The youth of India, not all I say, always find to do things that sound cool, or say sounds interesting. Smoking hookah, I surprisingly found, was one of them.
I was talking to a friend of mine one fine day at college about the ongoing life and cultures. Study, to be sure, was not one of them. Obviously, we were not a bunch of nerds, for if spoken about studies, we were bound to be classified as one. During the conversation he said, “We bunked our school after our pre-board exams and went to a hookah parlor in group. It was so cool, you know. Like a fun ride taking you straight to heaven without even dying.” I found this line of his particularly interesting. I asked him, “Isn’t smoking injurious to health?” To which, he sarcastically laughed and replied, “Come on dude, its hookah, not a cigarette.”
I couldn’t actually, at that point of time, understand the basic difference. I thought, maybe it’s indeed different.Difference in nicotine level or specially made tobacco for hookah were some of the few assumptions I made about the difference between smoking a hookah and a cigarette. But what came out later, according to the research by Mayo Clinic, is that the tobacco in a hookah pipe is no less toxic compared to those in cigarettes. In fact, the hookah smokers may inhale more tobacco smoke compared to cigarette smokers because of the large volume of smoke they inhale in a smoking session, which may last as long as the liquid in the jar exists, exceeding an hour.
The issue here is not with the grown-ups, they know what is best for them, or maybe even they don’t, they can’t be questioned; they have crossed their legal age barriers. The thing is with the youth, and to know if they truly realize the consequences of smoking a hookah. For them, it might be replacement for a cigarette, a safer smoke than it, but it actually makes no difference.
What can be done about it? An age barrier can be set for entry into a hookah lounge. Parents won’t know where their kids are, they tend to trust them more than they actually should, but this age barrier will, in every way, prevent the students from smoking hookah. And another step, though not good for the business, but only for the sake of morale, a tag can be printed saying that smoking hookah is injurious to lungs and may result in cancer; because scientifically, hookah is same as a cigarette or maybe even more dangerous as said earlier.
Smoking hookah may sound cool, or even cooler than drinking a cigarette. To see and click puffs of mouthful smoke escape your lips and nose in an artistic way is one hell of an enjoyment, may even get you adequate likes and comments on your facebook profile, but health wise, smoking hookah is not so cool.
