QUITTING SMOKING IS NO BIG DEAL

#by Gitanjali, Bridgewood-A

Dad was a heavy smoker and whenever Mom nagged him to give up smoking, he would tell her that she should have met him when he was a 7th Grader! Wow, he really started young! In fact, he graduated from school to college in style – for now our man had a pipe in hand! The story goes that Dad was smoking a pipe and sitting on the front seat of a bus (Readers, these activities were allowed in 1940s’ Burma), when his father boarded the same bus from the rear. Dad quickly stuffed his hand (and the pipe) into his trouser pocket. On reaching home, he had a hard time explaining to his Mom how he managed to get a perfectly circular burn mark on his palm! 



By the time my parents got married, Dad was a confirmed chain smoker, lighting one cigarette with the other – a fact stamped and sealed by the sneaky office peon.

During his Shillong posting, Dad was ordered to go to an unknown destination, accessible only by helicopter. The weather played spoilsport with heavy rains and hailstorms, as was very common in that region, therefore, for some days there was no way of getting back to base. The only communication Mom and I received from Dad’s office was, that he would not be coming home that day. No explanation or details were given, no questions to be asked either. Till date I do not know why Dad, a Meteorologist, was sent on such a mission. Anyway, soon Dad’s cigarettes ran out, and he rather rashly drove a Jonga through the inclement weather, combing the nearby jungled areas for a small town, but he had no luck. Plus, Dad was a brand loyalist and his favourite cigarettes were nowhere to be found. The tough got tougher, as they say, and Dad had to live a whole week without his ‘ciggies’.
 
The wait seemed like forever and when he did turn up at our door, he had this silly grin on his face and announced to us that he had given up smoking, saying “If I can live for a week without cigarettes, I can live forever without them!”.
 
God had answered Mom’s prayers dramatically - with hailstorms and helicopters!

Gitanjali.
Bridgewood A


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