I used to steal from my father’s pack of cigarettes. I hid somewhere to smoke.
I remember the sensation as smoke escaped my lips, into the air. It felt great. Especially the effect of the heat on the tongue.
This went on for weeks. Little did I know that the old man was aware but decided not to react.
One day he called me to the living room.
“Sit!” he instructed. I sat, unsure why I had been summoned.
“Have a cigarette,” he said, throwing a pack of cigarettes on the small table in the centre of the living room.
My heart pounded faster. He offered a lighter.
Reluctantly, I took out one. Until then I had always given my father the impression that I never smoked. So, as he lit the cigarette for me, I went about the business of smoking like a novice.
All this while, the old man sat there watching me. He wasn’t smoking. And if I thought the whole thing funny, the look on his face showed he wasn’t joking.
When the first cigarette burned-out, he offered another. Surprised, I hesitated.
“Go on! Smoke!” He ordered. I obeyed.
This went on till I had finished the entire pack. He then produced another pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
“Go on! Take another!” he said coldly.
I smoked and smoked till the entire pack was empty. With much difficulty, I finished that second pack of cigarettes. By this time, I felt pain in my chest from the unusual quantum of heat and smoke my lungs had sustained.
Two packs of cigarettes at a sitting!
My eyes were dry and red by now, my breath well-seasoned with smoke and my throat parched with fear and thirst. When I tried to cough or speak, my voice was hoarse.
There was a tiny mirror on a wardrobe overlooking the furniture on which I sat. I glanced at myself nervously in the mirror; I was slowly transforming into a little monster.
You can imagine my shock when dad brought out a third pack of cigarettes!
This vendetta was too much for me. I went on my knees in sobs and held the old man’s knees.
“Papa please… I won’t steal your cigarettes again… Papa please…” I confessed without being asked anything about cigarettes that often went missing in his room…
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