The film is about a guy called K (played by John), a chain smoker who wants to quit. His wife Anjali (Ayesha) wants him to quit smoking as well, and threatens to leave him if he doesn't. So K joins a rehabilitation center.

John is so impressed by the film himself that he even says, "After No Smoking, films will be called No Smoking kind of films. It will create a genre."

When informed that smoking is prohibited onscreen, John quips, "I don't know if smoking is banned, but in this film, it was very necessary to show smoking. How else do you show a chain smoker giving up smoking if you don't show him smoking?"

But the actor adds that it is the director's responsibility about showing smoking at the right places. "And it's the government's responsibility to understand what they need to ban and what they don't," he says. "In this film, the censor board couldn't have banned anything. It's an anti-smoking film. The first shot shows him looking at his reflection in the mirror and saying, with a cigarette in his mouth, 'I am K. And nobody tells me what to do.' This same guy looks like an idiot by the end of the film because he is left begging for a cigarette," John continues.

But the actor says that even though No Smoking has a message, it is not preachy.

Text: Patcy N

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