Life on Smoke????

‘Smoking is injurious to health’…. I am sure you would have read this sentence many times either on cigarette cartons or on public hoardings. You might have also heard some well wisher with good intentions uttering the same words. But does a person who is habituated to smoking pay any attention to this? I doubt. For him, smoking is a habit not to be questioned, as he does not bother about the repercussions. In all probability he would regret only when this addiction actually leads to his ill-health, sometimes detrimental to his life.

My husband is one of the lucky few who heeded our doctor’s advice and quit smoking with a strong will-power. And this happened after 30 years of our marriage when our physician gave him an ultimatum!! An optimist to the core, I felt that this was a ‘better late than never’ situation. Now I get a chance to breathe air unpolluted by the stink and the poison coming out of the cigarette smoke.

In the early years of my marriage, when he would not pay heed to my plea, advice or command not to smoke, I gave vent to my frustration by penning my thoughts down. Here is the outcome. The poem got published in ‘Pigeon Post’, the staff magazine of Rallis India Limited, in 1976.


Life on Smoke?????

How do you feel, tell me, when your husband smokes
If you say “no’, he takes it as a joke
Is it a symbol of being a male?
It boosts of course, the cigarette sale.

He says he gets a ‘kick’ out of it
You do not like the idea a bit
He thinks of to-day and not of ‘morrow
When it might be only a world of sorrow

He smiles and takes another puff
If you protest, he barks, “that’s enough”
How to put sense into his handsome head
And think of a healthy future ahead?

He is not the only one who knows it is wrong
In nook and corner, such people throng
Try to warn them, they just ignore
And categorize you as a BIG BIG BORE!!!

© Shanta Ramakrishnan (June 1976)