In chorus, the others agree.

With World No Tobacco Day coming up on May 31, children playing freedom fighters like Gandhiji, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Lokmanya Tilak, Maulana Azad, Bhagat Singh, Sarojini Naidu, Subhash Chandra Bose and Rani Laxmi Bai are launching a new Quit India movement, called the ‘Quit Tobacco Movement’. A troupe of 25 children divided into three teams will perform their play at railway stations, malls and other public places starting May 30.

“We have got permission to perform at CST, Dadar, Kurla, Andheri and Bandra stations and at three malls where there are large crowds,” said Jyoti Gayakwad, senior facilitator at Salam Bombay Foundation, which is organizing the initiative.

“Just like the British, tobacco is here to rule us,” says Ajay Gupta, a Std IX student of Podar School in Santacruz. Gupta, who plays Maulana Azad in the play, not only reels off statistics about cancer, the numbers who die of cancer every year and the percentage of tobacco consumers who get cancer, but he was also instrumental in gathering children from various BMC schools to participate in the play.

Taking her cue, a girl dressed like Sarojini Naidu speaks up for women smokers in the country. “Even women are giving away their good health to them,” she declares.

“The first day it was very difficult to teach them, and due to time constraints, we had to sit with each child and make him or her memorise their lines,” says Mahesh Yadav, the director of the play.

Devika Chadha, project director Salaam Mumbai foundation, says the organization had started a project called ‘Super Army’ four years ago, where children were given the job of soldiers fighting for their rights for a tobacco-free future. “This programme empowers students to fight the war against tobacco using unique weapons like art, theatre and music created by the children through various workshops conducted in these schools. We have just taken forward the idea and built up this play for world anti-tobacco day,” says Chadha, adding that 60 per cent of these children have seen at least one person in their family consume tobacco.