Disclaimer: I am not against smoking even though I am a non smoker. I am all for individual freedom. In fact, I have strongly supported the right of people to smoke in the blogpost - Leave the smokers alone. Just like smokers, even I find the patronizing anti-smoking enthusiasts extremely annoying. Still, this does not stop me from critically analyzing the mind of smokers as let's face it - they too are a patronizing bunch! Simply put, I don't like the attitude of smokers but have no problem with their act of smoking.
As a child in school, I was intelligent enough to know that smoking is bad for health and it is addictive. I'm sure most of my friends knew that too. Yet, some of my classmates, as soon as they turned 14 or 15, started lighting up. Even they knew cigarettes were harmful but they were not thinking long term. They were more concerned about looking 'cool' and 'badass' so that they could get some respect among their peers. People like me, who were encouraged to smoke but chose not too were looked at with a patronizing fervor - "Arrey, yeh to baccha hai!"
When you are a teen, about to become an adult, someone calling you a 'kid' can be quite distressing. Some of my classmates gave in to that distress and the number of smokers grew. I personally was not disgusted with smoking (I still am not) but at the same time I still thought, "Why get in to something that is going to harm me a lot in the future?" Also, my self-esteem was not that low that I needed an additional identity that was borne out of smoking cigarettes.
When I got to degree college, the immaturity of my peers remained. I joined the BMS course in Jai Hind college where a bunch of students who smoked started hanging out together and assumed that they were the 'coolest' group in class. The rest of us were supposed to worship them! My resentment towards smokers grew a bit! (Kindly note - the resentment was towards 'smokers' and not 'smoking')
During my engineering too I got a similar feeling. In fact, I also always saw girls magnetically attracted towards smokers. Maybe the girls too suffered from low self-esteem and wanted to be seen around tough, Marlboro-man type guys.
During my third year of engineering when I was 21, I believed that my peers were now adult enough not to start smoking. The ones who were already smoking, started it in their immature years and that is understandable to an extent. I was in for a shock when one of my classmates, in a deep search of identity, started lighting up! He even bragged about it!
And during my MBA, again a bunch of smokers got to together and started calling themselves the C.Com - the Cigarette Community. Since smoking wasn't allowed on campus, these guys used to hold their 'C.Com meetings' behind a stinky toilet and gossip about the rest of the class.
Finally, when I started working, my office colleagues looked at me as some guy who hasn't enjoyed life as he hasn't held a cigarette. I was thinking, that at least now, at an age of 25 or more, people should stop thinking that way! My disgust for them was slowly turning into pity as I started realizing that they had become slaves of the cigarette and were in a denial mode.
That brings me to the mind of a smoking man - simply put, it is screwed!
