And All Because I Loved Smoking

Excerpts from a certain Maureen "ruined" Hamilton's last confessions as told to a Mumbai daily;

Years of puffing on her beloved cigarettes had ruined Maureen Hamilton's looks - but nothing could persuade her to quit. Not even being told she was dying. This 57-year old from Cambridge tells........

Most of you are thinking, "It'll never happen to me." I thought the same. Everyone does.

I know how hard it is to give up - I even smoked outside the hospital when I had emphysema.

I was diagnosed with the disease nine years ago and I've been bed-bound for four years, only kept alive by a ventilator that breathes for me. So, for nine years there have been no parties, eating out, holidays, or retail therapy. Puffing 20 a day has turned me into a wasted, ugly individual, totally reliant on other people. All because I loved smoking.

I started at 13. Growing up, smoking was glamorous. Film stars posed with a cigarette in their hand. I remember buying a single cigarette and smoking it at the cafe, hoping the boys would notice. By the time I started working it was 20 a day. Pregnant with a baby girl at 17, I married and broke up three years later and a year hence, started dating again.
I went out with a member of the Ferrari family.....foreign minister's son - great life.......went to Beirut....staying at a palatial residence.......servants and bodyguards........spent days by the sea.......chauffeur drove us.......beautiful mountains - and through it all I smoked.

Back from Israel, at the age of 28, I had the first indications of ill health. Suffering from pneumonia, doctors advised me to a hospital specialised in lung diseases - I was scared and refused.
21 years later, I was diagnosed with emphysema. The disease exhausted me. I'd come home from work and lie down for an hour but then forcibly went out for the evening. And still I didn't stop smoking.
Very ill, in 1997, flying back to Britain and shortly afterwards found blue and unconscious. Waking up in an intensive care ward, I put my hand to my throat and found a hole with a tube going in. Now I had no choice but to give up smoking.Even if I had wanted to carry on, I wouldn't have been able to - not with dragging an oxygen bottle with me.
Four years ago I went on a breathing machine full time - and i have got that until I die. My teeth are rotting because I can't get to the dentist. My nose is in a terrible state because it is the only airway now. I have suffocating lumps of mucus which my carers have to remove with forceps after every mealtime - and these carers who change my nappy and then ask, "Can I go for my cigarette break now?" The pressure of my breathing mask pushes the eyeball out of its socket and I get sores from lying in bed 24 hours a day.

My life is horrific - and giving up smoking is a struggle.
But smokers don't see people in hospital hooked up to machines dying slow, painful, undignified deaths and they should. My will is done and I have a place in Newmarket cemetery next to my mum.
I don't know when my time will come - I was told I had six months, seven years ago - but i do know that I have no dignity.And I wish I could go now. I have had two heart attacks and been resuscitated seven times. It would be a relief for it to end.
However much you may want that cigarette, I promise you, it's really not worth it.

I hope my story can stop even one person from smoking.


......I figured that such an exemplary form of inspiration should be e-preserved!

kuestionable?????????

....the other night as often my father was devouring the news stuff on t.v., while i found myself contemplating on a trivial discussion dat had jus been injected in a newsroom, although it abated before i winked twice! Turning away from the irritating glare of the t.v. screen, i said to myself, "Well I disagree with u Mister,whosoever u maybe with all due respect!" These words spoken in murmur were addressed to the dignitary who had been in the newsroom some winks ago.
The point of debate could have been the growing insanity of human beings resulting in deaths in scores and multiples of it, or the religious and caste divides, the latter profoundly stronger in character, breathing havoc in our nation. But the face-off was related to a Mr. Manoj Bajpai and the King Khan! The bespectacled individual in a tight tweedcoat mockingly mentioned dat there are Manoj Bajpais in scores in this profusely creative world but only a single King Khan!
Is he out of his senses,thought i??????
Manoj Bajpai has now and again distinctively proven dat his acting skills have few competitors.....the pathos he generated in SHOOL, of an honest policeman bound by his law-abiding personality - the cruelty and vandalism in society -- and his family, his love......
An aged Muslim slum dweller and a good friend of an eunuch who has mothered-fathered an estranged beautiful girl.........Bhiku Mhatre the legendary bhai of Mumbai was the showcase of his natural effluent talent......simplicity augmentised in Pinjar....wat a performer!
The film industry has not even as much as shown respect to such talent ....why?????
bcoz showstoppers are the need of the hour...ppl who can mesmerise the nation with their flamboyance and their dreams.....Dreams of a world far far away from average men!
Once Raj Kapoor had unethically mentioned dat the show must go on.......countrywide ppl were so gullible then....dat he was not kuestioned????.......till where must we go on!
Show chalana hai bhai, aajkal talent ki kami hai......Ek kaam karo jao kisi ko

CIRCUS

se utha le aao!!!!

Why do movies fascinate us??????????

There was this time i used to ponder over abstract topics....the ones which cant be debated upon, only argued with. One such figment back from those days finds its prestige within this space among us.
Can we ever stop seeing movies???? No No No.....and i have my reasons for that ( there was dis poll carried out recently and blah......blah....blah.....blah.....) and now that we understand them well we can proceed with the rest of the stuff. I had been to a play once at a theatre, that none will ever find, where an interactive session was being held just after the play. During the Q&A session, halfway through, the snores of people were damping the voice of the director boasting off his earlier days in this career. ( Career?????......play directors are losers who cant handle fat cash and are pseudo-intellectual!!!!!!!). Anyways, amidst all this and a couple snogging each other apart at the backseat, there was a noteworthy question motioned by a young theatre-enthusiast which said, " Sir, why do movies fascinate us more than plays although its the latter which is more real?"
A broad smile flushed the director's face because I think he didnt have an answer to that. Despite the fact that he gave a lengthy explanation (which establishes my point) I am too stoic to allow his answer occupy any bit of space in my blog. Accordingly, I churned my brain for a solution to the young person's question for a long time and did I come to a conclusion? This only time can tell but for the sake of the unfortunate people who have been reading this I can assure them of a sequel to this tiny extract which will surely speak volumes about this categorically trivial, intellectually satisfying mystery!.....I promise that this saga will continue.......