How I quit smoking

I am coming back to blogging after a long break of six years. My friend Srikanth this morning asked me to share my experience of getting rid of my smoking habit. He felt a real life experience is better than any counselling. Without thinking, I said yes to Srikanth. If my experience of quitting my smoking habit of almost 3 decades can help even one person to escape from this degenerative habit, my time is then worth the spending.

Alleppey is a small town, although it grew famous due to its backwaters and houseboats. Both my parents hail from respectable families in our community. I was in my teens and in high school, but I thought I was already a grown-up man. I had batch mates who thought the same way. I used to sit in the back benches in the class sharing space with the ones who had similar traits and many of them are very good friends with me even now after four decades.

I cannot remember exactly when I had my first drag of a cigarette but remember the gold flake brand clearly and it became a brand name that I was addicted to before migrating into to another brand called Wills Navy Cut. I was hardly 15 years of age when I started smoking for the fun of it. From the high school days to the College and to the next stages in my life as an IT professional my smoking habit has grown part of my character. Initially I felt that smoking is masculine and gives an image of being an alpha-male. My parents came to know about my smoking habit and many attempts by many of my elders to avert me out of it has gone in vain. Over time, everyone reconciled with the reality that I am a regular smoker. Those days the awareness of the ill effects of smoking wasn't high enough and everywhere cigarettes were available. I remember seeing cigarette distributed to invited guests after marriage parties. Everyone smokes in public, and no law prevents smoking anywhere. On my first flight to a foreign country in 1993, I remember smoking inside the flight and tapping the ashes into the ashtray affixed on the flight seat. Smoking inside a car, public busses, trains, movie theatre etc was normal and not considered a public health problem during those days. Many of my friends used to smoke, but I was particularly a heavy smoker with a very high frequency that my friends used to jokingly say that I was eating cigarettes. 

I think it was during the initial years living in Dubai, I began to see some changes in people's attitude towards smoking. Couple of my friends stopped smoking completely to my surprise who used to be heavy smokers like me. This inspired me to make an attempt to stop the habit. I have decided to stop smoking for the lent season which occurs 50 days before Easter every year. During this 50 days, Catholics like me are supposed to abstain from eating non veg food and drop few other things as a sacrifice. I stopped smoking during the lent and continued without smoking for an year. During a party which had many friends around me and smoking, I was tempted to take one drag. One drag lead to fag which followed by many. My next day started by going to the grocery shop and buying a pack of fags. I have heard from many people of their similar experience of stopping and restarting smoking in a similar way. One problem with the smokers who drop the habit for a short period is that the frequency of smoking increases when they re-start. The same thing happened in my case as well. I started smoking again with a vengeance and blissfully sleeping with smoker's cough and loud snoring for the next several years. Meanwhile, I got married, have children and many developments happened in my personal and professional life with a mix of everything that happens to every average human being. 

In 2009 during the academic year change, me and my family have shifted to Bangalore. New place and new people and new work. There was work pressure, uncertainty compounded with a global gloom with a financial meltdown, which were good reasons for continuous many formal and informal meetings at the office. To make matters worse, there was a place where we can have meetings while we continue smoking. Despite the hard rooted habit that had grown with me over decades, my awareness of the pitfall of my habit also grew in me.  My parents, wife and children used to plead with me to stop this, but without any change in my habit, although I myself wanted to quit, but I used to postpone it for the future perpetually. I knew that this can potentially give me a nasty surprise somewhere in the future, although not sure when. I am heavy built with very less physical activity with a profession that demands long hours of sitting, the perfect formula for a sudden health surprise, a ticking time-bomb. I knew and I wanted to stop it but did not know how to come out of this chakravyuh. Yes, it is a habit that you can go in easily but extremely difficult to get out.

My wife had started a silent protest by that time against this habit. She had already realized that arguing with me on smoking is counterproductive. After any such argument, there is no result but the unpleasant environment from the argument last sometime. She has been a ardent Christian from her childhood. I noticed that she has stopped having ice cream and I knew that she was very fond of it always. Now, without any reason she started avoiding it and I was curious but she wouldn't tell me the reason. Eventually my children told me that she has taken it as a sacrifice for divine intervention to drop my smoking habit. Obviously I felt bad when I heard it, but dismissed it as silly and my work routine used to keep me busy always.

As I already wanted to quit this habit fully realizing the consequences of this like most smokers, it was in my mind to make a plan that will be successful, not like the last attempt which was failed after just an year. This is the time my work has taken me to a large hospital in Bangalore. Like always happened in my life, work contacts grew as personal contacts and some of them become very close personal friends, closest among all there was Srikanth himself who asked me to write this to help others. I used to take a smoke break from meetings and activities at work, which Srikanth has been noticing and used to regularly tell me to try to leave this habit. All his data points where valid, but all of them I knew before. But his continued pursuit during that time and by everyone including my children has influenced me to seriously think of a plan.

I knew to drop this habit, one needs to have enormous self-control and I am not a very strong willed person. So, the first thing I thought was to prepare a method that will have a lasting effect. I have seen several attempts made by many people. Some of them try to reduce gradually so that they can stop. Some of them will stop carrying the cigarette packet in their pocket, some of them shift to nicotine patches, some of them start using chewing Gum or meeta-pan and there are so many methods. Most of them ended up with different kind of explanations for why it wasn't successful. In all these methods I noticed one thing in common that the attempt is around diverting our mind into something else. Here the problem is, our mind is such a powerful machine that the more you try to divert our thoughts, it will create more powerful thoughts. After a while we will be overwhelmed with the same original thoughts. So, I was sure that it does not work in this way, with one experiment failed in the past. I wanted not to divert, I wanted to take it head-on. I started to let my mind indulge in all consequences of smoking continuously which smokers usually avoid, for obvious reasons. I brought all possible consequence such as possibility of cancer, cardiac arrest, other organ failures due to this habit that can happen to me and how will this affect my life and all my loved ones. I allowed these thoughts grow in me to the extend it started to make me worry that, this is imminent and I do not have a chance. This could be the same thoughts probably make a smoker suddenly stop smoking after a heart attack as the thoughts overwhelm the patient which makes it easy to take a decision that otherwise was impossible before the event. The only difference was that I let my mind to raise such thoughts before such an event to the point my fear has become my weapon to fight my deep-rooted behavior.  

Now, I was full of fear to the extend I was paranoid about something is going to happen to me, it was a matter of deciding a course of action and preparing to execute it. I continued to smoke but with a extremally high desire to leave it. Christmas was about to come and we usually have a 24 days of abstinence from 1st Dec to Christmas Eve. On 25th we usually have the feast and resume normal routine life. May times in the past I have observed this short abstinence from smoking, but this time it was different. I have stopped having the cigarettes as a preparation to drop it for ever. I didn't declare it to anyone including my family. I kept my fearful thoughts active during the abstinence period. On the Christmas day, usually we wake up thinking that now we can get back to our regular life with everything that we like, but this time there was a big difference. I was about to drop the habit completely and I thought I would make it a new year resolution to stop smoking for ever. I would have consumed a few more cigarettes amid my fearful thoughts to make sure that my will is strong enough to any future temptations. On the 31st of 2011, I left my half empty packet in the cupboard and went to bed with a resolution that I will not wake up to searching for my fag. My half empty cigarette packet was lying in my cupboard that reminded me and flare up my fearful thoughts every time when I open the cupboard. 

It has been nearly 12 years since then, I have been to several parties and in the company of many smoker friends without any temptation to take a drag. Mostly I now feel like I never was a smoker and I get suffocated with too many people smoking near me. I think my mind has erased the liking that I used to have towards taking a stick out of a pack and lighting it after having a coffee that I used to think was the ultimate. 

The method that I tried worked for me well. My smoker’s cough has almost gone during the last decade and my snoring has also reduced substantially. I am not sure whether my method will have the same effect on everyone, but one thing I am convinced that if you like to drop this habit, rather than hiding from it, face it and kill it the same way you approach a virus.

Rations Automation - A big opportunity for Kerala to be a model state - It is not just Food Safety.

Below blog was written in 2017 and was not published in my name then. 

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One of the most talked about subject in Kerala is the implementation of NFSA (National Food safety Act). May be the importance of this subject has been overshadowed by the demonetisation of high value currencies. But I am very sure that the people of Kerala, especially the people who belong to the economically weak strata, are keenly watching what the government of Kerala is planning to do with this important project for the state. I am not very sure whether the state leadership has completely comprehended the real opportunity for our state in implementing this programme as a foundation of many forward looking reforms. As a democratically elected communist government, this can be the new age revolution that can make a series of social changes and continue its cause of social equality, but this time through use of technology and process improvements rather than any form of mass movement of people.

I very strongly believe this is a grand opportunity for the state to leapfrog into a model state in optimised usage of technology that positively improve the life of common man. To grab this opportunity, a strong resolve is imperative from the leadership to create a vision and a total commitment from the officers of concerned departments to have an implementation strategy with the help of subject matter experts in several areas. As a person who has studied this opportunity and have interacted with a several persons who have been entrusted this programme, I see that there is absence of much needed imagination and technical creativity. I have personally watched many strategic projects having very complex system integration requirements getting implemented very successfully by government bodies in many countries, and I think it is more than their internal capability, it is their eagerness to listen from industry experts and determination to succeed in delivering the programme with a high quality, made all the difference. This article is just an attempt from me to share a brief on what I have gathered about this project combined with my thoughts. I will be happy if this will shed some light on the subject and become useful for those who care for our special state.

At the heart of NFSA act, there is an extremely important purpose and spirit which can be easily explained and understood by any average person. NFSA is intended to provide a survival quantity of food grains and other items to the citizens, especially those who are in the low income group. The federal and the state governments will have to cooperate in procuring required food grains and other scheduled items, and distribute it to the citizens at subsidised rates. The intention is very noble and the distribution network is already existing in India, and Kerala state has a very good network of fair price shops, better compared to most of the other states in India. Then what is the problem? Everyone assumes that the distribution network has leakages everywhere. Pilferages in every step of the chain makes the system extremely inefficient that the intended quantity of the food grains is seldom delivered to the public. So, many in the chain, such as the brokers, transporters, wholesalers, retail outlets make a fat profit out of the public distribution system and the citizens does not receive the intended benefits from it. This is why the second part of NFSA is very important. NFSA requires the state governments to automate the public distribution system and make it independent of any unnecessary entities in the entire supply chain system. Unless this part is achieved, the Federal government will not provide us with the required quota of subsidised supplies to our state, which is already reeling under food deficit and will be in more trouble.

So the first question is how to move forward and achieve this. And second question is do we have the money to do it. The third question is, do we have the capability to do it. My impression is, the state do not know how to handle this yet, do not have the budget and have no capability to do this at present. None of the public sector units under kerala state or central government agency cannot deliver a solution for all the above three questions. I do not see a strategy to address this herculean programme and no strategic vision for the state and a clear goal setting. It is fine not to have one, if there is an effort in that direction, but my observation is that there is neither a comprehensive body of knowledge built for this nor have a panel of experts who can address a complex project in a comprehensive manner, so that this project can become a foundation for the state and can build on it further.  I re-iterate again my belief that, this is an opportunity for Kerala to be a model not only for the country but for many other governments across the world to follow, if this programme is well conceived and effectively implemented.

I would like to build this illustration in two parts. First part to establish my thoughts on what are the various parts of this programme. Second part is how this can be implemented. I may be partly complete in my explanation of the requirements, but I think this could be a baseline and many other professionals and organisations from private and government entities would be able to contribute further to enhance this, so that the goals to achieve by executing this project can be very clear to all stakeholders. If we know the goals to be achieved clearly, it will be easier to deploy our resources behind it and can hope to achieve it in a time bound manner. Usual practice in such government projects are the opposite and hence lot of rework and long gestation time that makes the project partially or fully defunct.

Let me start with the first part. What are the various parts of this programme and what are the goals that we need to pursue to achieve an optimal result. I am going to outline this by breaking it broadly into (1) what is essential in this programme and (2) what are the possible additional benefits that can be drawn out of this huge investment.

1.      The essential parts of the programme are the following :

a.      Eliminate all middlemen between the sources of the material supply such as FCI or farmers and the retail ration shops by establishing government owned stocking locations. This means that Supplyco, on behalf of civil supplies department will have to identify godowns across the state and also have to identify the human resources to manage them. By having government’s own staff and godowns, the chances of misappropriation and manipulation of stocks by external parties will be eradicated. Goods in transit is another major point of pilferage. In the new process goods would be transported from its supply sources directly to the godowns and later directly distributed to the ration shops. That means there are two segments of transportation and for both the segments, routes of transportation has to be clearly defined and  transport agencies has to be enlisted who are willing to comply with the new norms. While the supply segment would comprises of few hundred routes, as they will be from FCI godowns to Supplyco godowns in every taluks, the distribution segment would be of several thousands of routes due to the number of ration shops spread across the state which exceeds 14,000 outlets. It is very important to automate the entire process of material movement from (a) forecasting & planning the material requirements,  (b) allocating available material to various retail ration shops based on the buffer stock and replenishment mechanism(In this manner, initially a quality will be supplied based on their statistical off-take quantity. Based on consumption data for every month, quantity of the replenishment will be determined) (c) Procurement order processing for each godowns and inventory control and management, (d) managing goods in transit with stock quantity reconciliation between supply and receipt at locations, (e) sales order processing of goods in stock based on retail ration shop’s sales orders and stock distribution based on stock availability, buffer stock and replenishment rules (f) geo-fencing the routes (a method of restricting transportation vehicles from any deviation from its defined route while transporting goods from the sources to its destinations), central control centre to monitor and penalise transporter for any route rules violations such as deviation from the approved routes, halt etc. It is also important to implement many other support systems to ensure that operation and maintenance of these systems will take place seamlessly. I would like to suggest a few examples here, (1) there could be many grievances, suggestions, new ideas for improvement will arise from all quarters of the supply chain regarding the door to door delivery process and related activities, which needs to be collected using a public facing portals, smart phone mobile app, social media forums etc and has to be channelled efficiently through pre-defined processes and each case should be given it due importance and a time bound remedial action. Example (2) is an inspection management system that will randomly allocation inspectors to stock locations to verify the quality, quantity and safe storage of stocks with handheld devices that can update the inspection details and findings with audio/video/photo proofs etc that can be updated instantly. Example (3) is a transportation system where transporters can register their vehicles so that the vehicles can be fitted with GPS equipments and approved followed by communication with transporter for coordination for vehicle requirements for each location, queue management at each go downs and Penalty(fines or other legal methods) against route violations.

b.      We need to ensure that the people are profiled correctly based on their economic, social, educational background with information available to the state administrative machinery in a manner that the demographic data can be used to taking any decisive actions. We already have quite a bit of this data, although it require refinement by way of improving accuracy. In this a very important approach is de-duplication of ration cards and de-duplication of family members. In deduplication of ration cards, same families having duplicate cards are to be identified and removed. De-duplication of members of family in multiple ration cards have to be removed. One of the important requirement in this direction is to link all the family members with Aadhar number. By making aadhar mandatory for all ration card members, we can directly eliminate duplicates, but this is a time consuming process, as the process has to involve the citizens before striking off their names or cancelling their cards. As per the NFSA guideline, the current ration card booklet has to be replaced with smartcard and the ration shops would do all transaction based on biometric identification of the family member who identifies by presenting the smart card. It is even more time consuming to replace the current ration card booklet with smart card, especially when the smart card should be issued based on Aadhar based biometric verification to ensure that the smart card is issued correctly. As people of the state will have to be prepared to face some difficulty and should cooperate with the government as all the members of each family have to identify themselves in person to a government officer or an authorised person in order to obtain the smart card.  This is a unique opportunity for the state to capture accurate data. In all our previous attempts to collect demographic data of the citizens, state has been satisfied with the self-declared data without any proof of the details collected, which has led to many discrepancies in classifying individuals and families in their economic and social strata. I hope this opportunity would be utilised properly by the state and the smartcard issued would be hundred percent accurate, which will form the basis for many other initiatives in the future. This part of the programme in  not a onetime activity, if the accuracy of the data has to remain, the state has to put a permanent setup for continuous amendments of the data as the data once collected are tend to change over time. The current amendment of ration card process has to be relaunched with a well thought approach, so that the process should not dilute the accuracy and reliability of the profile data. As a citizen, one of my biggest fear is, that the state will do this activity as a standalone requirement for public distribution system (PDS). An accurate and reliable demographic data that is biometrically verifiable for all family members registered in the card is an authentic proof about the economic and social strata of all citizens of the state and will become a solid foundation for every government department to carry out their responsibilities involving people. I would be discussing this with some examples later in this article. The process of transitioning from the existing booklet to a smart card, the elimination of duplicates, and the continuous amendments requires a set of tools and human resources. Laptops and smart phones with internet connectivity has penetrated even remote villages today, although not everyone is not conversant with the usage of these facilities. But I strongly believe that the state has to approach it with a conviction that the usage of these technology is going to become a norm for all people in a few years’ time. Hence government should put a modern, web portal and mobile app to gather the data and to communicate with people, so we can avoid long queues for this transition, except for biometric validation of the submitted data. Ofcourse, those people who does not have access to smart phones or web portal can be given the same services with the help of government machinery or external agencies. The web portal and the mobile apps thus developed should be the window for viewing the status of their card application, viewing the details of all card details including the details of the members, any application for amendments to the details of the card, appointments with designated officials for verification of any supporting documents with biometric authentication and any other interactions between the public and the citizens for maintaining the demographic data using the smart card. All the media has to be updated with documentation about the project and take their help to make sure that the steps to be done by each citizen, so that people know what needs to be done exactly.

c.       The third essential part of this programme is to equip all the ration shops with a retail Point of Sale(POS) equipment, which is capable of handling several aspects of the transactions that happens normally in a retail ration outlet and all other possible transactions that we can anticipate to happen in the future. Such possible transactions for the future can be discussed later in this article. Let us now discuss, the several aspects that the POS equipment has to handle. Let me enumerate them below :

                                                              i.      This equipment should be able to communicate with the supply chain system for placing the stock request to the godown so that the material can be shipped from the godown to the corresponding retail outlet along with regular route delivery schedule. The retail ration shop owner can see the status of his orders and schedule of delivery dates and quality, which will help him update the card holders on the arrival of goods during short or delayed shipments due to various reasons which are the beyond the control of the civil supplies department.

                                                            ii.      This equipment should be able to communicate with the central card holder database for registering and de-registering ration card with his/her ration shops. This functionality will help a ration shop to have a loyal following of card holders and plan the stock requirements of the shop to cater to the registered card members.

                                                          iii.      The POS equipment should have a provision to swipe the card to capture the card number and other necessary details stored in the card, so that the Aadhar numbers of that card can be retrieved instantly so that the next step of biometric validation of the member would be possible. The POS equipment should be equipped to validate a card member prior to any kind of transaction using Aadhar biometric credentials.

                                                           iv.      The POS equipment should be equipped with a point of sales transaction (POS) system which will enable the retail shop keeper to capture the items sold to any card holder by electronically capturing the weight of items sold from an electronic weighing scale which is interfaced with the POS machine.  POS system should pick the rates automatically and calculate the sale value and print a bill for the customer.

                                                             v.      The POS equipment should also be equipped with a notification system that can send SMS messages for various intimations to a registered telephone number. These intimations could include many a lot more than (a) transaction details, (b) one time passwords (OTP) for validating a member in case the bio-metric validation is not possible for the transaction whenever a substitute is sent to the ration shop by a card member for purchasing the allocated quota for their family, (c) information regarding the arrival and availability of goods in the shop etc.

                                                           vi.      The equipment should be capable of stock reconciliation for his shop and get the stock position for all items at any given point of time. It should be able to retrieve all his historical transactions from a central server and should be able to update all transactions to a central server during off-peak hours.

d.      While we have looked at the core elements of the PDS requirements under a,b,c above, there are several support systems are required to make this programme work without any glitches. For example, a call centre that can support retail ration shop keepers, transportation agencies and card holders are required for all kind of support requirements. There has to be a departmental portal that has several user groups within the civil supplies department, supplyco and any other department to carry out their business functions related to public distribution.

e.      We cannot forget the indirect usages of the current ration card booklet. There are many places and several situations require ration card booklet need to be presented on demand as a proof of identity of people and the demographic data printed on the ration card is used as a proof of income, caste/religion classifications, domicile, and relationship between family members and so on.   When the PDS system is implemented with a plastic card, no such data will be printed on the card that is readable with human eye or provide as an attested photocopy for any purpose. Hence there should be a facility to query such details by using a smartphone app, Web and SMS query. This query facility should be free, easily accessible without any technical constraints and should be simple to use without any training for users.

2.      If wisdom prevails to treat this programme as one of the foundation blocks for the future of Kerala state, many other strategic projects can be done with minimum incremental cost and time. Like I have mentioned before, there are a few sub-projects which may not be essential but can be very useful for the citizens to be considered as a part of this project. Some examples are illustrated below.

a.      One of the most talked about subject today is digital payments. Payments which were done using hard currency earlier can be replaced using an electronic purse (eWallet) for every family. Any family member should be able to add money to the ration card which in-turn can be used in ration shops, government offices, university/schools and any other authorised cashier locations. This facility will help families to spend money which is earned by a family member living in another location. This will eliminate the dependency on bank account and enable people belong to economically weaker class to be equipped with digital payment transaction.

b.      Government financial aids to help people who are affected with calamities like flood, landslide, tsunami, epidemic, draught etc currently are channelled through government offices or other institutions which reaches the deserving people either with much delay or with much hardships and it has been always a source of corruption and inefficiency. When the government has a central database of all families in the state with all their demographic data required to determine who is eligible for any such aid, the state can directly transfer the amount to the ration card of the deserving families. This amount can be withdrawn from ATMs or can be spend for any services or goods which support an ePOS machine like a Debit card of a bank. Ideally this card should be linked to Payment networks such as Rupay, Visa, and Master etc. Just imagine a situation in which, all the welfare schemes including that of Fishermen pension, Coir workers’ pension, peasants’ pension, widows’ pension and many such state government financials aids are loaded directly on their ration card with appropriate payment rules.

c.       Ration shops could become micro-ATM locations. Cash collected by the Fair Price shops are normally deposited at a bank. Rather than depositing the money in a bank, these shops can help people withdraw cash from the shop keeper by swiping any credit card or debit card, including those are issued by foreign banks. This will help the ration shop owner from a trip to the bank for depositing his cash and also people including tourists who are visiting small villages having access to cash without going to an ATM. I believe this will be a useful feature of the state for visiting tourists.

d.      When we have an accurate registry of people of the state with clear classification, with a biometric validation link directly or with the help of Aadhar, there are many functions of the state can benefit from it. Some of these can be revenue collection for the state, Cross subsidising in healthcare and education, linking vehicle and driving licences for traffic fines etc.

e.      We could have a citizen participation in policy making, as the communication between the administration and people can become direct and through various channels such as telephone, SMS, email, web, mobile phone or even call centres. Connecting professionals and creating special volunteer groups can create a new world and a new culture in the Kerala state which can be a model for other states.

f.        At present Fair price shops are subsidy centric shops. Why not the fair price shops can be extended to become regular shops with more centralised purchasing of goods by state and distributing at much less price compared to open market. This will keep the inflation under control throughout the year and people will have an affordable source for their needful items.

g.      Profiling of people in an accurate manner will have ability to connect those who are interested in philanthropy to those needy people in a reliable manner. Needy people can be sponsored for their genuine needs based on data that can be trusted.

I hope this illustration would help the reader to understand the possibilities that Kerala state has in executing this programme in a comprehensive manner. Executing this programme in “Business as usual” approach would be a cardinal sin and will lead to colossal waste of resources and denial of a good opportunity for the people of this most literate state. As a Malayali who strongly feel for the people of Kerala, I am sharing my thoughts through this article. My intension is not to taunt anyone in the leadership or in any position of power, but to help them in the right decision making. In case whatever is shared by me is redundant as you the leadership has already understood and have formed a vision I will be very glad that my next article might help them for get more clarity in how this project can be implemented. In the second part of this article, I am intending to illustrate how this project can be rolled out, its technical challenges and how the state should overcome and succeed in this unique opportunity.