People tell me Sana Sana Sana smoking is bad for you. It's bad for you. Smoking is bad for you, Sana. And I'm telling them listen being alive is bad for me. Why doesn't anyone talk about that? Why doesn't anyone talk about being alive?

You see you come to a new country and you think my life is going to change—that's what you think. You are this girl who smokes, you know, in your small, conservative, sad little country. It's not that sad but who cares, you know? Anyway at my old university I used to look for pillars. Red brick pillars. To stand behind them and smoke, so that no one would see me—especially boys back from Kohat whose parents knew mine or my older brother's friends who still lingered on campus five years after graduation.

But you come to another country, the one they call free. And all I ever hear is Sana, smoking is bad for you, smoking is bad for you Sana. The only difference is that in Pakistan I hid to smoke, because smoking as a girl is bad for you. Here, smoking is bad for you because you are a person.


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