Cigarettes, and the Art of Persuasion

Sometimes, if I’m very tired (or just plain lazy) I take a bus home from the station instead of walking. There’s only one stop before my stop. Mostly school kids get on at this stop. One time as I’d just settled into my seat, the bus stopped at the school stop. Suddenly children of all shapes and sizes came rushing into the bus, from both the entry and exit doors! It was like a swarm of flies! It may sound silly, but I was actually frightened! All these children swarming into the bus, shouting and screaming! I probably was just too tired that day, and my senses must have been shaken (not stirred! I couldn’t resist it!!) by the brats, but I’ll never forget this!
Another incident happened only a few days ago. I was once more going home by bus, and as it stopped at the various stops, the bus driver was waving out to the people standing at the bus stops! They were obviously regulars. This scene amused me thoroughly!
While walking home (for a change!) one day, this is what I saw painted on the side of a bus: Asthma, Cancer, and TB… FREE! With every cigarette. No one could have said it better! I think the most stupid people in the world are those who smoke. They know that smoking is bad for their health; it leads to cancer, and other diseases, yet they persist in smoking. It is hard to give up, as most addictions are, but come on! It’s your life! It’s like you are committing suicide second by second, killing yourself slowly! And to those people who say that they don’t smoke “that often” and can give it up anytime they want; I’ve one thing to say, “Whom are you trying to kid??”
A cousin of mine said this very same thing to me; I was flabbergasted! How dumb do you have to be to actually believe that?! He leads a very healthy lifestyle otherwise; he eats right, he’s crazy about adventure sports, has been to two mountaineering schools; yet he has made the very unhealthy choice of smoking! I just don’t get this! I mean you can’t just blame peer pressure for taking up smoking. Who needs friends who want to destroy not only theirs but also your life? Wizen up people, before it’s too late!
And now let us move on to a much lighter topic. A few days back as I was traveling in the local train to college, there was this great saleswoman in the compartment I was in! She was selling saris and dress materials. A Parsi lady bought quite a few things from her. Later she fished out a dress material, which was bright purple with orangish-yellow stitched on flowers, on which were sprinkled a liberal amount of glitter beads! I made a grimace and thought, “Yuck! Who would ever buy that?!”
The woman then made her sales pitch to the entire compartment, “This is Bunty aur Babli salwar kameez, made famous by Rani Mukherjee!” Then she pounced on an unsuspecting woman standing by the door and said very dramatically, “Aap yeh pehenegi to aap ko bhi aapka Bunty mil jayega!” much to the amusement of the rest of us! And after a bit of haggling, the woman actually bought this Bunty aur Babli creation that I wouldn’t be caught dead in! Just goes to show that if your sales pitch is right, as the saying goes, you can sell a fridge to the Eskimos!