zoom out to your life
And never be lost in space & time

No, the line above isn’t the start of another poem, but the heading of a unique presentation technique that I have adopted for this post. The post is, of course, all about Arvind Passey, that is me, on smells and how they connect with the past! I chose to call my ‘prezi’ presentation:

scent-smell-odour-perfume… and YOU

‘What’s a prezi presentation?’ some of you may ask.

Well, this is a form of presentation where you have the power to zoom in or zoom out or go to any part of the presentation any time you wish… this is a rather flexible form of presentations. I’ll make it easy for you… I’ll give the presentation below and then follows the text of this post that is actually a part of that presentation also. So first go on and zip around my new-age presentation and then come back to read on…

The past is full of images. Images that are somehow linked with what you had smelled then. These images can be fascinating as well as nightmarish, full of love or over-flowing with disgust, and are nearly always compelling. let me take you on a journey of a few of these smell-full memories…

The NANI smell…

I remember my Nani well. Who doesn’t. I also remember the strangely snug smell that was there whenever I was close to her. My mind linked it all with old age… and so now whenever I meet an old person, my Nani comes jogging into my mind and we smile!

Petrol under the stairway…

I remember going to that narrow passage under the stairs in our house in Jhansi… there were our two scooters there. There was also the over-powering smell of petrol all around in that area and I loved it. I always took in deep breaths when I was there and came out with my lungs full of petrol fumes. Even now whenever I am in a place where I smell petrol, I become a little kid under the stairway of my house in Jhansi… lost in dreams!

Dampness and my imagination…

Imagine an open cellar that you can see from the first floor of your house. I was always looking at this cellar from the first floor balcony and imagining demons and witches in there… our kitchen was next to it and I was afraid to go down on the ground floor unless my mother went with me. Standing near it I could get a strange smell of dampness giving me goosebumps and this happens even today as I come out of my car in underground parkings sometimes… when there is a smell of dampness there!

Books in my room…

The smell of books can take many people to many places… but I always go back to the 1960s to my room where I see me reading ‘The girl on a boat’ by P G Wodehouse. I enter a book shop and the first shelf I want to go to is the one that stacks books by Wodehouse. Every time I come near books, I remember my collection of fiction… and that old sofa where I curled up like any teenager would, and read novels!

Curry masala and York…

Food smells aren’t so overwhelming for me in my own country… but in the mid-eighties when we were in York and discovered that the English food was too decent and subdued for the Indian sense of smell. I remember Specky had cooked chicken curry that day and as we turned the corner into Frances Street in York, we knew what Indian cooking means! Even our British neighbours knocked on the front door to say, ‘Oh! This is a heavenly smell. It has never been like this in York.’ So now whenever we have chicken curry, we go back twenty years and meet York and its charms again…

BOOTS and the spirit of shopping…

When we entered Boots for the first time, it was in York and we stopped for a moment… deeply inhaled the fragrance medley floating all around us. This had never happened to us in India… I am talking of 1984. Now whenever I enter a Mall and such fragrant medleys hit our senses, I look at my wife and smile and she says, ‘York is everywhere.’ That is when we plunge deep into our spirit of shopping!

When raindrops meet the earth…

Raindrops are so linked to poetry… but to me they are connected to a spirit of ‘josh’. This is because the smell of the first rain meeting the earth always transports me to Dehradun where I was a Gentleman Cadet at the Indian Military Academy and I always see myself standing there in the quadrangle of Imphal Company looking up at the lights of Mussorie… with a cycle held aloft and wearing only an underwear! Those were our ‘conditioning of the body & mind’ midnight sessions and they come back to me with this particular smell. The academy was like a home to me and so it is always a pleasure to link to it through smells!

There is no end to the connections that smells can have with our lives… and I must add here a little incident that happened a few weeks back. As we zoomed down the seven floors of our block in the lift, Specky said, ‘It is too warm and humid and I am already tired. This weather exhausts you!’

I looked at and smiled. This was the case with me too and I was attributing my weariness to lack of exercise, but here she was giving me the right excuse for not getting up early enough to go for our morning walks.

I said, ‘Yes, the weather kills,’ and then added, ‘The inside of the car is going to be miserable too!’ As we stepped out into the blazing sun and walked in the parking area to our car, I reminded myself to let the car windows remain open for at least five minutes to let the stale and deadly fume-infested car breathe again. My wife opened the door and froze. I asked, ‘What happened?’

Specky said, ‘Nothing. I am just inhaling the freshness that is wafting out of this open door.’

I was alarmed and opened the door on my side to slide in… and loved the fragrance that seemed to be deep-seated inside. We sat inside the car…the windows were not rolled down… and yet, there was a feeling of freshness there.

I said, ‘Ambipur is indeed powerful.’

Specky nodded her head, smiled and turned the key to start the car. Since that day, every time I get this fragrance in any parking lot anywhere, I smile and mumble, ‘Another Ambipur fan is around somewhere!’

Smells and fragrances go deep into our psyches!

Smells and fragrances go deep into our psyches!

 

This post is a part of the ‘Smelly to Smiley‘ blogging contest sponsored by Ambipur

 

Arvind Passey
26 August 2013