Smells!

Introduction: This essay was composed by me 8 years back when I had just started my hostel life in my engineering college. Apart from the engineering subjects, we had a few non-engineering subjects, one of which was, Language. In the language syllabus, we had to read this novel by Somerset Maughm called 'Cakes & Ale'. There was this particular line in the novel on Smells being nostalgic, which inspired me to write this short essay. Let me know if you like the essay and if you were convinced that indeed smells can take you deep down the memory lane!

Among so many gifts given to us by the Almighty, the power to sniff and smell is one of the most wonderful gifts I feel. It is probably the most valuable gift even according to Mother Nature. I say so because, we see among us people who are blind, deaf and dumb. But ever heard of anyone who can't breathe and smell?? Breathing and thus Smelling becomes the essence of life.

Smells can be of different varieties namely, pleasant, sweet, irritating, intoxicating, nauseating and last but not the least Nostalgic as well. Yes, I say Nostalgic and I will explain why I say so in the course of my essay.

Whether it is the aroma of a delicious dish being cooked in the kitchen, or the faint perfume of rose in teh garden or the intoxiccating fragrance of wet earth after the first shower of rain on a hot long day, smells are just wonderful. And the best role that smells play is take you long down the memory lane. Yes, nothing can take you back to the old days as fast as smells can. They can be so nostalgic at times that you just find yourself lost in the old days.

Life has become so fast these days that it becomes immensely impossible to rest and think about yourself, or the past. Smells play an important role during such times. The summers for this year just left us around the corner. The initial showers of rain brought with them the beautiful fragrance which in a moment used to take me back to those days of my childhood when I could hardly resist the desire to eat earth everytime it rained. I could immediately see myself hiding from my mother and nibbling away bits of earth.

I spent my nursery school days in Kolkata, the city of delicious sweets, especially the Sandesh. My mother used to offer Sandesh as Prasad in her daily worship of the family deities. She used to put a piece of tulsi leaf on a Sandesh piece for performing this ritual. After the Puja, she used to distribute the Sandesh with the Tulsi leaf between my sister and me. I used to love the smell of the holy leaf on the sweet-piece. Somehow, the smell signified purity to me even in those early days of my life. After a few years we moved from the east to the south and lost in touch with the delicious Sandesh. Just a few days back we had some friends from Kolkata who brought with them these sweets and my mother offered Prasad to the deities in the same fashion as done some 15 years back. When she gave me the Prasad with the Tulsi leaf, the smell of the Tulsi on the Sandesh was so powerful, that I found myself in my nursery school days in a jiff; more obedient to my mother than I was these days, innocence filled my soul then. The purity associated with the lovely smell was so strong that I actually went into introspection and motivated myself to become a better person in life.

My grandmother is no more alive. She was a brilliant cook. The best thing that I liked about her cooking was the preparation of this traditional Oriya dish called the Dalma. She prepared her special Dalma only on auspicious days. The whole family knew that there was something special about the day when the aroma of her Dalma used to fill the whole house. Everyone loved the dish in the house. And somehow we took it for granted that Grandma will prepare the dish, whenever such days dawned. Grandma left us and we realised, we never learnt the magic of creating that beautiful dish. Several of us tried our own methods. But we failed and failed miserably in our attempts. However I thank God, that He gave us the power to smell and thus remember that delicious smell which also brings back with it the old bygone days.

Smells don't remind of any particular occassion. They bring with them a whole period of days. Right now I am in my youth. So most smells remind me of my childhood days, days at school and my teenaged days. Very soon I would be finishing my studies and will settle down with a job and family and there will be certain smells that will take me to my college days of fun and growing up and what not. Then when I am old, there will be certain smells which will remind me of my own youth and my children's childhood days.

Smells will remind me every part of my life. But it is indeed astonishing that after death I will not be able to smell life.

Now, isn't that injustice??