The grim and cacophonous city mayhem didn’t relent at the doors here; if anything it donned white coats, liveried uniforms and beige pant suits and proceeded to usher me and countless other sick, seemingly dying or miscellaneous damned of the human species into the hallowed foyer of the prestigious institution.
After the chaos quieted down to a dull roar, we paid a cash deposit of Rs 30,000 and were led up to the hospital room where I was to serve out a short sentence slapped on my body (due to complications arguably brought on myself following years of decadent living, walking in the footsteps of the proverbial prodigal son). Having been an inmate of the ghastly GMC before, this seemed like a picnic by comparison and so I sullenly but stoically got used to the grind that hospital stays entail; 6 am wake up calls for blood tests, being poked, prodded, otherwise, metered and documented, bland meals, being shuttled between stark and clinically swabbed rooms, watching my 70-year-old father bear the brunt of having to care for a son who should be taking care of him.
And then I met a man with third stage lung cancer. All of 38, with a death sentence looming over his head unbelievably, he was the most cheerful and happy-go-lucky person I’ve ever met, talking to all the people on the 13th floor, borrowing and religiously returning newspapers and assorted literature. His wife was as disarming, beaming and talking to everyone like we were all neighbors and friends. Their joy was infectious, undoubtedly God given, and made me feel like my own issues were a drop in the ocean. On my last day there, I was introduced to their angelic and soon to be fatherless 9-year-old daughter and it hit me; how can so many people still consciously and willingly subject their bodies to substances that are scientifically proven to be carcinogenic and utterly destructive to human tissue?
Cigarettes, gutkha, tobacco and related products cause cancer, heart disease, ulcers, impotence, blindness, infertility and a host of other problems that boggle the mind with their unholy power to morph a completely healthy human being into a shadow of his or her former self; smokers do not realize that slowly but surely, they are filling their bodies drop by drop with poison that cause ailments they wouldn’t wish on their worst enemies, let alone their own families and loved ones. Human beings at their core cannot be slaves; we were created to be free, potent, healthy, joyful and not deign to be slaves to anything that makes us irritable, angry and even completely non functional unless we have a fix. No man worth his salt likes to be controlled or reprogrammed, period.
Evolve into the creative, selfless beings you are expected to be. Choose life, not poison; opt for fresh air and exercise, never having to get X rayed, MRI’d or having spinal fluid tapped from your backbone to corroborate the biopsy of that once healthy piece of your lung the doctors resected and siphoned out through your belly button! Use your extra cigarette cash to buy presents for your parents, kids and the orphans and pick up stock from the Universal Bank of Goodness that always repays investors a million fold. Hug a smoker today and tell him/her to stop committing suicide.
