The Smell of Good Times

 

Ah! The whiff of freshly brewed coffee while lazing in bed.

Hmm…the aroma of oven fresh cake.

Oof! The stink of garbage as you cross the garbage dump.

Oh no! The odour of leaking gas!

The olfactory sense is not one that gets much attention. It may not even be considered an important one, in comparison to the rest. Yet, think about it…lack of the smelling sense could take the fragrance out of our lives, literally!

We can learn a lot by the smell of things, probably more than by the visual or textural experience. Smells allow us an experience – both pleasant and otherwise, before it becomes concrete and tangible. For e.g., a red-coloured powder could be anything. But a single sniff will warn you that it’s chilli powder, without having to suffer its sting on your tongue. Colourless toxic gases that have a smell can be sniffed out even by a layman, in the absence of scientific tools. It’s not uncommon to have people smell something burning, much before they spot the source.

Often, we are led by our nose to sniff out danger before we see or feel it. What a catastrophe it would be, if we couldn’t smell the gas leaking in our kitchen! Or the bread burning in the oven! Or… (eeew!) the queer smell of food gone bad before we take a bite! Recent research studies show that fear reactions can occur at the sensory level, even before the brain has had the opportunity to interpret that the odour could mean trouble. No wonder that the English language has an idiom, ‘to smell out danger’.

Let’s think of our childhood. Most of our memories are accompanied by a particular smell. My first thoughts are full of the light floral fragrance of my mum’s Yardley talcum powder as I rested my head on her shoulder, the Old Spice cologne when I snuggled up with my Dad, the peculiar comforting smell of my nanny, the smell of earth as we entered my mother’s village… Sigh… the sweet scent of memories. On the flip side, smells can bring back painful, fearful memories too! For instance, the smell of diesel fumes for a soldier or the smell of smoke for a burns victim. Would memories be as intense, in the absence of smells?

Kumar chetta, the cook at Chinmaya Heritage Centre in Chennai, knows just by the aroma, whether the coffee has enough sugar or not! Unbelievable but true! My favourite Aunt Rekha, was such a skilled cook, she could rattle out the ingredients of a dish with just a sniff. Knowing whether a dish is ready by the aroma is one thing, but to guess all the ingredients? Mind-blowing!

Observe shoppers in the marketplace. Many will sniff a fruit to know whether it is ready for consumption. My Dad knows the variety of a mango and its ripeness with a whiff. Now that’s one skill I have kind of developed by sniffing around with him! Does that mean this is a skill that can be refined with practice? Certainly. In the movie ‘The Hundred-Foot Journey’, it is interesting to watch how the protagonist’s mother trains him to cook, with much focus on the olfactory sense, more than any other.

Store Wars

As with most people, we too had a room full of stuff in our ancestral home that everyone had forgotten about. Till the day I ventured in determined to empty the room. Yes, it’s called a store room and it is obviously meant for storing.

I was ready to get rid of almost everything, sparing a few huge brass pots and wooden chests which I thought had antique value and could be placed as artefacts. But the number of reasons I was given by everyone around for retaining things were mind blowing! That ‘favourite pair of jeans’, that ‘extremely comfortable shirt that I (hope) will eventually fit into’, ‘the lamp my best friend gifted me on my nth birthday’, my grandmother’s ladles, my mother’s (broken) chair, my baby’s clothes (who is now 21 years old!)… Sentiments, memories, attachment, greed… Ah! Well! Call it what you like. The list certainly went on. And on.

An elderly, paan chewing woman draped in a nine yard sari came in to help us clean up. She appeared to be someone who could have certainly done with having all the things we had stored. I offered her the saris, unused towels and bed sheets I had unearthed.  Her response left me stunned. A simple, ‘No, bai’. Eh? No? I was confused.  

I opened up the sheets and towels and showed her that they were new and unused. Like a salesperson I tried convincing her that they would come in handy at home. No. She wasn’t interested. This continued with everything that I offered her.  Whaat??! She was psyching me! How can someone who has almost nothing say no to anything?

All that she ultimately requested for was an old switchboard explaining that she needed one for her home. Finally, a dab of balm for my badly bruised ego.

The woman had the power of no. It’s no big deal having it when you have everything going for you. But to have it when you have very little? That I believe is the power of fulfilment. I don’t know if it has rubbed off on me, but she’s certainly got me infected with this crazy impulse to de-clutter our home, much to everyone’s chagrin!

Come to think of it, how much is to be stored and for how long? If you haven’t felt the need for it since the time you put it away, does the need for it even exist anymore? Does the reason for storing it remain valid? Once when interacting with a sadhu from the Himalayas, I was told, ‘If you haven’t used something for six months then you have lost the right to own it. Give it away.’ As simple as that!

(This article first appeared in the international youth magazine Chinmaya Udghosh, under the series Mindful Whispers.)

The Smell of Good Times

Ah! The whiff of freshly brewed coffee while lazing in bed.

Hmm..…the aroma of oven fresh cake.

Oof! The stink of garbage as you cross the garbage dump.

Oh no! The odour of leaking gas!

The olfactory sense is not one that gets much attention. It may not even be considered an important one, in comparison to the rest. Yet, think about it… lack of the smelling sense could take the fragrance out of our lives, literally!

We can learn a lot by the smell of things, probably more than by the visual or textural experience. Smells allow us an experience before it becomes concrete and tangible. It could mean a safer or more pleasing or rather it can help avoid an unpleasant experience. Red powder could be anything. But a single sniff will warn you that it’s chilli powder without having to suffer its sting on your tongue. Colourless toxic gases that have a smell can be sniffed out by a lay person, in the absence of scientific tools. It’s not uncommon to have people smell something burning, long before they find the source.

Often, we are led by our nose to sniff out danger long before we see or feel it. What a catastrophe it would be if we couldn’t smell the gas leaking in our kitchen! Or the bread burning in the oven! Or… (eeew) the queer smell of food gone bad before you took a bite! Recent research studies are showing that fear reactions can occur at the sensory level, even before the brain has had the opportunity to interpret that the odour could mean trouble. No wonder that the English language has an idiom, ‘to smell out danger’.

Think of your childhood. Most of our memories are accompanied by a particular smell. Think of childhood and my thoughts are full of the light floral fragrance of my mum’s talcum as I rested my head on her shoulder, the Old Spice cologne when I snuggled up with my Dad, the peculiar comforting smell of my nanny, the smell of earth as we entered my mother’s village… Sigh… the sweet scent of memories. On the flip side, smells can bring back painful, fearful memories too! For instance the smell of diesel fumes for a soldier or the smell of smoke for a burns victim. Would memories be as intense in the absence of smells?

I know a cook who knows just by the aroma whether the coffee has enough sugar! Unbelievable but true! Skilled cooks rattle out ingredients in a dish with just a sniff. Knowing whether a dish is ready by the aroma is one thing, but to guess all the ingredients? Mind-blowing! Observe shoppers in the marketplace. Many will sniff a fruit to know whether it is ready for consumption. My Dad knows the variety of a mango and its ripeness with a whiff. Now that’s one skill I have kind of developed by sniffing around with him! Does that mean this is a skill we can refine with practice? Certainly. In the movie ‘The Hundred-Foot Journey’ it is interesting to watch how the protagonist’s mother trains him to cook, with much focus on the olfactory sense, more than any other.

How much do you enjoy your meals when you suffer a blocked nose during a bout of the common cold? No smell means no taste. No matter how tasty the food, for the one with a blocked nose, all the dishes taste one and the same – bland. And of course, that means there is no joy in the eating.

A sense less talked about no doubt, but one that we can’t turn up our nose at.