The Hindu : Getting hooked to the 'hookah'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 30, 2003

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National

Getting hooked to the 'hookah'

By Gautaman Bhaskaran

CHENNAI MARCH 29. Can there be anything more cruel or terrifying than leading children into evil and danger? Some of Chennai's harmless sounding coffee pubs have begun offering more than just that beverage. They now let you have a cappuccino or black coffee with a drag of tobacco. For a Rs. 100 or Rs. 200, boys and girls can hire a "hookah" and inhale the undoubtedly harmful nicotine smoke.

Although, there is a tendency to brush aside this offer of hookah as "harmless", extended only to those who are 18 and above, the truth is quite something else.

Tobacco — whether it comes in the paper-wrapped cigarette version or as something chewable or in a hookah — is absolutely bad for health, and the leave's nicotine is addictive in any form, and can cause a series of life-threatening diseases, such as cancer. It can also lead to heart ailments and respiratory problems.

Worse, some young teens are now hooked to the "hookah", and this correspondent saw children much below 18 enjoying it in some of the coffee pubs in this city.

Tobacco manufacturers, now with the heat on them as far as cigarettes are concerned, are probably exploring new avenues of seducing the young into lifelong slavery to toxicity. At a meeting in New Delhi some time ago, it was revealed how teenagers, some barely 13, were being picked up and "groomed" into attractive customers with well-planned strategies.

The teens, as we all know, are the most vital years, when lasting habits are formed; smoking can certainly be one. Worldwide surveys have shown that most adult smokers blew the first rings into the air when they were between 13 and 19.

It was also the time when they selected their brands, often under pressure from friends, who — thanks to a misguided notion — associated the stick with freedom and independence.

But who is to tell them that cigarette is poison. The World Health Organisation says that globally 11,000 smokers die every single day. A fifth of them are Indians in a country where half the number of men over 15 inhale tobacco poison. This is nothing short of a tobacco epidemic, whose harm is well documented and frightening, to say the least.

Although the Governments, both at the Centre and in the States, have been trying to stamp out the cigarette by placing curbs on public smoking and trying to legislate a ban on advertising tobacco products, there seems to be a strange inertia on the part of the community to join this battle.

A well-known Tamil film star admitted the other day that it was morally wrong for screen characters to be playing with the cigarette. But, often, the compulsions of commerce dictate them to compromise with their conscience.

The romance of rings has engulfed men and women in the world of celluloid for decades, a habit that producers and directors consider to be such an attractive money-spinner that they are loathe to chop off such scenes.

However, it is time for stars to put their foot down. The more popular ones, the better paid among them, can certainly do this. After all, they say "no" to so many other things. Why not to a "puff" ?

Chennai's coffee bars must tarry a while, and cut the "hookah" off their menu list.

Some of them have turned out to be delightful places where one, irrespective of age, can relax with a cup of hot or cold drink and a book for company.

There are at least two cafes in Chennai which remind one of the more illustrious ones in Vienna or Paris or Kolkata.

If some of the European philosophers hit upon moments of truth when sipping their freshly-brewed coffee, Kolkata's cafes and their steaming cups of magic beverage have inspired poetry, encouraged romance and motivated political thought since time immemorial.

Chennai's coffee culture is relatively recent, and it would be such a pity if it were to get into an unsavoury mode at what seems like a great beginning. The "hookah" must not be allowed to spoil the rich aroma of coffee.

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