Wednesday, August 10, 2011

smells

I never believed myself to be an olfactory person, but hostel-life teaches you strange things about yourself. And now, my most intense bouts of homesickness are accompanied by hallucinations about some smells that i relate to home and find divine comfort in.

So, here are some of those smells that make having a nose such a wonderful feeling:
  • the Netaji Subhash Airport, arrival section with a strange melange of humidity, desert ACs, mishti and the secret cigarette smoke of some erring officer smoking in some corner.
  • petrichor
  • oxford bookstore
  • metropolitan book co.
  • the old corridors of the main building at school.
  • polished wood
  • damp wood
  • sawdust
  • davidoff coolwater
  • the 9 o' clock kitchen smell.
  • home. right after unlocking the main door
  • the dentist's clinic
  • the homeopathic doctor's clinic
  • spirit.
  • the non-ac dhuti-paanjaabi store in jogu baajar
  • the ac dhuti-paanjaabi store in jogu baajar
  • inside the the metro rail!
  • park avenue products
  • aftershave
  • south city mall
  • the lst staircase
  • khichuri
  • the 'footpath' outside the sugar and spice factory
  • the academy of fine arts
  • durga pooja
  • poojor dhoop
  • the mud in the school field.
  • apple sellers
  • the al fredo at jalepenoes!
  • detergent left behind on freshly washed clothes
  • the smell of vegetation after it rains
  • icing sugar
  • sandalwood
  • sandalwood powder
  • sandalwood paste
  • clove in water
  • the bhuttawala
  • melting butter
  • the muriwalla's shorshe tel
  • flury's
  • the calcutta highcourt corridors
  • gyaan manch
  • the series of smells that come as you walk down all of elgin road.
  • newspapers
  • new books
  • inside Giggles
  • diwali.
  • ghee being heated.
  • Subway
  • SEOMP gate
  • my room. on a winter night. snuggled in my quilt.
  • the aforementioned quilt.
  • the aforemention room in the summer when the airconditioning has only partially sucked out the humidity.
  • certificates
  • the dust that rises on the field at the end of sports day when everyone runs back to their enclosures.
  • ma.