Majority Bullying

===========================================================================

“As an example to others, and not that I care for moderation myself, it has always been my rule never to smoke when asleep and never to refrain when awake.”

- Mark Twain…70th Birthday Speech
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
...when they used to tell me I would shorten my life ten years by smoking, they little knew the devotee they were wasting their puerile word upon -- they little knew how trivial and valueless I would regard a decade that had no smoking in it!

- Mark Twain… Letter to Joseph Twichell, 19 Dec 1870
============================================================

There ought to be a law against Majority Bullying. What are the Human Rights Organizations doing? They ought to shut shop and go home in shame.

..gps…forever yours truly

===============================================================

My son doesn’t smoke; It is not that he tried and didn’t like it…..he never tried:


“I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have smoked and quit
Than never to have smoked at all.”

….gps…..with apologies to Tennyson’s ‘In Memorium’

=================================================================================

My son’s colleagues are born smokers. I asked him what they do during the grueling 15-hour Trans-Atlantic flight where there is no ‘smoking zone’. He said that they puff 5 cigarettes before boarding and repeat it as soon as the flight lands.

This is blasphemy……every smoker knows it doesn’t work that way. It is worse than Hell to be put to so much suffering.

I am now no devotee of smoking…but I rebel against the authorities who don’t take care of the human rights of smokers.

Wine, spirits and alcohol flow freely, courtesy hospitality… during those 15 long hours.

Why?

Smoking can’t be a fire hazard. Technology can take care of it if it is. Alcohol is a worse flight hazard….ask our Maharashtrian Minister of yore who got ‘higher’ than the aircraft and mollycoddled the air hostess with such intense fervor that the cockpit crew had to leave the plane unattended trying to dissuade him.

Smoking should be ‘discouraged’ but not ‘prohibited’. No ‘prohibition’ ever works. The US Govt tried it with alcohol between the World Wars and failed miserably and gave it up forever. Ask the Gujerat Govt how far they have succeeded.

Our own Ramadoss tried to ‘ban’ smoking; Come to Hyderabad to see for yourselves how effective that ‘ban’ is. The silliest thing a Govt could do is to pass a law or decree that can’t be enforced. It becomes the laughing stock of the governed.

Compared to smoking, drinking is a far worse evil. During the past one year our Apartment Complex had to change 6 watchmen to get one who doesn’t drink, get high, beat up his wife and kids and become a terror to the maids. We haven’t yet succeeded.

But Ramadoss couldn’t care!

It is silly to argue that smokers suffer and die miserably of lung cancer in the long run. There is no part of this lousy human body which is not prone to cancer, suffering, and cruel death,

My best friend and ex-colleague, a goody-goody chaste Brahmin who never smoked nor drunk nor ate meat nor ever told a lie died at the tender age of 50 suffering long from prostate cancer. And my most revered ‘teacher of teachers’ is going strong at 85 following Mark Twain’s obiter dicta to the letter.

To say that smoking should be ‘banned’ as it inflicts death on ‘passive-smoking onlookers’ is equally silly. Pass a law that smokers should not smoke if anyone around objects. That is a law which can be enforced and is very civil to everyone.

This train of thought is due to something funny that happened today: I always take my delicious Iranian Chai here in a joint which displays boldly the mandatory slogan: ‘No Smoking….By Govt Order’. But everyone there smokes nonchalantly and no one ever complains. Today however, a gentleman occupied the seat opposite me, pulled out his stick, and said: ‘Ahem..may I please smoke?’.

I replied: “I come here only to enjoy free ‘passive smoking’ because my medico wife prohibited expensive ‘active smoking’ on our first wedding anniversary……thank you and please go ahead; and LONG LIVE SENSIBLE SMOKERS!”