Who smokes more – Men or Women?

Is cigarette a bad medicine?
Yeah, we know smoking is dangerous.
Smoking kills!
The government should ban cigarettes.
Let me ask you a simple question," Who smokes more -Men or Women?
I know it is not the smartest question to be asked but surely not the dumbest one either.
If the same question came up 5- 10 years ago, the answer would have been very simple but now think twice before saying anything.
According to the recent research conducted by World Health Organization (WHO), 12 percent of world smokers reside in India.
A study suggests that in India smoking is 8 times more frequent in men than women. So this answers the obvious question asked. But we all know there is a huge difference between men and women's population in India. The most interesting fact is the ratio of women smokers have gone up in last two years. Interesting isn't? As per the report of World Lung Foundation, third highest female tobacco users are from India in the world. As per the research, out of the estimated 11.9 million female consumers of tobacco in India, 5.4 are those who smoke and rest of them chews the leaves. Surprisingly second largest number of female smokers are from India only next to America. Now, who would have seen this coming considering the fact that they are suppressed here more than any other place in the world?
Let's go back to 20thcentury when smoking amongst women was still considered as taboo They were seen as the reincarnation of a goddess. (I don't know which one to name as we have so many of them). The only thing taught to them was looking after their husbands and families.I am not suggesting that they were not capable enough to make a career in the corporate world but for most of them, professional success didn't matter as much as being a successful housewife did. Being raised in the Orthodox family culture could be the main reason behind all of that. Like the other day I met this old lady in the bar, she appeared to be around in her mid fifty's. When I saw her smoking, I couldn't control myself so I struck the conversation and asked her for how long she had been smoking, to which she replied and I quote, " Since the time she turned 15." She said that it was not easy to be a lady smoker in those days as it was considered as frowned upon in the society. She always had to do it in isolated areas so that no one could catch her doing it.
So, this explains a lot about the orthodox frame of mind of Indian societies in the late 20th century times.
Now let's come back to the present time. Apparently, there is a huge rise in women smokers in comparison to men in India now. Yes, we feel very proud to see women matching up with men at every level. Tables have turned around in last two decades or so but giving competition to them in smoking is the last thing they would ever want. It's bad enough that there are already millions of men smokers in India; we don't want women to add to that numbers for sure. Same applies to men too.
And this calls for another question.
Why do we smoke after all?
Irrespective of whether it is woman smoker or men, there can be many theories of why we get into this bad habit after all. I guess it has a lot to do with the society only. It's funny though because earlier also society was one of the main reason for us not to smoke due to its unorthodox way of perceiving things. Who would have thought one thing which kept us away from a bad habit, gave us away eventually to it. I know a lot of people will argue with the fact that it's one's own responsibility to stay away from bad influence but is that bad influence not a part of our society? It is, isn't? And when it is around us all the time then how can it be ignored.
I had a very interesting conversation with this person I knew, she said she tends to take a puff when she is tensed, it soothes her nerves apparently. It's not surprising because a lot of people say the same thing. Don't they?
One of my friends said that the only reason he got into this habit is that of his boss being a chain smoker. Whenever he took a break to fire a puff or two, he would always talk to him about what he needs to improve in his work to get a promotion or hike. So, to gain a good chance of getting a promotion, would you not smoke with your boss? He asked me.
Few of the folks I know are of the opinion that people tend to attract towards it when they go through tough times for instance breakups in relationships, it's the time when they are feeling so low, they would go for anything new no matter how infectious and addictive it is for them, just to get that move through the difficult times. The only thing which is beyond my understanding is when people do it just to look cool. Like this guy I knew, he used to tell me that smoking has become a part of fashion these days.
How uncool is that? What does damaging your lungs have to do with fashion?
They will give so many reasons to why one gets into this disastrous habit but all I can say is that It has nothing to do with above reasons, I strongly feel that whosoever does it are weak from inside. Smoking doesn't have anything to do with helping one in depression or stress, it's all in our mind. Even though we all know the consequences of doing so, yet we succumb to it every time.
Well, I am not proud to say this but it's a fact that smoking has become a part of our daily routine nowadays which includes nonsmoker as well as they too are around the smokers playing the role of passive smokers. Unfortunately, It seems like they have made it like an addictive bad medicine, though it is seriously injurious to our health yet we feel that it is helping us with our day to day stress problems, appalling enough, isn't?.