An avid smoker of 10 cigarettes a day for 15 years, Ramesh (name changed) has not taken a puff for almost three months now. Common among most smokers, this is not the first time Ramesh has quit smoking.
A resident of Kathmandu, Ramesh in the past pulled off a week or two without a cigarette. “The maximum I could stay off cigarettes was a month.
Then one day, I would be at another get-together with friends and engrossed in yet another conversation, and before I knew it, I would have lit up a cigarette again?” shares Ramesh. “And you know, you just need some weird reason to resume a bad habit.” But Ramesh has now quit smoking for good, and he has the COVID-19 pandemic to thank for it, as he tries to get some optimism back amid clouds of