Toons wean them off tobacco addiction

In a 200sqft room at Mankhurd, more than a dozen fisherwomen are gossiping in hushed tones. All of them sit up in attention as a medical social worker embarks upon talking to them about the perils of tobacco consumption.

It may seem like another run-of-the-mill community intervention programme, but one close look at the flip charts through which the social worker conducts her lectures paints a completely different picture.

The fisherwomen are addicted to rubbing crude forms of tobacco like mashri or burnt tobacco leaves on their teeth. Doctors and social workers from Tata Memorial Hospital are trying hard to convince these women and their families to give up on smokeless forms of tobacco, including mashri, gutka and snuff (popularly known as khaini), by explaining their cancerous after-effects through cartoons.

Helping them in this difficult task is Anshuman Gupta, a 16-year-old student of Bombay Scottish School in Mahim. He has been working as a freelance cartoonist for the hospital’s tobacco cessation programme for two years now. He took on the task of making caricatures and illustrations to educate communities on the perils of tobacco consumption.

“The visual symbols associated with the chemicals drive home the point that gutka and other tobacco products contain ingredients which are poisonous,” says Gupta.

Among the host of cartoons, one depicts a man who is unable to open his mouth as his lips have been pierced and sealed shut with an iron lock. One look at the caricature, and Sunita Koli, a 40-year-old illiterate fisherwoman, is horrified. “I wouldn’t have believed that consuming tobacco leads to the tightening of jaw muscles. But the illustration makes the ill-effects so much easier to understand,” she says, vowing to stop consuming mashri.

“While men in slum communities prefer gutka, the women opt for more crude forms of tobacco. Before we began intervention programmes in eastern suburbs of Mankhurd, Mandala and Trombay, women used to rub burnt tobacco close to five times a day,” says Dr Sheetal Kulkarni, medical officer, Tata Memorial Hospital’s tobacco cessation project.

Thirty-year-old Angada Patil, who got addicted to mashri during her pregnancy, weaned herself off it after attending creative community intervention camps held by the hospital.

“Parents rub mashri on the teeth of children as young as two years old. They later go on to develop leukoplakia or pre-cancerous lesions and ulcers in the inner lining of their cheeks. Such patients are then screened and referred for treatment,” says Dr Gauravi Mishra, assistant professor, preventive oncology, Tata Memorial Hospital in Parel.