This first appeared on LinkedIn.
Thumbs up to keeping a promise!
I could write about my attempts at quitting smoking, or how it is more difficult a habit to kick than that of cocaine.
I could tell you about the various methods I have tried, and how nicotine patches are the ones that really worked for me.
I could boast about how many days and months I am now on the wagon and have not even taken one single puff (down from over 40 cigarettes a day).
I could describe how I have started to run again and how my stamina is increasing with every day I do not smoke, and how wonderfully clean and healthy I feel in the mornings when I awaken.
I could take pride in the fact that I have not used my asthma inhaler even once since I quit, while earlier, it was required at least twice a day.
But this post is not about any of that. Because, as I have realised in all my previous attempts to quit, all I can claim is that I have not smoked today. I cannot guarantee tomorrow. No one can. I learnt this from AA (and from the fact that I restarted smoking 3 years after quitting back in 2003). Once a smoker, always a smoker. I have learnt to refuse an offer for a cigarette not with a, “No, thanks. I do not smoke.” but with a “No, thanks. I am not smoking today.”
So, once again, this post is not about how I quit smoking for good, for I can only make that claim with certainty on my deathbed, if I have not touched a cigarette till then.
This post is about another promise.
It started as a way to stop my (then) 3yo from standing on the other side of the glass balcony door and wagging an inquisitorial finger at me and mouthing (for I could not hear her from across the glass), “Mr. Baba, you cannot smoke. It is bad manners,” which was an accusation of ungentlemanly conduct in a house where it is frowned upon more than the nursing of an unhealthy habit. I had challenged her that if she could stop sucking her thumb, I could quit smoking. I assumed that that would be, in a word, that. Because even if she took it up, she’d start with gusto, only to relapse before the night fell and her eyes drooped.
She took it up. And she made extremely valiant attempts over the next few nights. Sometimes, she succeeded, sometimes not. But she persevered gamely. And, in return, I took it upon myself to quit.
Yesterday, I teased her that she did not keep part of her deal and given how she continued to suck her thumb, albeit intermittently, she forgot the Gadgil family’s dictum: “A gentleman/lady’s word is as good as a written contract.” and that she seems to have kind of missed the mark there.
I thought she’d laugh it off, for she’s too young to be either stung by a taunt or take any principle or dictum too seriously.
Apparently, I miscalculated.
So, last night, she came up to me and said she needs my help to bandage her thumb so that she will not be tempted to suck it. I tried to tell her that I was joking and that she can quit slowly and a drastic measure is unnecessary. But, she’s stubborn as a mule (after all, she’s Natasha’s and my kid). No can do. A plaster was procured and wrapped in the manner that satisfied her. Then, she slept.
This morning, she woke up and told me proudly how she did not suck her thumb. Then, she asked me, “You are not going to start smoking now, are you? A promise is a promise, Mr. Baba.”
Right you are, young lady. I am so proud of you! You’ll make a fine human. And that, my little one, is that.
