Chitra Ramaswamy: "One to none, just like that" ONCE upon a time, your correspondent was a teenager. It was a strange and heady time, characterised by uncontrollable giggles, rages and pimples. Hair grew in unexpected places. Everything, from my parents to the Top 40, was unbearably embarrassing. It suddenly became cool to stand outside Burger King for hours every Friday night, without a coat, existing on nothing more than a cheeseburger and bad attitude. For some reason this wasn't embarrassing in the slightest. Thankfully these strange behaviours died off, one by one. I realised wearing a coat didn't equate to social suicide. It just made you warm. Yet there was one habit I couldn't shake. The biggest one. It lingered on like the acrid taste of an alcopop, or a Wet Wet Wet song at number one. To be specific, this habit/infatuation/addiction or whatever you want to call it stayed with me until approximately seven weeks, four days and five hours ago. I am talking, people, about smoking. How it all began, I can scarcely remember. An outstretched packet of Benson & Hedges, probably, shoved in my direction one boring lunch time. The deliciously illicit act of clamping a cig between my lips. A simple "yes" that lasted long into adulthood. A mundane decision that would follow me around, like a plume of smoke, for almost 20 years. Everyone I knew smoked, back then. We thought it was glamorous and didn't give a damn about the very real and known consequences. You don't really do consequence when you're young, do you? For years I didn't feel remotely bad about it. Imagine that? A guilt-free cigarette. The fact is that I adored ripping the cellophane wrapper off each new pack of Marlboro Lights, and thought I was quite the glamour puss when I purchased a long, slender cigarette holder, à la Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's, and became convinced it made the perfect accessory to my bobbly school sweater and pencilled eyebrows. By the time I was a student, I had moved on to roll-ups. By the time I graduated, I was rolling the most exquisite slimline cigarettes, nicknamed Skinny Barlinnies because of the meagre knot of tobacco I used in each one. Honestly? I was proud of them. And so it went on. As smoking became less socially acceptable, I adjusted my habit accordingly. We smokers are cunning that way. Instead of quitting, as everyone around me seemed to be doing after the smoking ban kicked in, I just smoked less. A small packet of tobacco lasted more than a month. Over the last few years I got it down to a lone ceremonial roll-up a day, smoked after dinner with zestful defiance. Kind of like a last supper, but every single day. Of course, I knew it couldn't last. I didn't want to be a smoker well into my thirties. I was starting to feel like the last one on the sinking ship. The guilt was muzzling the defiance. And, above all, it kills you. For years I had reasoned that living kills you too. And I enjoyed having a vice. I didn't want to give up the feeling of transgression. Meanwhile, no-one around me could understand why I bothered persisting with a single roll-up. If it was only one, why not none? So seven weeks ago, I did it. I kicked the habit that has accompanied me through more than half my life. Just like that, the one became none. It has been both surprisingly difficult and surprisingly easy. And you know what? It turns out that I do have other vices after all. n Twitter: @Chitgrrl