A gifted perfume evoked vivid memories of grandmother's puja rituals and autumnal Durga Puja celebrations. Foreign-sounding perfume ingredients were actually familiar Indian aromas like mogra and loban. These scents trigger autobiographical memo...
Evocative smells - olfactory-evoked autobiographical memory - drive so many of our impulses and actions. (Representative Image)
A few years ago, my son and daughter-in-law presented me with a bottle of perfume for Mother's Day. The moment I sniffed the perfume, it struck an instant chord because the aroma was vividly redolent of pujas, or more specifically, the scent that lingers in the air after the rituals are done. Since then, it has become my favourite. I look for the fragrance every time I am in UK or Europe as it is not found at duty-free outlets though it belongs to a well-known scent brand.
Experts will tell you that scents activating the brain's limbic system (that controls memory, emotions and impulses) to involuntarily trigger nostalgia is often called the Proust Effect. The French writer Marcel Proust has the narrator in his novel In Search of Lost Time being transported back to the environs of Combray by the smell of madeleine cakes being dipped in tea. Many Bengalis feel exactly the same about thin arrowroot 'bishkoots' dipped in cha and Kolkata mornings.
The aromas listed on my gifted bottle revealed why I was transported back to my grandmother's puja room and the mellow autumnal delights of our neighbourhood Durga Puja. For, while the label had foreign-sounding names like sambac, ylang-ylang and benzoin, they were actually very Indian aromas, very familiar to all desi noses: mogra, harichampa and loban or sambrani with a top note of marigold. It is as if the company had distilled puja into a bottle.
Each time I sniff it, my mind's eye sees flower-festooned gods and goddesses on the ceremonial platform dutifully dusted only by my grandmother every morning. She would gently sweep away the previous day's floral offerings - jasmine, plumeria, marigold, periwinkle, hibiscus and parijat when in season - and ash from incense sticks into a tidy scented pile to be deposited later under a plant or shrub. Then she would adorn the deities with freshly plucked blossoms.
To this day, over 30 years since she passed away, that aroma is imprinted in my olfactory memory, readily recalled at the slightest whiff. Just like shiuli (parijat flowers) coconut coir, dhuno (sal tree resin), sandalwood and ghee diyas, remind me of Durga Puja. Clearly, I am not the only one who feels like this as many perfume companies, including several Indian ones, now offer those evocative smells, scientifically called olfactory-evoked autobiographical memory, in bottles.
Little wonder then that 'smellscapes' are now regarded as an important factor in tourism. Many visitors who fall in love with a destination are actually drawn by their aromas: like the sharp scent of Himalayan deodar cedars, the sweet resinous aura of the sal forests of central and eastern India or the screwpine (kewra) shrubs of coastal Odisha. In varying degrees, admittedly, most of us are olfactory tourists. Indeed, we are influenced by our noses as much as by our eyes and ears.
I was astonished to find out this week from a social entrepreneur friend in Bengal that paddy fields are redolent of rice aromas even before the crop is harvested. "Our three-week-old rice seedlings were smelling of Gobindobhog!" he enthused. "Each field has the distinctive scent of whichever rice variety is growing there!" Those scents are even stronger during harvest time apparently. Just hearing him describe it so vividly made my nose twitch appreciatively in anticipation.
Another friend who owns tea gardens around India and the world added that he can tell (smell!) when the second flush is ready for plucking. Of course, that grassy, herbal scent is not the same as when those harvested "two leaves and a bud" are ready for steeping in hot water after being dried and processed for drinking! Such aromas definitely must be used more widely as tourism draws: "Wake up and smell the tea in Bengal - not just the coffee in Keralam!"
