<p>I don’t know if it sounds like a confession. Ideally, it shouldn’t, but I have decided to come clean publicly because it has weighed on my mind for a few decades!</p>.<p>I don’t smoke or chew tobacco, but I don’t consider myself pure as the driven snow either. What I am about to reveal is the exact opposite of virtue signalling. The reason I never took to smoking is because of an adventure that went wrong.</p>.A click with stardom.<p>I was probably in Class 7 or 8 when curiosity got the better of me at a family wedding in Nagpur. Weddings used to be unpretentious back then, held at venues that were anything but plush. No one bothered if the colour on the walls was peeling or some portions did not have enough light. Guests only looked at relatives and familiar faces and bonded over memories or gossip.</p>.<p>Usually, men and children would be served meals first. Having eaten to their heart’s content, the next concern for the men would be the post-meal treat: paan. There were no special counters. The delicacy would reach men huddled in small or large groups, some belching loudly, some sleepy, on a tray.</p>.<p>All they had to do was add different ingredients to their liking and fold the paan before sporting an expression of bliss. They would insist it aided digestion. Tobacco was among the essential items. I had not heard of the proverb “forbidden fruit is the sweetest” but was tempted not just to touch but also to taste tobacco.</p>.<p>At an opportune moment, I added nearly a fistful of tobacco to a leaf, rolled it, and started chewing it secretly in a corner. Even grown-ups would add no more than a pinch! The next moment, I gulped the entire content as if it were grated coconut; incidentally, the only thing children could access in the paan paraphernalia without being admonished.</p>.<p>Needless to say, I threw up, not just tobacco but everything that I had eaten before. The body’s reflex at emptying an unwanted object was so violent that it made me doubly sick. Someone saw me and put it down to indigestion. I knew what I had done was wrong and had no other explanation. Any attempt to own up to the transgression would have brought on punishment.</p>.<p>The memory of the episode remained drilled into my head. Whenever I saw tobacco, I remembered the savage aftermath on my internal organs. I kept away not just from paan but also tobacco in all forms, including cigarettes. I resisted tobacco in college, when youngsters tend to become rebellious and want to smoke, and later, when I became a journalist.</p>.<p>Whenever a cigarette was offered to me, I turned it down politely. My steady conviction had everything to do with the past misadventure. I am still ambivalent on whether I made a virtue of necessity! I can say with certainty that what I did is not worthy of emulation, and I won’t market it as a potential de-addiction tool.</p>
<p>I don’t know if it sounds like a confession. Ideally, it shouldn’t, but I have decided to come clean publicly because it has weighed on my mind for a few decades!</p>.<p>I don’t smoke or chew tobacco, but I don’t consider myself pure as the driven snow either. What I am about to reveal is the exact opposite of virtue signalling. The reason I never took to smoking is because of an adventure that went wrong.</p>.A click with stardom.<p>I was probably in Class 7 or 8 when curiosity got the better of me at a family wedding in Nagpur. Weddings used to be unpretentious back then, held at venues that were anything but plush. No one bothered if the colour on the walls was peeling or some portions did not have enough light. Guests only looked at relatives and familiar faces and bonded over memories or gossip.</p>.<p>Usually, men and children would be served meals first. Having eaten to their heart’s content, the next concern for the men would be the post-meal treat: paan. There were no special counters. The delicacy would reach men huddled in small or large groups, some belching loudly, some sleepy, on a tray.</p>.<p>All they had to do was add different ingredients to their liking and fold the paan before sporting an expression of bliss. They would insist it aided digestion. Tobacco was among the essential items. I had not heard of the proverb “forbidden fruit is the sweetest” but was tempted not just to touch but also to taste tobacco.</p>.<p>At an opportune moment, I added nearly a fistful of tobacco to a leaf, rolled it, and started chewing it secretly in a corner. Even grown-ups would add no more than a pinch! The next moment, I gulped the entire content as if it were grated coconut; incidentally, the only thing children could access in the paan paraphernalia without being admonished.</p>.<p>Needless to say, I threw up, not just tobacco but everything that I had eaten before. The body’s reflex at emptying an unwanted object was so violent that it made me doubly sick. Someone saw me and put it down to indigestion. I knew what I had done was wrong and had no other explanation. Any attempt to own up to the transgression would have brought on punishment.</p>.<p>The memory of the episode remained drilled into my head. Whenever I saw tobacco, I remembered the savage aftermath on my internal organs. I kept away not just from paan but also tobacco in all forms, including cigarettes. I resisted tobacco in college, when youngsters tend to become rebellious and want to smoke, and later, when I became a journalist.</p>.<p>Whenever a cigarette was offered to me, I turned it down politely. My steady conviction had everything to do with the past misadventure. I am still ambivalent on whether I made a virtue of necessity! I can say with certainty that what I did is not worthy of emulation, and I won’t market it as a potential de-addiction tool.</p>