No smoking please

 

I was the youngest kid of the family and my father was already 48 years old and mother 43 years old when I was born to them. Both my parents had survived impoverished childhoods, had grown up in villages in Kerala, had migrated out of the village for work and were living very busy lives with my three much older siblings when I was born. At the time the brother closest to me in age, 8 years older to me, was born, they were living in London U.K. My father had accepted an opening in the Indian High Commission in London after he retired prematurely as a soldier in the Indian Army. They lived in London for four years and all the children had British accents when they came back to India after the posting.

One of the perks of working in the High Commission meant that my dad had a smoking allowance. This monthly allowance was a good amount of money even for those days. Almost equal to if not more than his salary. The idea was always to earn extra money to help look after his growing family, but he wasn't going to be dishonest and so he took to smoking.

When he came back to India after giving up this job, he presented his remaining stock of cigarettes and his lighter to one of my uncles. The uncle was very happy to receive a few cartons of imported cigarettes as they were quite a novelty. He asked my father why he didn't want to smoke them himself. To this my father replied, "In the U.K. I received an allowance to smoke. Here smoking will take away from my salary. So, no, I don't want the cigarettes." Remarkably, he never took up the habit again.

That was why and how my father stopped smoking. For him the reason he started and ended that vice was the same. All his actions were guided by his desire to be of benefit to his family.