A PUFF OF SMOKE!!

Jesus!! I wanna write something...I wanna write something so bad. I have so much to say and yet it all seems so irrelevant. Will anybody even listen to what I have to say? Does anybody actually give a damn about whats written in a stupid blog by some random college student? There are millions of bloggers out there like me-writing down their damn philosphies, their thoughts and their opinions-hoping just like me...that it would make a difference. So what makes me so damn different from the rest of them? It doesn't. And I am aware of that fact. Yet-more than anything else, this is a place to vent out my frustration on the absuridty of it all. I sit here in my damn flat, on a lenovo laptop, listening to my favorite tracks on Intex speakers while wondering about what to do with the rest of the evening and yet I write about the problems that the world is facing. Fuck-do I even know what's wrong with the world? Am I even completely aware of what prolems this world actually faces. For Pete's sake-I ain't even completely aware of what's wrong with me and I have set out to improve the world. Fuck me! 

I know what you are thinking-whats got into me all of a sudden? Why am I so frustrated? Well-I am frustrated. I don't really know at what, probably at myself and so I am gonna write some crazy stuff, a whole load of bullshit for you to read and then walk out of here and smoke a Dunhill. Funny, isn't it? As soon as I write a deeply touching and emotional post trying to prick people's conscience, I go out and smoke a cigaratte. Oh wait-you wanna make it poetic? Then I blow away my problems with a puff of smoke. LOL!! What kinda fucked up philosphy is that? I mean how on earth are you blowing away your problems or anybody else's for that matter by inhaling smoke into your fucking lungs. Jesus-the absurdity of it all!!

So there I was at a grocery store yesterday asking for my share of cigarattes for the day.  Now as I reached the store-I saw a bit of a peculiar sight. A family was standing there-with 2 kids about the age of 5 in tow.  Usually I wouldn't really care-but seeing those 2 kids I stopped. I didn't want to buy a packet of smokes in front of kids for how much ever we may want to avoid the fact-the truth is we do influence the kids. Even those whom we don't know. For that's how we start smoking in the first place-dont't we? For I too was an impressionable kid once and I remember vividly seeing actors smoke in Hindi films and imagining how cool it would be to smoke.  My grandfather used to smoke too and that too, perhaps subconsciously, had a huge influence on me for picking up cigarattes. I knew from the age of 8 that one day I was going to smoke. The sight of a cigaratte being lighted somehow always enchanted me and for me there was nothing more cooler than lighting a cigaratte followed by that puff of smoke coming from the mouth. It almost seemed magic.  And since no one would give me a cigartte then, I would take pens and imagining them to be cigarattes I would act as if I was lighting one. Oh-the glory of it all.  Finally-at the age of 13, I decided I was old enough to smoke. So one fine day I left the house, went to the nearyby paan shop and asked for a cigaratte. The paanwaala didn't even blink once. I guess I wasn't the first 13 year old to ask for a cigaratte. Though I do hope I was the last one. I placed the cigaratte on the tips of my lips as I had seen so many actors do before, took a lighter hanging on a pole at the paan shop and lighted the cigaratte. I felt like I was Shah Rukh Khan of Baazigar who could beat up a 100 guys and throw a girl off the roof. I felt like a bad boy and man-it felt good. If only I was on a terrace with a girl. I swear to God I would have thrown her off just for the thrill! That would make me a complete anti-hero. That would complete my glory. That would have made me Baazigar. 

And so started my foray into the world of smokers. Inititally I would cough like mad but then some of my older friends taught me the skills of a good smoker and just like that, my lungs got used to the smoke. I know-I made it sound like I am very proud of it. But the truth is-at that time I was. At that time smoking gave me a high. Like I was one of those heroes on the screen that I wished to emulate but never could. It made me feel closer to the world I loved-Bollywood. 

And no-I am not proud of it anymore.  I wish I had never liked Shah Rukh Khan in Baazigar so much. I wish I had never ventured out to that Paan shop 8 years ago and asked for a cigaratte.  I wish the paan waala had been shocked at my daring and had slapped me across my face and sent me back home crying. I really wish I had never touched a cigaratte in my life. But then we all wish to change somethings from our past but never can. The past can't be undone. Once the act has been committed, your conscience, however hard you try, cannot escape it. So it was with me.

The point here is that all of us pick a bad habit because someone else influences us when we were younger. We see college students or actors, whom we all aspire to be one day, and seeing them have such fun in lighting a cigaratte or opening a can of beer, we too feel how cool it would we be if we could follow them. For me-it was the world of Bollywood that attracted me. For someone else there could be a different reason. But there will be a reason. Unfortunatalely.

Those 5 year old kids-had they seen me buying a cigaratte that day and light it, might have been attracted by that strange white cylindrical piece of paper and wondered how is it that when you light it-it didn't burn but instead people actually inhaled its smoke. Maybe those kids would have found it attractive and felt a desire inside them to find out how exactly it works. To get a kick out of it. And 8 years later, just like I had, they too would venture across to that paan shop and asked for a cigaratte. And so another vicious cycle would begin. I know I can't do much to stop this cycle. But the least I can do is not be "that" influence to the little kid looking upto me and wondering how cool it would ne when he could go to college, light a cigaratte and see that puff of smoke form out of his mouth.

DAMN! I NEED A DUNHILL NOW!!