Fragrant Flashbacks...

Who says that only animate objects or things with an actual shape, size and colour have a distinctive smell? I, for one, tend to disagree. My childhood memories have smells too. From the sudden whiff of the school tiffin to the pungent smell of hospital disinfectant, many scents transport me back to my childhood.

I recently read an article where it was revealed that now scientists think they have discovered how scents from the past make such a lasting impression. Using brain scans, they have shown that new 'odour memories' - such as the association of a perfume with a person - really do get 'etched' onto the brain. The 'signature' of the memory is different from other types of memories, they found. Dr Yaara Yeshurun, who led the study at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, said early smells had a 'privileged' status in our memories. Smells may trigger such strong memories because our ancestors were more dependent on their noses to avoid poisonous plants, rotten food or enemies than modern people.

But whatever the reason might be, the memories of my childhood do have their ‘signature’ smells.

No matter which year or decade you were born in, the scent of wet pavement after it rains on a warm day can take us all directly back to the feeling of finally being able to go play outside after a thunderstorm. That warm smell still tickles my olfactory senses, but the leisure with which I savoured the feeling seems lost in the roller coaster of my busy life. The scent of rain on a sultry spring evening is always an indulgence.
Also, I have never passed by a pack of Bubblegum in a store (I wonder if it still exists) for quite some-time now. But I do remember the taste which lasted for a bare ten seconds or so, but the smell – it lingered...

Apartment complexes were a rare sight when I was a kid. The only ‘flats;’ were the ‘housing colony’ ones which were scattered at a few points in Guwahati. All our homes had a garden and the smell of the freshly cut grass remains etched in my memory. The smell of marigold, rose (I wonder why the roses from the florists nowadays do not have any smell), sewali (night-flowering jasmine), khorikajai, etc. kept the household fragrant. We saved money on aromatic oils and scented candles!

Fiats and Ambassadors with the smell of gasoline exhaust was a common sight. The smell of cowdung,  of  “paanch-phooron”  spluttering in mustard oil or bhedailota (skunk vine/king tonic) or mosondori (heartleaf)  being cooked for an upset tummy,  and of course the smell of the sweaty scalp of my brother (which smelled like a bird-nest) after a round of playing ghariyal-paani  still lingers.

Then there was this smell of erasers. Whether they were scented or not, we couldn’t stop sniffing each and every one of them.

My elder son regularly complains of stuffy nose at night; a couple of days back, he told me that he feigns it at times so that I can rub Vicks Vaporub on his throat and nose. It brought about a sense of déjà vu, because I too loved to smell the Vicks Vaporub when I was of his age. Lovingly slathering a thick layer of  Vicks Vaporub on the chest and throat is definitely a very beautiful experience, not only because of the scents of camphor, eucalyptus and menthol, but because it is in those moments that a child learns how loved and cherished he or she is.

The almirahs and cupboards are insect-proof nowadays, but in our childhood all the ‘mitchef’ (as the smaller almirahs were pronounced) and the ‘godrej’ (read - the steel almirah) invariably had a ball or two of naphthalene mothballs. Ohh, the smell...

Recently I was in a departmental store and a young boy was queuing up in front of me; he smelt of Old Spice aftershave, which my father used.  

Some fragrances have pleasantly stayed back in my day to day life. The smell of Maggi (begging excuses from the health-conscious athletes), of dhuna (Shorea robusta) fumes in the evenings, the scent of a new book and that of Dettol disinfectant are a few worth-mentioning examples.

Then there is what I can only call "non-scents" - kind of like the smell of the air before Durga Puja, or the smell right before a rainstorm... They really almost have no scent, but they are distinct.

A whiff, and so many memories cascade down! The smell of nostalgia remains, and so do the fragrances which made my childhood so wonderful.