‘You love smelly things?’ asked Specky, my wife with incredulity in her eyes as she read the title of my post.
Yes, I do,’ I said, ‘and I have enough reasons to prove that I am sane.’
She promised to read my post once it was done and walked away spraying Ambipur room freshener all the way to the kitchen. Well, I thought, I have taken up this challenge and I must think hard. But then the first thought that struck me was the utter forcefulness of a strong smell… and I don’t mean the magnetism of great fragrances, like Ambipur uses in their fresheners. Their fresheners, of course, have other agents that make sure that a bad odour isn’t just overcome for a short duration but undergoes a radical change and does its ghar wapsi to being a good odour.
Well, let get back to my reasons for liking smelly moments or a smelly world or smelly objects… whichever way you may want to express this.
Reason 1
Homes can be full of terrible smells like the ones coming from opening a refrigerator that hasn’t been cleaned for a long time and does not have any mechanism within to cancel the bad odours or picking up socks that are in the queue to be washed or opening a bottle of some bitter as well as smelly medicine. I love locating some such smelly object or corner before I start writing a post that is full of stinkers. I then inhale deeply. This is my method of creating all possible words and phrases that I’d like to use in an article on the rampant corruption that plagues us. This generally happens after I’ve spent a good thirty minutes reading all the newspapers that I subscribe. My heart is bleeding after all this disaster reading and I need just the right push to rush to my laptop and start writing.
Bad smells in and around the house propel me to my laptop to write a real stinker of a post! So yes, bad smells do have a role in my life. But let me add that I love my socks washed and smelling great, love the fridge clean and sans nasty smells, and stay away from opening bad smelling medicine bottles. Our home, lest my readers think otherwise, smells really pleasant most of the time. By the way, I have written more than 1800 poems that have love weaving in and out of their stanzas… which proves what I am saying about the smell status in my home.
Now if you’re wondering how I get my daily dose of inspiring ‘bad smells’, let me add that I have a great imagination and so when I open our fridge I imagine it is full of the smell of rotten eggs… or fruits and vegetables that have been inside for more than a month… or simply ‘never cleaned’ interiors. I contort myself and make funny noises of a man turning and twisting inside a gas chamber and rush to my laptop… and Specky smiles as she watches my antics from wherever she is at that moment. She knows I am preparing to write another possibly hard-hitting article. I mean, the fiercer my convulsions, the more pervasive will be the social stink that infuses the article.
Thus my reason to love bad smells is a particular type of creative effort. Try it and you’ll love me for having suggested it. You can do it in a perfectly fine and odour-free environment as well… I mean, you understandably have a great stock of Ambipur fresheners.
Reason 2
I’m sure you’ve been through times when you’ve sat through a great movie on the TV and then smiled and declared, ‘Not bad! Could have been better!’ Now that’s a rather smelly thing to say for a great movie, right? I am the sort who loves to shower good comments on everything that deserves them. So I have my own method of doing this.
I’m sure you’ve guessed my method by now. Yes sir, I imagine the house is completely invaded by the utterly obnoxious smell that emanates when there is conversion of butter into ghee being done in the kitchen. I imagine I’m suffocating and that I am surrounded by all the powerful forces of evil. This is the moment I switch ON my TV and surf to the channel where I want to watch this movie. I begin watching it without high expectations… because my mind is already in a state of near death because of this horrible smell. And when the mind isn’t expecting much from life it is bound to appreciate whatever it is offered. The mind loves the movie.
Well, I guess this is why cine-goers are encouraged to visit the smelly rest-rooms in the cinema before they enter the hall to see a movie… right? They are encouraged to do this even during the interval and their mind remains in a perpetually appreciative mode. The general truth is that bad odours make us appreciate anything that is offered.
‘But good cinemas do not smell foul,’ protested Specky.
‘I know that,’ I told her, ‘because I also know that Ambipur fresheners are used extensively to get rid of body odours and other bad smells. But I go to a cinema with my imagination intact.’
‘Ah!’ she said, ‘you and your imagination!’
But she agreed that the technique was sound and worth trying before adding, ‘But you must never ever ask me to stop using Ambipur fresheners, ok?’
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#SmellyToSmiley
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I am blogging for #SmellyToSmiley activity atBlogAdda.com in association with Ambi Pur
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Arvind Passey
21 June 2015
