Smells can transport you out of this world – and into an entirely different one
Smell is a funny thing. No, I don’t mean scent. Or perfume. Or parfum, if you want to get all fancy-schmancy on me. I mean smell. The kind that drifts into your consciousness when you are not even thinking about it. The kind that sneaks up on you while you are doing something else entirely. But before you can say ‘olfactory’ it has transported you to a realm entirely different from the one you inhabit.
That’s what happened to me last week, as I travelled through the tea trails of Sri Lanka and ended up on a guided visit to a tea factory. The moment I walked in and the smell of the dried tea leaves hit my nostrils, I was suddenly ten years old again. And instead of the hills of Sri Lanka, I was back in Assam, visiting the tea garden that my aunt used to own. Memories of the mornings that I spent with my cousins trudging through the tea bushes came rushing back; of lazy afternoons spent on the makeshift swing that my uncle had fashioned for me on a banyan tree; of the time I sneaked out on my own and was held transfixed by a snake that was in the process of swallowing a frog (no, I was too young to be scared, and too stupid to run away!). All it took was one smell, and I was transported back to a childhood that seemed magical in retrospect.
This is, of course, not the first time this has happened. I find that smells take me by surprise and take me out of myself all the time. I just have to open a bottle of coconut oil in the kitchen and I immediately feel my grandmother standing beside me, her snow-white hair immaculately braided and exuding that warm, toasty smell that I will always associate with her. I remember all the times she pleaded with me to let her oil my hair, and all the times I refused. And a whiff of regret infuses the air around me as I look back on my obstreperous, younger self.
Sometimes I will walk into a smoke-filled room and just for a moment I will conjure up my father’s face among the shadows, even though he is long gone. My teenage years were spent trying to make him give up smoking. I would ostentatiously walk out of the room if he ever lit up in my presence. And here I am now, searching for him in smoky rooms which he will never enter. It’s funny, the tricks smells play upon you.
It is the most everyday smells that trigger the strongest memories. A friend sent me some home-made mango pickle this season, but it was my mother I remembered as I opened the bottle and took a hit of that aroma. She took her mango pickling so seriously that she would go to the market and choose the unripe fruits herself. Then, the entire household would be coopted into the process of washing, cutting and drying the fruits. Finally, after the whole laborious process was over, the finished product would be stored in large jars and left out in the sun. Not every jar – or ‘biyam’ as we called it – was meant for us. Many were destined to be distributed to friends and family, who would eagerly await this annual present from her. And now, here I was, her daughter, receiving the same gift that she had taken such pleasure in giving.
The smell of jasmine takes me back to a flower market I visited in Chennai years ago (when it was still called Madras); the smell of eggs frying reminds me of various rail journeys that were fueled by copious quantities of omelets and fried toast in my younger days; the smell of turpentine puts me in mind of the art classes I took in school, and to the art teacher who despaired of teaching me to draw as much as a straight line.
As I said, smell, it’s a funny thing. It’s both a window into your world; and an escape out of it. And I don’t know which one is better.
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