Heard of synaesthesia? If not, it's time you tasted this phenomenon

James Wannerton, an Englishman from Blackpool in North-West England, has come up with the most bizarre London Underground map. Instead of Tube stations' names, the map lists what each station tastes like. To James, that is. This is owing to a peculiar condition known as synaesthesia, where one sensory experience involuntarily triggers a response in another sense organ. In this case, James experiences different tastes when he reads words. Hence, King's Cross (the Harry Potter station) in the map becomes Fruit Cake & Dripping while Kilburn is Putrid Meat. We do sympathise with the Kilburners (if they can be called that). If it's any consolation, Norwood is Chewed Matchstick.

Wannerton has been diagnosed with lexical-gustatory synaesthesia, pronouncing which may be injurious to your health. We wonder what Wannerton, who is also president of the UK Synaesthesia Association, would make of Delhi Metro stations. The human brain is capable of more than we can imagine. How the condition is responsible for unifying two or more senses at the same time remains a mystery. The way others perceive this world can be quite different from how we perceive it. A very humbling thought, indeed!