Smoking is Injurious to Health

'Why do you need to smoke? I mean always', said Harold.

I smiled and looked at the warning scrolled on the packet: Smoking is injurious to health. The half burned cigarette was dangling from my lips while I leisurely leaned against a wall, a pose I assumed almost 20 times a day.

‘It doesn’t say whose health’, I said nonchalantly.

I needed cigarettes as much as I needed Harold. Harold was my friend for last 15 years or more I am not sure as I had stopped counting. Friendship like cigarette settles down with time, the initial kicks and excitement you feel when you ignite it for the first time gives way to layers and layers of warmth, ash in case of cigarettes, which settles down in your physical system. Friends become a habit, sublime in their presence but conspicuous in their absence.

We were a group of 7 friends: Harold, Tim, Esther, Andria, Henry, Luke and me, Sith. We went to the same college, landed in jobs in the same city where our college was and have been together since then. Our exuberance of youth has given way to mild manners of middle age but we still enjoy each other companionship spending long hours reminiscing the lost times. Few of us took to smoking during our college days but it was only Tim and me who carried on with it during later years with Tim kicking the butt almost 10 years ago.

'You have kids now. They deserve the fresh air you have been denying them all these years. Act like a good father.'

'Are you functionally illiterate? Don't you follow the markings on the packet?'

'A cigarette takes away 6 minutes of life. By that calculation, you should have died 2 years before. Consider yourself lucky, thank God and leave this bad habit of yours'

'Think about it. All these years, you have smoked a convertible in thin year which you could have bought with all that money you burned on cigarettes'

These were the few advices my friends had reserved for me. I knew it was an annoying habit and honestly, cigarettes didn’t gave me any kicks now and I had tried in past to give it up, but in vain. I fought and I lost and accepting my defeat, I decided to surrender to this habit. So, in all these years, my friends and I didn't change our stance, they always cribbing about my habit and I still stuck with it.

Time passed and as it happened, we regrouped after months of separation at Harold's funeral. He had died of Heart Attack. He received a sudden jolt while in office and was declared dead on reaching the hospital. Time was taking toll on us and we realized it as Harold departed. As people stood around Harold's grave while his coffin was being lowered, I took my position near a tree leaning against it puffing Marlboro at a steady pace.

'You should consider quitting now. Harold wanted you to quit.’ said Esther on seeing me. But she was more sad about Harold's death than concerned about my health at that moment and went away to console his wife.

We became more attached after Harold's death. We became aware of the limited time we had to enjoy each others' company. We regrouped more, planned our leaves together and tried to spend our holidays together. But the bickering continued about my smoking.

Not long after Esther died. She died while sleeping due to coronary blockage. A gem of a person, she was glue which had kept us together and her death strengthened our bonds further. We were close to her family members also and they remained part of our get-togethers.

Esther's death was followed by Andria and then Luke. Tim, Henry and I bought apartments in the same building but soon after Tim left us followed by Henry. Now, no one was left to complain about my smoking and I huffed and puffed at incessant rate.

I am 92 years old now. I spend long hours sitting out in the balcony watching sun setting at the horizon leaning back in my wheel chair taking drags remembering my old friends. A lot of their memories have been erased and I have difficulty remembering all those years together. Sometimes, my family members have to pitch in to remind me of an old incident. But, I do remember their warnings about my smoking; how each one of them wanted me to quit.

Sometimes under the spell of an old man’s frenzy, I wake up until morning remembering my friends while scrolling their names on my notepad. I look at the form and style of those names and try to imagine each of those complaining about the cigarette between my lips.

On one such day, at 2 am in the morning, I sat in my wheelchair scribbling their names. Fatigued by all the stress, I slept in the chair itself. The half lit cigarette fell on the notepad in my lap. In the morning, I woke up with searing headache. The cigarette had burned hole in the open page of the notepad which had initials of the first names of my friends scrolled: H.E.A.L.T.H. neatly serialized in the order of their death.

I should have quit smoking a lot earlier. I should have paid heed to their warnings and writings on the packet. After all, Cigarette is indeed injurious to H.E.A.L.T.H: Harold, Esther, Andria, Luke, Tim and Henry.