‘I don’t think we should publish this article’, said Peter, a Senior Journalist in an evening Newspaper. He was holding a copy of research article which Sid had just completed to go into City Edition in an hour.

Sid was a trainee journalist and reported directly to Peter. He had written and edited more than two dozens of articles since he started three months ago but this was the first rejection he heard from his Boss . Todays piece was on a research on how Parent’s Smoking Habits affects teenagers. Sid could see unrest in Peter’s voice who was a chain smoker and was failing miserably in explaining the logic behind his rejection.

The 18 year long study suggested that teenagers whose parents start smoking early were more prone to start smoking early. ‘Smoking, Teens and Parents’ was the title given by Sid to the article. Peter continued, ‘By printing this, you are and in effect, this newspaper is saying that if I am smoker, I should blame my parents as they were smokers too. That will cause a great distress to the parents and will possibly give reasons to children to hate their parents. I don’t think that this article is worthy of going to press’.

Sid sensed that Peter was bringing his personal experience into this matter and didn’t want to cause embarrassment to his father who lives in the same city. Sid returned to his desk after promising Peter to re-write the same article from a different angle. He had to rush to meet the deadline but the only words coming to his mind were father, son, smoking.

He closed his eyes for few moments and then started typing:

The only thing I could see was smoke. We were standing outside our news paper office at around 2 am in the chilly morning, just after finishing our laborious task of editing and proofing the final edition. Apart from working together the second most common factor was cigarette in everyone’s hand except me. I was holding the cup of tea. My association with chain smokers goes back to college where late night studies were done in a thick cloud of nicotine filled room.

After being offered to smoke what seemed to be more than million times, my friends gave me the title of ‘Iron Will’ Sid. I never revealed to them that it was not my will power which stopped me from smoking. Because you need Will power when you are tempted to do something. Thanks to a man, I was never tempted from inside to try. He was the one whom I have always looked upto and admired his way of living. That man was my Father.

A non smoker and a non drinker, he was always surrounded by smoker friends, dropped his drunk colleagues to their homes but remain unaffected from his surroundings. In fact my Grandfather was a non smoker too. It runs in the family, I guess. If non smoking could run in the family, can smoking habits passed on to the children by their parents. A study conducted at Indiana University points the link between smoking and parents but I wonder if a study was ever conducted about the merits and positive points passed on to the children by their parents. Such study will take enormous amount of resources because the merits passed on by parents over shadow other negative stuff which an individual could overcome him/her self.

Before we start blaming our parents, we should first see if we have thanked them enough for bringing us into this exciting world.

P.S. This article is inspired from a person I have known since birth, my father, Mr. S.C. Nigam. He is the reason why I have never touched cigarette in my life. Thank you Daddy for being so inspirational, especially in my teen years.