Quitting the quitting

Inspired by my comrade's noble and applaudable efforts to quit smokingI had decided to follow suit.

There was another reason why I decided to take this step.

Actually I had been thinking about it for a long time. Mostly when I used to smoke - because that is when your thoughts swril and loop as they trace the smoke on its way to nothingness that all thoughts are.

Its about the calendar. I have gotten into the habit of striking off dates every day .. count downs somehow make it easier .. you are at the very least some 30 seconds closer as you uncork the pen, seek out the date and cross it and sit back and revel in the fact that you made it through another day and things seem to be going good. But like they always say where i work - you should always have a big picture view.So this one day as i was smoking, I tried to rise above the measly days and dates and tried to grasp the big picture.. the months of the year

There is something about every month that makes it (or made it) special except for a few or maybe one (in my case). There is always something you end up identifying with a particular month. This could vary with the subject under consideration of course.

For January - it is the cold, it is no cockroaches, it is a week without a bath and still smelling good, and perchance you do take a bat then its a hot steaming bath. Feburary is 28 days! need i say anything more. March was alwaysthe exam month. April always meant new people, new class, new subjects. You used to pray for the end for May because thats when the summer vacations used to kick in. June July were hot and had mangoes. August and September always hung there like a pair of orphaned twins because October signalled the diwali season which hearlded in November with a lot of birthdays and December was the end of the year and cold yet again.

August and September. Something had to be done abt them. Like they say, time takes care of everything. It did take care of August but September hung there begging attention, yearning for some recognition but circumstances are a bitch like they always are.

Which is why I decided to accord a sepecial status to September. The month when I quit smoking for good. What follows is my day by day account of my will powers' tryst with what has been scientifically proved to be the second most addictive agent in the world (the first is 'being in love')

Day -1:
11:30 pm : Tomorrow I quit. Let me go out with a bang. I head out, buyme a 10 pack and start chugging away.

12:00 am: Half way through Spaceballs now. Three smokes down, 7 remaining. An ethical dilemma. And then I start building the argument.It will be a colossal waste of resources and the thousands of manhours that have been spent to grow, process, package, market these 7 cigarettes. In anycase, the 12:00 am date change is just an arbitrary crossover process that has been forced onto us by the westerners. And I hate the whites. A colonial vestige, is all that it is. I must be true to my true self and proceed as per the traditional indian cultural practice of earmarking the start of the next day by way of the first ray of light. My conscience eagerly accepts the bulletproof line of reasoning (conveniently bypassing the jarring thought about why the georgian calendar in the first place) and I ease back and light the 4th.

1:30 am : Spaceballs done with. 6 smokes down. On to Spygames. Robert Redford is smoking a cigarette. I am allowed. So I chug on to my 9th over the next hour.

~2:30 am : I am on my ostensibly last cigarette ever. A sense of elation. I have finally quit. Oh how i love September. The day I celebrate my 100th birthday I will thank this September oh so profusely! And i turn in for the night thinking it will be a new life starting the next day. A new me. A healthier me. A smokeless me.It depresses me.

8:00 am : Fuck I need a smoke! Fuck it all.

8:05 am : "Bhaia, ek 20 ka pack dedo".

stuff good weekends are made of

I had made up my mind. This weekend was going to be different. Well, different from what weekends had life thrown up the last couple of times - i find it really hard to remember the weekends before that. I take this as a good sign because they wouldnt have been special, otherwise I would certainly have the dates etched on my mind and since they are not hence it is safe to deduce that they weren't after all.



Last to last weekend, I remember having watched the dark knight; followed by drinks till the wee hours of the day; the next day I scooted off to meerut to check on my cousin who'd had a surgery and also to meet up with my parents who were visting to from up north. Hellish driving on Saturday, rest on Sunday and hellish driving on Monday. That was about it. Except for lots of food which did not go well down with me.



The next weekend started with an office party where I got smashed, danced a bit, then when I started stepping on peoples' toes, I snuck away and found myself a corner in the center of the room and nursed my drinks longing to be somewhere else maybe, because I distinctly remember not being quite happy that day. But the following week when I saw the pictures - I was in inclined to think otherwise. Alchohol is not good. Anyways - I was not to learn anything from the friday night. The moment my blood stream registered a normal Ph after a day long diet of water and diet cokes I drove across town to catch up with a few friends and first rays of a lazy sunday morning accompanied by a light drizzle waltzing with a cool breeze found me on the balconey of my friend's place downing the nth glen something. I slept. hellish drive in the evening and I swore the next weekend ( this one had to be different). For a change - no more alchohol.