It's a Shane

Habits, they say, die hard. But with this kind of effective weapons like a cheque for a staggering figure and a substitute habit; one can reasonably feel confident that there will be many in the queue to discard habits - congenial ones like $c#ewing the nose and ones that came half-way like the wife or the husband!

Talking of discarding a habit sans any reward, I recall the instance of a friend of mine, who was a fairly well-heeled mirasdar (a wealthy village doyen) in the Tanjore delta. He had no habits, peculiarly, else than chewing paan after food, that too without the paraphernalia like tobacco, zarda etc. He shifted to Madras in the early 50's to try his luck in movie-making. After a couple of films, he returned to his native place but not before losing his wife's love, forty and odd acres of wetlands, a palatial heritage house; but with an acquisition cigarette tin, which was the very trademark of film producers of that era. For all the 'lost stage' back in his village, the tin full of ciggies was persisting - yes, he was a fifty-a-day man. The remnant of his bank balance and the gold that adorned his estranged wife, kept the chimney smoking, till one day he popped of - lung full of smoke.

Another friend of mine, a junior colleague whom I recruited as a bachelor, was also given to considerable smoking. He was street smart where matters counted. This fellow, who was as agile as a greyhound, soon had a hang-dog look like the basset version of it. He had acquired a new habit - yes, a wife who was censorious about his puffing ways. The pack of cigarettes gave place to a tube of toothpaste-looking antidote for smoking with which he assiduously painted his teeth, morning noon and night, with a view to ward off the desire for smoking. It did work, but he got into 'withdrawal syndrome' to begin with and 'melancholia' proper later on; which explained why he looked like a basset hound. I am sure at the home front; he would have had quite a few scuffles and tiffs with his wife, resultant of irritation.

Skull with Cigarette - Poster:
From AllPosters.com

Another person, a close relative of mine, was given to puffing whenever he was not publishing. With the latter coming down, the consumption of the former increased, without his realizing it; if it can be said, in extenuation. He was close to Shane's status, when hypertension and lung congestion warranted his having to give up the habit. Tapering his consumption did not do any good. He believed in the dictum - set a thief to catch one - and took to betel-chewing in a big way. Stacks of it drove out the packs of cigarettes and of course, adjuncts like tobacco, zafrani etc., increased with his betel intake. As a matter of fact, he wanted to cultivate a couple of betel vines in the backyard of his house, for self-consumption! He however did not live long to realise this desire of his.

These are some instances of the travails of those with die-hard habits and their efforts in vain at giving it up in the absence of benefits like incentives, which Shane has collected.

Now, coming back to Shane, yes the smoke-less version, we will do well to hypothesise what effect it will have on his spinning prowess. Here again I remember, a famous surgeon in Madras (T Nagar) in his late forties, who had to have a cigarette before every operation to steady his ever-trembling hands. Will Shane do it? (or do without it?). Only the world cup should tell us.