Dear Mr Farhan Akhtar...

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It would be an understatement to say I am huge fan of yours! Of course I loved Dil Chahta Hai and Rock On and Zindagi... and much against my apprehensions, your version of DON1. Man...but you are good at this stuff! I love your goofy laugh you know, the way you just kinda blurt it out and I like the fact that you play down to earth - relate-able - roles, sing in that...erm...how do I put it... 'unique' voice of yours and like your step-mamma once beamed on air - You are truly an Indian idol! I am with her on this.

You are the kind of man, I thought, I'd like to work for.

But before you go on and launch yourself further, I would like you to read this carefully. I gathered this info sitting in a small rectangular room of a must-be-40-something woman, whose duty it is, to help the people of our country.

Of the total deaths in our country each year, nearly 50 per cent of our people, and I mean people like you and me and the ones who form your viewer base, die of NCDs. NCDs are Non communicable diseases. Like Heart disease, Diabetes, Lung diseases, Cancers, TB, etc. (TB has non communicable forms too.)

Now that is just a quantitative approach. A subjective approach to the matter would reveal that each disease, mark my words, is hitting much younger these days. The teens who pay out of their pocket money to watch your movie at Imax, 20 yr somethings like me who day dream about you, 30 yr somethings like yourself who feel proud to have you as a contemporary, the 40 yr old somethings who feel glad their kids are watching the screenplay that is your intelligent craft...they are all dying.

Every second person in India is dying of these NCDs. And 20 per cent of these NCD deaths are being CAUSED due to tobacco use! That's a fifth us, across all age groups, genders, demographics...

I hate it - it is killing your viewer base.

Viewer base of 48 per cent of all adult males in India - who use tobacco. The figure is more than 20 per cent in females. Fourteen per cent of us use bidis...and please don't think it's the rickshaw pullers only... anyone who can't afford cigarettes puffs bidi in our country. Especially, college students.

Smoking cigarettes or chewing stuff like Guthka/Khaini, the one that Malaika Arora Khan quit dancing for, is a HUGE HEALTH RISK FACTOR fro all NCDs. It makes people prone or vulnerable to these diseases or far worse, directly causes them. For eg

40 per cent TB disease in our country is due to tobacco.

30 per cent of all heart disease deaths are due to cigarette smoking.

India is the world capital for oral cancers.

And I can provide you with more, allow me to say, terrible statistics Sir. But like you like it, I am keeping it short and sweet. I hope you are taking away the depth and implication of the said matter, like we do from your films. Ponder over the sensitivity of the human heart. Except let me tell you, the tobacco habit is creating many true stories of love and loss. Maybe you'd like to hear them?

I remember so many of these beautiful quotes from the movie Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara... Nazar mein khwaabon ki bijliyan leke chal rahe ho...Toh zinda ho tum... You know when people watch it, they feel like they want to live.

But tobacco cuts life short!

Would it been too much then, if I ask you to just think about the millions of your viewers, who love you so much and admire you from the bottom of our hearts, who are dying of this disease called tobacco? I am not kidding. Please do not have any confusion over the fact that tobacco IS killing and once they get affected, it's a living hell for the victims and their families. Please trust me when I tell you that. Or just google once.

Yes Sir, knowingly or unknowingly, you ARE a part of the issue. Just like the good part of your movies impact your viewers, so do the smoking scenes root themselves in the psyche. And when they pick up the smoke, and soon get addicted, and it becomes their problem, Mr Akhtar, you have a responsibility there - and you have to take it.

When the story first came to me that onscreen smoking encourages smoking habits, I was defiant too. Where's the proof? I asked. I got it.

Studies across countries like UK and even India shows that when one watches a favourite superstar 'smoking onscreen' they are 75 per cent more likely to TRY a cigarette and TWICE more likely to become tobacco users themselves.

Should I dare hope then, from the young, educated, aware, sensitive Indian idol that you are, that for one, you will drive your creativity to kick off your leaning on smoking scenes unnecessarily?

And for two, I understand that DON 2 is about a DON after all and we are yet to author a don who doesn't smoke...but do you realize that using the aura of your respectable father to altogether influence the laws in our country sets us back by 50 years? And you know very well that I am talking the truth here. (For those who don't, please watch - http://ibnlive.in.com/news/ib-stays-nosmoking-rules-by-health-ministry/209808-17.html)

The new regulations on onscreen smoking in our country only REGULATE the scenes - not ban it. Then why the angst? Just a small disclaimer on the health effects while the smoking scene is on, Mr Akhtar was all that that was asked for. Just a sane advice to the young bacchas before they get carried away watching their superstar smoke and start aping them. Just why does that make you so uncomfortable?

The woman I spoke to sitting in that small room had been working day and night for 2 years to get a small regulation on onscreen smoking moving and passed in our bureaucracy. It's heartbreaking when you suddenly trample the whole deal. It is the hard work of many hard working and caring citizens in our country who may not be as glamorous as you are but are tirelessly working to save the lives of many of your viewers. They don't mean harm to you Mr Akhtar. So why the insecurity? Shall you please then reconsider not acting so regressively?

By the way, a young 30 year something south superstar like yourself has smoked his way through this new Telugu movie called Bejavada but the film maker, who is no less than Ram Gopal Varma himself, ran a small font-ed disclaimer on each smoking scene. If Mr Nagarjuna's son didn't feel insecure about it, do you really think that the King Khan, THE King Khan... would need to worry about it?

And I assure you Mr Farhan Akhtar, I will only appreciate you more for it. Responsible young citizens are considered cool these days.