No Smoking

Recently, my friend quit smoking. He is in early thirties and smoking since his college time. He used to smoke at least 4 cigarettes a day: morning, afternoon, evening and after dinner. And seeing him just quitting smoking like that was a shock to me. The shock was not that he did that all at once, but, the manner in which he quit.

A magical truth: no one wants any other person to smoke. It does not matter whether the person smokes or not. None of my friend's family member smokes and his family knows that he smokes. His family member, particularly mother, must have told him thousands of time to quit or at least bring down the frequency. He didn't give any heed to that. I must have told him numerous times to do the same. He agreed sometimes and didn't smoke for 3-4 days. But then he started again. He justified the wise saying "Quiting smoking is very easy. I've done that thousands of time.".

Recently, he got engaged and made a visit to the fiancee's town. One meeting and thats all it took for him to quit smoking. When asked about it why did you do that, he said it is the "Fear of Losing" someone that made him quit smoking. That, inherently, means 2 things: Family and friends can be taken for granted and he is going to start smoking once he is married. He agreed to the first one and denied the second. He wanted me to bet on second, however, I refused because I don't bet. I've no other choice but to wait and watch. My feeling is that he would start again sometime.

Anyways, thats the start of his commitments/compromise list and I don't know how many more he would have to do, but the first one have been the best one (only if he maintains).

Hello ... April Fool

Some days back, I encountered my best April Fool prank. It was performed on me and I would not say I didnt enjoy it.

I wanted to talk to a friend after a long time, so dialed his number. I heard "tring-tring". Ok sounds fine. To my surprise, some lady (with beautiful voice) picked up the phone and said "Hello". I disconnected the phone without saying anything. Lets try again. Redial. Again the same lady picked up the phone. I thought let me talk to her this time and ask for my friend. Here is the conversation:

Lady: Hello
Me: Hello, may I speak to ...
Lady (interrupted me) Hello ...
Me: Hello
Lady: Hello, Hello
Me: Hello, may I speak to ... (in my mind... what the hell .. is she deaf?)
Lady: Hello ... ab kuch bolo bhi ... kaun hai?

I disconnected the phone again. Looks like communication problem. Redial.

Lady: Hello
Me: Hi .. this is Kapil here... May I speak to ..
Lady: Hello ...
I was mum now ... looks like same communication problem again
Lady: Hello, Hello
Lady: Hello ... ab kuch bolo bhi ... kaun hai?
Me (in my mind) : what .. why is repeating the same thing?
Lady: bolte kyun nahi ...
Me (in my mind): ok something new

then suddenly I heard this voice:
"April fool ... and then Hutch's theme song .... You and I, in this beautiful world...."
As I was hearing this song, my friend picked up the phone. He already knew that I was struggling with the lady. He told me that every other person calling on his mobile was facing the unusual talk and thats why he was taking time to pick up the phone.

Lovely prank !!! I enjoyed it.