Second Hand Smoke

Assalamualaikum WRT WBT

I havent been writing for a while, and people have been repeatedly asking me when my next post will be. Believe me when I say, I am the harshest person when it comes to pushing myself to update my blog. Hehe. Ofkos there will be reasons on why updates are a little slow sometimes, so patience my fellow readers, patience. Good things come to those who are religiously patient :)

This incident happened yesterday. I was with my girl friends, on our way back from organising a program. We decided to stop by an infamous ABC stall just to treat ourselves after a rigorous 2-day of emotional, physical and mental handling of humans. We were dead tired, but before crashing on our beds to let out our pure exhaustion, treating ourselves with some fun times with friends seemed like a joyously awesome idea.

So there we were, looking for the ABC stall. To my international readers, ABC stands for Air Batu Campur (which is a special ice desert). None of us knew which stall it was, so we asked around. The brother answered us "Oh, ABC ke. Ha, pegi kat belakang tu, kalau nampak orang tengah beratur panjaaaaaaang tu, tu la die". Translation: "Oh, ABC. Go at the back there, if you see a looooooonng line of people queuing up, that's the stall".

Alhamdulillah, we found 2 tables that could fit all 7 of us, right behind the famous ABC stall. Placed our orders and waited as we watched in amazement at the line that didnt thin out as the minutes passed. We also watched how the stall-men expertly made the desserts and stacked them real high. I regret not taking any pictures of this eye popping scene.

Anyway, as we were waiting for our treats, we noticed this foul smell. Cigarette smoke! Ugh. I HATE cigarette smoke. So I looked around to see where the smoke was coming from. There I saw 4 youngsters (not THAT young, maybe my age), smoking away at the table right next to us. So as my usual practice, I cover my nose with my hand. One, as a sign of protest since smoking is prohibited at eating places anyway. Two, because second hand smoke is much WORST than actually smoking, so I dont want to get sick just bcoz some idiot is being selfish by smoking in public.

As me and my friend (who was closer to the next table) did this, I saw from the corner of my eye what happened next. Apparently they saw our silent protesting gesture, and I guess they were offended by it. God knows why, since they were the ones doing something wrong.

So, what they did next was unbelievable and immature. All 4 of them sucked in their cigarettes real deep and started blowing their smoke PURPOSELY at our table. The youngster who had his back to me blew his smoke over his shoulder! At first I was speechless. What?!

Inside, I was brewing. How dare they! So when they repeated the same gesture a second time, I faced them, put on my garang face and said "Kalau nak hembus, boleh tak hembus ke SANA?" (translation: "if you want to blow, can you please blow at THAT side?") with ofkos a strong and purposeful voice that kinda conveyed "dont you dare mess with me", along with my hands showing to the place where there was absolutely no one at the other side of the table.

Each face conveyed shock at my outright and firm 'request', and straight away turned their heads back from our table. Ya Allah! What kind of attitude is this?

From where I stand, did they expect that a bunch of long scarfed, feminine looking group of girls wouldn't stand up when they are faced with rude, obnoxious and totally pig headed attitude? Did they think we would just keep on silently protesting when we are faced with ill behaved guys who are actually 'killing' us? Did they think we wouldnt take action?

Well, weren't you shocked at our counter attack. I guess the thing that shocked them most was the fact that we voiced out our dislike with what they did right on.

My late grandfather got a lot of things due to his early years of smoking. COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) bcos of Bronchitis and Emphysema. The experience of seeing him suffer, seeing how hard it was for him to breathe was heart breaking. I wouldnt want anyone to go thru that.

So when something like this happens, the selfish attitude of smokers who dont have even an ounce of respect to those around them, then ofkos I will have my defense up, ofkos I will stand up for my rights as a human being.

If YOU want to kill yourself, then by all means, go ahead and do it. But to drag other people around you who actually want to make good use of the time Allah has given them on this earth, that is mean and selfish and utterly over the top. Have some respect for others! Go smoke and kill yourself in a small little corner, out of other people's way. If someone gets lung cancer or any other lung related illness bcoz of you, then in youmul akhirah, you have a lot of things to answer to. Take my word for it.

Islam teaches us to care for ourselves.

And spend in the way of Allah and do not throw [yourselves] with your [own] hands into destruction [by refraining]. And do good; indeed, Allah loves the doers of good (Al-Baqarah:195)

Smoking is Haram in Islam bcoz it is considered putting yourself in the road to destruction. The fatwa has been said, has been announced, and yet these selfish people are still out there, choosing to ignore this hukum.

People in general have the right to say they do not like or even respect those who smoke. So, no need to be defensive since its wrong anyway. We have the right to protest and voice out our opinion, since we are talking about our own life, we are defending our health.

So to those who are smokers, please please please stop. Its for your own good. Don't only start regretting when you come to the point where as a result of your stupid days of smoking, you'll have a hard time even breathing. When that time comes, you can't take back those immature days anymore. It'll be too late.

Change from now.