"Smoke Free" India or Smoke "Free India" ??

Ok, in order to put a funny caption, I admit the caption might be a little PJish but I think it will be an instance I will remember 2nd October for having changed the life of majority in a better way, if till now we remember it for Gandhi's b'day. I for one can not but admire Health Minister's courage to take on the tobacco lobby with govt's latest directive to ban smoking in what I can loosely term as public places.

I being a non-smoker very much welcome this change for various reasons. And for this post let's suspend our judgment of Mr. Ramadoss was in AIIMS controversy.

In past, often any move against smoking has been discouraged with the argument that govt. is hypocritical in the sense that they don't ban tobacco products because they can't survive without those revenues. Although it can't be directly established the effect of such ban on sale of toabcco products (I heard in news reports that world wide with such bans, the sales dipped by mere 2-3%), but accd to me it is a step in right direction.

For those who oppose this ban arguing freedom of choice, inconvenience in hotels, pubs etc, here is a question, How many times before lighting up a cigarette, have you asked bystanders, colleagues, relatives, "Do you mind if I light the cigarette here" or as a judgment call stepped aside to smoke somewhere else? I guess, passive smoking as a concept is now at least 2-3 years old in India, however despite that awareness I don't have any recollection of any smoker putting that question to me. Every Indian has been guaranteed freedom of speech and expression, but in this instance, no smoker exercised freedom of speech although everyone of them did exercise freedom of expression, to light a ciggie and blow circles in air without caring how many they are inconveniencing. So now when this small section is in spotlight, why cry fowl!!

The way I look at it is that till now, choice was always in the hands of smokers, whereas now it is being shifted into hands of non-smokers, who undoubtedly are in majority and would be benefitted greatly.

And this article will tell you that India is not first country to introduce ban on smoking in public place.

Yes, admittedly there are still grey areas and implementation issues here, but I have realised this change, after smoking was banned in public places, I have seen instances where group of people have asked fellow bus passengers to stub it out when in my childhood I remember people freely smoking and blowing it in people's faces. The backing of the law has actually given confidence to those voices.

I believe with time, implementation concerns will be sorted out. It will be interesting to see, how a postman or teacher is able to fine a smoker or exactly which places are open for smoking and which are not. But I am happy with the fact that most of the places frequented by general public has been covered. But lets not ambiguity be a reason to deny majority of the Indians right to live in a smoke free environment.

P.S. Image from www.athletic-scholarships.net

Migration =?= Blood Brothers =?= Prarambha =?= Positive

If =?= would mean "how is related to" what would be your answer.

Well they are abstract words, but my only aim is to compliment a few people, albeit late, but in good time for the wonderful effort they made.

And the answer would be AIDS. Yes, these movies were part of AIDS Jaago campaign last year.

The words above are the titles of four small movies directed by Mira Nair, Vishal Bharadwaj, Santosh Sivan and Farhan Akhtar in that order. I remember having read somewhere that it was the brainchild of Mira Nair. These movies were even shown on 1st December (World AIDS Day) on MTV.

Now they have been been screened free on Jaman (here). I think its no use giving brief plot of each movie, since each movies being roughly 15-20 minutes long, any takeaway from this blog would be a spoiler. But there are some thoughts on these movies that I'd like to share.

So warning here to go and watch the movies first then come back and finish reading it. Also advising you all to just go and watch the movie rather than read the sub-text before watching the movie.

Blood Brothers, was one amazing story where story's progress would be anyone's nightmare, the end everyone's heavenly relief. I think this is one movie where the real embarrassment, grief is shown in one brother and courage and spirit to fight in another.

Prarambha, to me appeared a bit pot-pourri of messages director wanted to convey but the end result was something Bollywoodish- it's a good deal if you are willing to believe the goodness of the story.

Positive, again was a movie which hammers its message slowly and you actually get to know how would you feel in this situation no matter which character you associate yourself in the movie. The son's touchy temperament, mother's patience and having made truce with situations and father's repentance and attempt to get his family back.

Migration, was another classic. I really appreciated how this movie folds itself in the last moments. In the end you have a pregnant urban mother, an HIV+ rural family.

You may claim there are enough giveaways in the movie to know who-gave-to-whom. But as the street-play portrays you never know who did the character in the movie contract it from. I think you'll appreciate the ending more if I argue that hints in the movie were not enough to blame one person so we have an open-ended movie. You just know that nearly everyone in the movie is now HIV+ and they don't know who they got it from. Just like the urban housewife might feel later, who did she get it from, his husband and she might have infected the rural worker or from the worker and she later spread it to her husband.

I believe if one understands this spread-network factor in HIV and give it a thought, once can't think of unprotected sex (at all?). Another real beauty was to portray that spread of HIV infects both rich and poor alike. I would rate this movie as the best of all (despite the fact that I hate Shiney Ahuja).

But overall, all the movies were good in spreading message of safe sex while also trying to explore how your families, friend, society and above all YOU react in these situations.

P.S. I will post EPL Vs IPL comparison-II a bit later.