My Aromatic Memoirs

What do you get if you combine a strong sense of smell and an even stronger memory? You get the detailed chronicles of a wanderer as experienced through his humble twins i.e. nostrils.

I feel blessed. As if I’m God’s special child. Apart from the other highlights of my existence, my olfactory perception is something that I take special pride in. Since childhood, I have had a supreme feeling of amour-propre attached to my nose. Cosmetic appeal notwithstanding, I feel my nose is ambidextrous, literally and metaphorically. It is definitely unusually skilled in detecting and decoding smells which many others tend to overlook. But more than that, my nostrils work like two overzealous whiffing machines to ensure that no fragrance or stench goes unregistered.

Yes I know all organs of the body are equally important and are designed to work in tandem. But then, my sense of smell seems to be more developed out of all. Coupled with my strong and detail oriented memory, my nose has helped me create some fairytale like memories.

As a kid, my most prominent recall is definitely of food related aromas. I come from a large Sindhi family with a strong bias towards cooking and constantly reinventing an already perfect cuisine. Most of this credit goes to my grandmother. Like all grandparents, mine were also extremely doting and I thoroughly enjoyed being pampered by my granny’s cooking. What’s more, my room was right across the kitchen. This meant being surrounded by awesome smelling food items being prepared in desi ghee at least thrice every day. I remember waking up to the lovely fragrance of halwa and aloo parathas. Or walking in to the house during monsoons, clothes soiled from playing football in the rain, and the smell of mix pakoras weakening my resolution to change into clean attire. And then there were those numerous festive occasions when our house was filled with scents of traditional sweets being cooked over slow flame.

The thing with food is that it emanates wonderful fragrances throughout it’s preparatory stages. Weekends meant visits by relatives, a lavish spread in the offing and prolific aromas being unleashed in the air throughout the day. Whereas Sunday mornings were synonymous with the wafting aroma of daal pakwaan, afternoons were reserved for kilos of mangoes being sliced and diced for chutneys and murabbas. There were so many diverse yet distinct smells in our house that its hard not to get nostalgic thinking about them. For the better part of my growing up years, my association with my grandmother was through the aromatic food she prepared so lovingly for me. No wonder then after her death I kept missing those various fragrances that she got me addicted to. Even now whenever I visit out ancestral house, those memories come back to me as vividly as if it all happened yesterday.

As I moved to Manila for my MBA, hostel became my new home. I don’t know why but I always associated a strange, hospital-like smell with my dorm. I suspect prisons also smell pretty much the same. Maybe it was in my mind but it seemed to bode well with the plain-vanilla walls and the cold & formal atmosphere. I remember my first visit back to India during the Christmas break. After having stayed in hostel for six months, my nose was accustomed to that particularly displeasing cocktail of Iodoform and Savlon. But the moment I entered my home in Delhi, it was a breath of fresh air. It felt as if someone has re-activated my dead nose.

My parents have a habit of having different fragrances for individual zones in the house. As I moved around, I could feel the forest air of the hall to the sandalwood aroma of the puja room to the aquatic freshness of my bedroom. I knew I could soak in the smell for the next three weeks before I return to the stench of dorm. The only saving grace was that next year in hostel would be spent reminiscing and looking forward to the welcoming fragrance of my home.

In a wild turn of events, my first job after MBA took me to Dubai. True to many fables and urban legends, Dubai air (especially in malls) is pregnant with highly concentrated variant of local ittar. It is so powerful that it can be nauseating. I had to take extra efforts in maintaining the sanity of my olfactory nerves. Maybe it was my body’s reflex action or plain coincidence, but almost at the same time, I discovered my latent passion for colognes. After trying a couple of perfumes I zeroed down on Bvlgari Aqva. From there on began my lifelong association with the fragrance and over the years it went on to become my signature scent. Almost overnight my room transformed from a nondescript lifeless area into my own personalized zone. The central AC system had a major contribution in this revolution though. I used to spend a lot of time in my room, watching movies, relaxing, writing or generally introspecting. I don’t remember when and how but in a very short time, the personality of Aqva merged with mine almost seamlessly. Till date, whenever I spray that perfume, I’m mentally and emotionally transported back into my Dubai home.

In circa 2007 Mumbai came into my life. Anybody who has stayed or even visited this city would immediately notice the blatant disregard for communal cleanliness here. The whole city is a trash can, spittoon and urinal rolled in one. The visually repulsive concoction of open drains and carelessly strewn filth on roads is hard to ignore. The ensuing stink from these is unrelenting and will follow you irrespective of wherever your home may be situated. Proximity to the sea or creek just worsens the situation even more. No matter how much cologne you splash on, its effect shall be negated after a ride in the local train or a stroll on the roads. This was a sharp deviation from my Dubai days. I was anxious then to ensure that at least my home should smell pleasant and inviting (‘un-Bombay like’). Maybe that’s why in the last six years, I have lived in three houses in Mumbai but have always struggled to establish ‘my scent’ wherever I went. While I am able to do it temporarily, but the moment I keep the windows open I lose the battle.

Smells have a unique way of associating themselves with locations, perhaps stronger than visual correlation too. For example, whenever I’m passing by an under construction building, the dust filled air reminds me of my house in Andheri. And along with that comes the instant recall of the times I spent in that first house of mine – the all-night movie marathons with college friends and the rooftop Christmas bonfires. On the other hand, the smell of wet earth when droplets of first rain fall on it reminds me of my house in Wadala. I had several potted plants kept on the window sill and they used to emit a similar aroma during the three months of monsoon. That could easily be termed as the best smell to wake up to!

Mumbai has taught me many things. But the one thing that I will remember when I leave this city is my never ending quest for finding that perfect smell for my house. Whenever I’m at a supermarket, I make it a point to stop by and check the offerings by different brands. A couple of years back I noticed that AmbiPur had launched home air fresheners in an aerosol format. I quickly snapped up different variants and it indeed proved to be quite a welcome relief. It has now become a habit to spray a generous quantity before leaving home in the morning so that I come back to a reassuring fragrance. AmbiPur is one air freshener that has been doing its duty wherever I’ve stayed. From cleansing the hall of last night’s party smell, to eradicating the stench of a closed house when I return from a long vacation, to purging the myriad mixture of undetectable odours in my kitchen; AmbiPur has saved me from many a fetid moments!

 (This post is my entry for ‘Smelly To Smiley!’ contest hosted by AmbiPur on Indiblogger. For the product range and to buy, please visit www.facebook.com/AmbiPurIndia)