Can you archive an aroma in the way you can store images as jpeg and bitmap? Yep, Mother Nature has created its own smell archives.

Folder: The amygdala and entorhinal cortex of Limbic system.

Password: A whiff…

Function key: Memory and Emotions. No wonder, an aroma has such strong connections with our emotions and vivid memories. Far, far stronger than vision or touch.

If I listed my favorite aromas: (in no particular order)

1. Everybody’s perennial list-topper. The crisp smell of dust ploughed out of its slumber by the first rain showers: The second shower never smells quite the same.

In childhood, this aroma signified the gloomy end of summer vacation; the smell of anticipation, of brand new uniforms, virgin textbooks. The smell of plastic raincoats and musty clothes. Nowadays, Rain= Leptospirosis.

Best rain songs: 1}Jagjit Singh’s sonorous melancholy ‘Wo kaagaz ki kashti, wo baarish ka paani.’ 2} Kishor’s ‘Rimzim gire saawan’.

2. Roasted Bhutta : A by-default rain-associated smell. Snug on the  red embers, crackling and popping in the warmth of a coal-fire, garnished with lime, sprinkled with red chilli and salt. Heaven in 25 Rupees!  Just admit it, you are salivating for one right now…

I yearn for the white, firm, fleshy corn of my childhood and youth. ‘Nobody buys them anymore, Madam’ , says the vendor. They seem to be as extinct as white tigers. ‘Koi lauta de mere beete hue din…”

I hate the sickly-sweet, jaundiced American corn. The type that reminds you exactly how many un-(ful)filled cavities exist in every tooth.

3. Can sweat, milk, dribble and talcum powder smell good? Only if packaged within plump fists, wide eyes and adorable vulnerability. Baby smell: the most natural oxytoxin.

4. Tall, Dark, Hot and Strong . That’s how I love my…umm…coffee.

Mysore Cafe at Sion circle, Mumbai  wafts this perfume 24×7. How many agree that coffee smells much better than it tastes?

5. Grandma smell: It lay in her every wrinkle and crinkle, in her saree folds, in her roasted misheri , in the purse-string potli  that could conjure up anything from shrikhand sweets to coins. The smell of magic and wisdom.

Lucky me! My generation didn’t need ipods and ipads to survive childhood. I vividly recollect cloistering around her for re-re-retellings of tales from Ramayana and Mahabharata and getting a sharp knuckle-rap on the head for our squabbles.

6. Try peeling and eating an Orange secretly in a public place. Just you try! There can be debates on the best tasting fruit;  but an orange wins peels-down in the best-smelling category. 

The glowing skin, the tangy spray, the fleshy pods. The pips, the netted fibers, the sticky juice running between fingers- it all comes as a package.

{P.S:  A school friend  used to have orange neatly peeled and sliced into sterile bite-sized morsels in her Tiffin; which she then ate with a tiny fork! Seriously! I wonder if her adult self eats popcorn with chopsticks!}

7. Bakery smell: Freshly baked, just outta the oven;rumored to be the best smell on Earth and Heaven .

Recently, I literally smelt out a Banglore Iyengar bakery in Mumbai. Yup, a bonafide Iyengar bakery right in the middle of the fanatically Marathi Dadar area.

8. From sinful food to the saintly Sandalwood. If ever a scent belongs in a temple, Sandalwood does. Cool, soothing, pristine.

What about you?

a.What is your favorite aroma-memory? (Bad smells excluded)

b. How would you rate Mysore filter coffee versus Starbucks?  

c. I want Indian corn, please…Out with the foreign invasion.

d. Shouldn’t first-rain scent be packaged for sale?

e. P.S: I heard Disney has already patented Baby-smell called Sudocrem. Tch, they always steal my bright ideas…