To hide or not to hide

There was a discussion on who is the best actor oops!! I meant who is the super star of the country.

One of them wrote “He is transparent in all his activities, people know that he Smokes, drinks.” He refers to the actor and I don’t wan’t to mention the name, since my post is not about the actor.

I just cracked up looking at this. From when did Smoking and drinking become an offensive activity which needs to be hidden?

I don’t smoke or drink, but I remember when I first started working, attended a project party (not company sponsored), this was some birthday party I think. When my team mates ordered drinks and cigarettes, I was quite shocked. Call me naïve, but I had never been to a restaurant which had both veg-nonveg, no bar attached. This was probably my first cultural shock.

As days passed by, these never bothered me, ofcourse I don’t like people smoking in front of me, so I request them and they oblidge. When I went onsite, when any of my teammates ordered for any of the alcoholic drinks, I used to promptly ask for an extra empty glass, and pour my glass of coke into it and cheers with them. My teammate always said “Arre yaar, humesha alcohol ka apmaan karti hai… uss glass mein coke kyon peeti ho”. What can I do if people give these drinks in nice glasses and give coke in a ordinary glass. Anyway, that was not the point.

I completely agree that smoking and drinking are injurious to health, well lot of things are like eating junk food etc etc, but are these something to be hidden. I know, lot of people who smoke or drink hide it from their parents, but lets says the family knows about it. It’s not something you would hide from the general public.

So does hiding or making it public, make any difference to anybody, except for your own health?