Of monsoons, pakodas and nostalgia..

Certain smells live in our memory forever. We are exposed to a world of senses at birth. We grow up with them and they grow on us. As children we associate smells with our feelings, moods and even people we love or hate. As we grow up, those fragrances bring back memories of certain moments, places and people.
Monsoons have just arrived in North India. The weather is overcast, the wind bringing with it sudden wafts of mogra, jeera hing ka chhonk and roasting phulkas. Sitting alone in my drawing room after the morning chores, while my daughter watches her favourite cartoon on TV in the bedroom, I suddenly feel very vulnerable to the beauty just outside my threshold. As I take a sip of good ol’ Nescafe, the rich brew brings back a plethora of images. Memories rush to engulf me.
The very first whiffs from my childhood that I can remember are those of boiled eggs, cucumber and a certain kind of lemon found in West Bengal called the ‘Gondhoraj’ or king of fragrances. Yah! Right! Quite a weird combination, I agree. I guess it starts with my staple diet consisting mainly of boiled eggs. I used to have them always; specially for breakfast. Even now, when I boil eggs for my family’s breakfast, I go back to those early mornings before school, sleepy eyed and groggy, the scent of hard boiled eggs hitting my empty stomach with a jolt. Cucumbers! Ah! They always have been a favourite. Their crisp, refreshing fragrance takes me back to bright, warm summer days of my childhood!
Talking of childhood, quite a number of smells jostle for priority. To name a few, like a true bong I will shamelessly go back again to my priority….food. I don’t know why all the best things in life smell like chocolates! A bar of dairy milk smells so much like love, like happiness, or for that matter, bliss! Chocolate reminds me of the other indispensible necessity, the faithful Nescafe, a luxury as a child! A cup of mélange(half milk, half coffee) as a child, brauner(with just a dash of milk) as I grew up. Being a coffee enthusiast, I had picked up these words in German from a book. The heady, rich aroma of coffee I somehow always associate with winters. Warm snug woolen clothes, a soft cosy blanket, holding the mug of coffee in your palms, the waft slowly filling up your senses with a pleasure so intense, I rank it only second to falling in love!
Fragrances can really be so intriguing, so funny. I still remember the scent of freshly crushed tender mango leaves in my palm. The heady scent of summer, of teenage, sleepless afternoons on the terrace or day-dreaming in the biology class in school, always the second last period of the day.
Years pass, and as we mature, these scents mature with us, making us aware of what we are, what we have been.
I stayed in Mumbai for only a little more than two years. But it has given me a fragrance I will carry with me for the rest of my life……the crisp, steaming-hot, mouth watering fragrance of onion pakodas in the monsoons. It will always bring back flashes of the waterfall just a hundred meters from my balcony, the dark, endless clouds over the national park as we drove past it.
My coffee cup has long been drained, and though I could have went on and on, I’ll have to sign off here today. It’s almost one o’ clock and I forgot to make lunch!   