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India's Young Pick Up A Dangerous Addiction
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"Please don't smoke in your movies," Ramadoss said recently on CNN-IBN, one of the country's largest news channels. "India should be very, very concerned about 14-year-olds now starting to smoke. We have data which show that 52 percent of children have their first puff of a cigarette because of movie celebrities."
Recently, a movie star from Tollywood, the Tamil-language film industry, quit smoking and began talking to high school and college students about doing the same. The so-called king of Bollywood, actor Shah Rukh Khan, said in an interview that the thing he hated most about himself was his inability to stop smoking. "I know I have to. I know as a role model I shouldn't be sending that message," he said. "It's a horrible habit. I have to work harder to stop."
Smoking in India is as omnipresent as chili flakes and onions in food. Almost all restaurants and cafes permit smoking, and most smoking sections often dribble into nonsmoking sections, without enforcement.
In cosmopolitan cities like the capital, smoking is seen as a sign of rebellion against overbearing families that have traditionally exerted tight control over young people's activities. But some young smokers say they are starting to acknowledge the dangers.
After the report was released, an anti-smoking squad at Delhi University traveled around campus buildings nabbing those who were smoking in classrooms.
Many working-class Indians smoke bidis, or small, cheaply made cigarettes rolled in leaves that cost the equivalent of 50 cents for a pack of 25.
Even smoking one to seven bidis a day raised the mortality risk by a third, Jha said.
Om Prakash, a 43-year-old resident of New Delhi, went to a roadside dealer for his bidi fix the other day. The dealer was operating from a tree, with cigarette cartons stuck in the trunk.
Prakash has smoked both bidis and cigarettes for 26 years.
"I want to stop. I know it's bad for my health," he said with a raspy cough. "I do tell my 12-year-old boy to never smoke. He likes to imitate me taking drags of my bidis."
