging in a habit that maims, kills, destroys all that come in its ambit.

And even as I read the reams that have been printed on how the numbers of smokers can drop thanks to our efforts, I take a deep breath and look out of my ceiling high window.

And see the little urchins who play outside, gathering for their evening smoke, passing one lone cigarette from one hand to the other!