The Girl who Smoked

It was about the time when I visited my beautician for a weekly appointment. She is a very quiet person who loves her job. She is from northeast India and a very cute looking girl. Initially, I used to be scared of her because of her demeanor as she seemed very tough but then I thought of starting a conversation with her and that's when I got the idea of a new post.

We had all kinds of talk, she loves her town and family, she has lots of friends back home and how beautiful her school was and in-spite of all these memories she doesn't want to visit back home. The reason was that elders from her family and relatives try to take control of her life and to make decisions for her without her consent like forcing her to get married and they don't like that she is independent and working as it's not considered good for girls in their society. She told me that she wants to earn money and wants to travel. It's not that she doesn't want to get married . its just that she wants to see the world, to meet all kinds of people, understand life .. live on her own terms and if she is lucky enough she will find someone who loves and respects her mutually. She told me that most of the girls from her side of the town are ambitious and they want to come to the city to work and be independent else there is a lot of pressure to get married. Most of the times just for the sake of getting married, their elders make them tie the knot with the man of any age. Sometimes the marriage works out and sometimes doesn't.

She also told me that she is a smoker and smoking helps her to forget the bad things that happened to her. She hates how people judge her based on her community and looks. She is a free-spirited person, hard worker, ambitious and a perfectionist but most of the times people are not nice to her.

She told me how smoking helped her, in her own words..'When I take that puff , I can think, the waves in my mind relaxes, the tides comes down and that is an absolute state of relaxation and makes me happy'. As per her, smoking makes her a strong person. She wants to leave the habit sometimes in future as she fully understands the affects of this habit  but as of today she is strong because of this.

That was a very aspect of smoking I heard.. and I was loving the fact (and proud of myself ) that with so much ease she was opening up and explaining her side of story.

Why do we judge people who smoke. We know its bad and all, but just because they smoke, it doesn't makes them a bad person. I am not promoting smoking here, we should avoid smoking at all cost , its just that we should be more accepting of people around us irrespective of judging them based upon their habits.  That's what she made me think that day.

We don't know everyone's story, no one is good or bad in absolute terms,  we have our moments.. the best is to love everyone and be accepting of everyone and give life a chance.. with whatever habit it comes.  If we are more accepting and loving towards everyone.. may be someday they don't need a smoke to be strong... That's the best we can do!