(Statutory Warning: The below prose is a work of fiction. All its characters are imaginary and if any similarities are found then it is merely a coincidence.)
Date: March 2013, Rohini, Delhi
One balmy evening as often lately, I was strolling through the public park located at the Institutional Area, Rohini in Delhi, thinking alone about past times. The weather was excellent and the park was filled with sweet laughter of little children playing about and chirping of birds returning to their nest after a hard day at work. I turn a corner and was surprised to see a group of teenagers smoking cigarettes at a corner. Thinking me to be somebody they knew they reacted sharply hiding their hands behind backs, but when they noticed me as a stranger they became normal again. Now normally I would not interfere at this situation but today I thought it was my duty to warn the youngsters about the harms caused by smoking. However I forgot that I was smoking a cigarette of my own and I had lets very less credibility to warn them. The reaction I got was for my advice expected - mixed with many unspeakable expletives they ask me to mind my own business. Quite clearly I was not an ideal role model so I turned and walked away.
Date: May 2002, Saharanpur, U.P
My name is Rohan Kanwar and I belong to a traders family based in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh. My dad owns a jewellery store and we are quite well off. I go to the nearby St. George, which is one of the best boarding school in the area. My best friend is Fraooque Siddique, who comes from a lower middle class family hailing from Lucknow and is enrolled through one of many scholarship programs that St. George has. I am doing good if you ask me. I would like to think I am intelligent and am able to score good grades even without working hard. Additionally I am also also good at sports. My friend Farooque is good in studies too and also being extremely hardworking is the class topper . I don't mind him his laurels as while he was the topper I have all the girls. I am in all respect having the best days of my life. Lately I have started hanging out with our seniors and have started experimenting on grown up things like cigarettes and drugs. I got included into the most popular group in the school. Most of the members of this groups were seniors who were also leaders of our school both in academics and sports. Apart from showing me how to party, they are also teaching me to be confident and improve my communication skills. Farooque is concentrating only on studies But I have started preparing for various entrance examination along with my regular studies.
An year has passed since then both me and Farooque have recently given my school board exams and am expecting my results. Farooque's has already arrived my house since morning 5 AM to check for the IIT results which is going to release now at 8 AM. We have been online on the official site and have been refreshing ourselves so that we don't get logged out as millions of other applicants too attempt to check their results. Farooque is very nervous and asks me to check my results first. After the exam itself I was pretty sure that I would crack IITJEE but the AIR rank is important and I was keeping my fingers crossed. I put in my application code and press enter; the server seems to have slowed down; I wait with bated breath and wow ---- I have scored AIR 87 in IITJEE!!!! Both Farooque and me looked stunned at the screen not believeing what I see , I check again the results is same..... I start yelling in delight but my Dad walks in asking why I was making so much noise. I tell him my score but he doesn't show any happiness, he says its just another of thousands other engineering college instead I should start helping him out in his business. Although this was a debate I had many times but today nothing could ruin my smile so I turn to Farooque and say if I scored AIR 89 he being the all state 5th rank in boards, which was released would make it to top 20 surely. Fraooque puts in his number and clicks enter and appears the results page showing 'you have failed to qualify IITJEE'. Considering that I knew Farooque has not prepared for JEE and how difficult qualifying JEE is I somehow had a similar premonition of this happening before. But still this dampened my mood as I really wanted my best friend to get tinto IIT too. Inspite of this though this was one of my happiest days of my life.
Date: November 2004, IIT Delhi
I wake up in my friend Zubin's room sometime in the afternoon. I barely remember the last night but considering how sore my throat felt and the massive headache I felt like I had finished a full carton of Cigarettes and drank a complete barrel of beer. My mid semester exams had just gotten over and quite apparently I had quite a party last night. I take a look at watch and it was 3 PM; I somehow felt like I was forgetting something. I checked my cell phone for missed calls and was shocked 16 missed calls from Farooque!! Damn I forgot I had promised I will join Farooque(who had qualified into IIT Delhi the year after me) and his friends for watching SRK starrer 'Veer Zaara' which was released just the previous day. To tell you the truth I am more a science fiction and action genre kind of a guy and Romantic movies are definitely very low on priorities. But Farooque being 1 year junior to me now, I was unable to meet him often owing to different friend circle. Also he being a die-hard SRK had made me promise that I would come to this movie for old time sake and had also agreed to bear my ticket cost. The show was starting at 3:30 Pm and the theater although nearby would take me atleast 45 minutes to reach even with a bike.You won't believe it but in just 15 minutes I cleaning up, grabbed a sandwitch from the Murali's plate in the canteen, stole Manvider's shirt and borrowed Karan's pulsar. Due to some luck the traffic was less and I reached the theater by 3:40 PM. Farooque already had the ticket so I rushed inside and started found him somehow inside the dark theater. Luckily for my those stupid adds about cigarette smoking being injurious to health had been going on and the movie had not started. As i sat on my chair I noticed the faint smell of rose perfumes but I didn't care too much as I had an angry friend to appease. The movie was quite boring but like a true warrior I tolerated all pain for my friend's happiness. It was when I got up to pee that I first saw her. Looking at her as the bright light shone on her face I couldn't think straight and bumped into some stranger's ahead leading to a big commotion. By the time the commotion ended I lot her but I knew at that time that I simply had to get her number. While Fraooque and his friend engorged themselves on those unhealthy yet magnificently mouthwatering bread pakodas I kept waiting for the girl to come back after intermission. She returned minutes before the intermission ended and I said hello to her. She was quite shy and gave me a weird expression but responded with a hi of her own. And the cinema went dark. That was the first time I met the girl with whom I decided to spend my entire life together with.
Date: October, 2005 Rendezvous, IIT Delhi
I hurry out of the railway station and see Farooque waiting for me with his bike. I had to leave at home to attend to my grandfather's funeral which was supposed to have continued for another week. However, after a very bad shouting match with my parents I decided to just take the next train and return to the place where I was already more at home. As I meet Farooque starts his bike I ask him to stop at the near by betel shop at the corner to get some cigarettes. Farooque keeps droning on with his usual advices about how cigarette smoking was bad for health but I had not had a puff for weeks as I was at home so I desperately needed one now. Another reason for me returning today was that today was the final day of the biggest college festival in northern India, Rendezvous. If you are anywhere nearby Delhi in October this is one place you must be. Farooque asked if I had informed Rimi about my early arrival. Rimmi Khanna is my girlfriend who studies at Delhi University. We met a year back in a cinema hall and hit it off immediately. Although all my friends including Farooque tell me that she is only with me for my money but I would like to disagree. Infact I have decided that soon I will talk with her about marriage. Next year I will be passing out with a good job hopefully and we both can then settle down happily. But these are all things for the future for now I am just happy to be back into my bustling campus. Farooque and me attend the main events which ended with a live performances by the winner of the 'War of the Bands'. We then go straight to a private rave party organized by our friends and seniors where we could all get together and each do whatever he wants with whoever he wants with. It was the best place to have some special fun with your girlfriends and this time it was in our hostel so even Farooque was forced to join us. I had been trying to reach Rimi but my call was disconnected many times before I stopped getting any response altogether. As I entered the hostel I met Murali smoking a cigarette at the entrance. His parents wanted to come visit him soon said he wanted to keep him room sanitized and smoke free; a problem I never had to face I parents never visited my place. As I say hi to him he stopped speaking kept staring at me like a zombie. I found this very surprising but moved on as I got up to 4th floor where my room was I noticed many rooms locked already which meant that the final culmination of the rave party for many couples had already begun. I joked about it to Farooque about this and he actually closed his ear so that he could stop the sinful words even entering his sanctimonious person. I saw Karan and Rez coming from the opposite side and called to them. As soon as they saw me they greeted me over enthusiastically and told me to join them to go have a beer in their room. I told them I needed to freshen up so I would go to my room and join them later. On this they started telling me that I could freshen up in their room itself. At this odd behavior I started to become suspicious and forced my way and opened my room. When I tried to open it I realized that it was locked from the inside so I started banging the door. With this action of mine everyone became completely silent which made me even more suspicious, so I started to bang the door harder. Finally the door opened and out came our senior Vicky half-naked saying who was the idiot who wasn't giving him his privacy. Vicky and me had a fight going on since a long time since we belonged to separate political factions in the institute so I replied to him to get the hell out of my room. At this he just smiled at me and mockingly showed me the way to come in . Inside what I saw was another event that changed my life. Under the bed covers was my girlfriend Rimi trying to cover her modesty.
Date: September, 2010, Greater New York Area, USA
I have just returned to my room from the gala dinner launched on my behalf on becoming the youngest Vice President in McKinsey & Company. Ashley, my girlfriend was changing in the washroom so I decided to take a puff and went out to our terrace. For some remembered at this pinnacle of success in my career I remembered Rimi. How heartbroken I was on that day I found her in my bed with Vicky, that day it seemed that the world had ended for me. I take out a cigarette and light it. In a way Rimi was responsible for my success. Had I not channelized my anger at that time into hardwork I would never have been able to get into IIM Ahmedabad and then joined one of the top Management firms in McKinsey & Company and would not have become a Vice President 3 years!!! I take a puff and blow out the smoke, I didn't know why but today I was getting very nostalgic. So I called my dad with whom I had not talked since 2 years now. He picks up and I give my greetings to him, weirdly he asked how I was. It is weird because he never let weak emotions like care for his son come even near his strong personality. So on hearing this concern in his voice I was very surprised. felt something in my through so I coughed a little cleared my through and told him that I was good too and informed him about my promotion. To this he surprised me by congratulating me and asked when I would return and we can meet again. I was now getting extremely suspicious as life had taught me the hard way to notice small differences in the nature of people and this was the main reason for the successes in my career. I felt like coughing again, it seems the sudden change of weather may have worked its magic on my throat again. However pulling in a long drag from my cigarette, I gave him a non committal answer and ask him to pass the phone to Mom. From my Mom I came to know the reason for his weird behavior, about an year ago my father had a massive heart attack and while they had tried to reach me I was unavailable. At this I remembered the spate of calls from various relatives during that time. But so engrossed I was in my work that I didn't give it any importance. For the first time it came to my mind that my father was getting old and not the same strong man with whom I had so many battles. For the first time in my life I felt myself getting concerned for my old man and asked Mom to give the phone to Father. When he responded I told him that I will finish up my latest work and take a long vacation from next week so that we could spend some time together ...... Cough!! Cough!!! Cough!!!
Date: May 2013, Rohini, Delhi
Evening is setting and my body is starting to feel extremely tired so I decide to return. I pop two mints to hide the smell of the cigarettes also wash with the nearby tap water many times.While returning I see Father walking towards me. I greet him and he immediately asks when would I stop smoking ?? As we together walk into Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Center, I give him a sad smile and say to him ' No use stopping now Dad, It is too late.' He tell me to not loose hope but his attempt at encouraging me fails as his eyes well up in tears looking at me. I grab him and give him a tight hug and say him the only thing I can say now ' I am sorry, Dad!'
Prologue
That night in September 2010 when the coughing stopped I felt something liquid on my hands. On looking at it in light in doors I realized it was blood. Silvie immediately rushed me to the hospital and we did a battery of tests. I was diagnosed with Lung Cancer Stage IV. I succeeded everywhere, I was at the peak of success but I didn't take the signs seriously. I cannot blame my seniors who encouraged me to first smoke, I cannot blame my friends who smoked with you the only person who is to blame is me. The danger sign was written on every packet of cigarette I bought but every time I casually forgot the warning.I tried everything from chemotherapy to surgery but the cancer had spread far too much in my body. I moved back to India and underwent treatment at Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and Research Center. However I can feel my body parts starting fail. It is time to say my good bye.
http://www.myhealthyspeak.co.in/
