Take your ‘butt’onto the road!

If Union Health Minister Ambumani Ramadoss has his way, the only place left for smokers to light up from October 2 would be the road!
Under the Prohibition of Smoking in Public Places Rules 2008, smoking will be punishable by a fine in all public places including restaurants, pubs, schools, stadia, hospitals and bus stops. A lot of people in Mumbai who enjoy a good smoke are huffing and puffing against this diktat, naturally, and a hot debate is on the cards.Adman Prahlad Kakar, who is known to nurse a cigar for company on a good evening, kickstarts it.
���Today it���s smoking. Tomorrow, what next,��� asked Prahlad. ���Will we live in a George Orwellian type of world where Big Brother tells us what to do, where we can go and what we can talk about?��� This is a view shared by bon vivant Dilip De, a cigar man with the threat of enjoying a smoke only at home, who stated that adults in the company of other adults should be allowed the power of choice. ���A Jesuit professor who taught me at St Xavier���s in Calcutta said everything should be done in moderation. If a man of God can have a broad-minded opinion, why should a politician dictate terms to us? Also, I believe in Germany there is a law that allows smoking in establishments that seat under 40 patrons. Places seating more than 40 should have separate smoking areas.���
Bollywood hero and fitness freak Salman Khan lashed out, ���Cigarette packets say ���Smoking is injurious to health���. Why does the government allow it to get manufactured at all? They produce it, they make it available to everyone and then they say: You can���t have it anywhere! This is ridiculous. But if they can actually swing a manufacturing ban on tobacco, then why not?��� While music director Pritam, who spends long hours in the studio with a pack-a-day habit, stressed, ���The government should go after tobacco companies and keep raising the price of the product so as to deter people from buying cigarettes. Imposing fines on people for smoking is stupid and will make hardly any difference.���
Filmmaker Atul Agnihotri believes that people should take care who is around when they smoke. ���Most people pick up smoking in their teens. It���s easy for young, impressionable minds to look at older people smoking and think that it makes them look like studs. I think it���s the repsonsibility of adults to basically not smoke around young kids,��� he said. However, ad man Bharat Dabholkar who has worked with the Indian Cancer Society, said, ���Using the argument that this ���impinges our freedom��� is just an irrational excuse for people who are addicted to something that���s essentially a drug to fall back on. A company in Vikhroli has an interesting rule. If a person wants to smoke, they have to go out on the highway and do so.���
Restaurateur Nelson Wang represents a segment of people whose business will be affected by the health ministry���s directive. ���To tell people to absolutely not smoke is a bit too aggressive. Obviously schools, colleges and hospitals should be no-smoke zones. Restaurants and pubs are places where people wine, dine and enjoy the good life. What���s wrong in having a smoking and non-smoking section there,��� he asked. But theatre man Farid Currim, who was once pulled up by Alyque Padamsee for smoking in the green room, said, ���Non-smokers should not enter a bar if there are smokers inside.���Art dealer Ashish Balram Nagpal said he would go out of a premises and smoke following the diktat. Bollywood hottie Kim Sharma enjoys a mild cigarette now and then, but said, ���I won���t be deterred from enjoying an occasional smoke. I would go out and smoke, but yes, it would be a pain in the ���butt���.���