My chest of fragrances...

I have a remembrance chest of fragrances. A beautiful l'l thingummie ,where i keep my memories, as having been related to fragrances, scents, aromas and every l'l thing of that kind.Like a tiny piece of mirror that reflects a part of you, my tiny bits of cherished memories, that i have collected over the years, right from my 'Tiny ToTs' days, till now. It was always there, pushed to the back of my mind, where i had kept it unhidden, but also unexplored, for such a long time. Today,when i hugged my friend telling her that she reminds me of my sister when she was a baby, coz of her new Gohnson's Baby Lotion, she laughed at me saying the scent was never that strong. But it was for me,and i bet there are a lot of people who can tell by the scent of things, or im sure there will be atleast one more person walking this earth, like me, who has got scents and memories so closely intertwined. But, then, i had read Anita Nair. She talks about how she cherished memories with fragrances in her book "Goodnight and Godbless", which was for a long time, my favourite bed time story book.


During my baby days, i believe it was the scent of my mother.I must have recognised her presence by that. But the first one tat i registered ever since i started having and preserving memories, is that of the 'agarbhati' that lingered in the pooja room by the time i get up and come out of my bed. And then,the smell of kitchen, the first morning scents of tea brewing and rice being made, that of ghee when amma made those special ghee roasts. My taste buds get tickled and excited with the memories of delicacies, of those delicious smells that emanated from amma's and ammumma's superb kitchen.


In a Pearl S Buck story, a woman remembers the love between her parents, while she is nursing her completely bedridden father, after her mother's death. There is a memory that she catches on as she watches her father murmering her mother's name in his sleep. Once when she was a kid, she came into her parents' bedroom to see her mom sitting on d bed, drooping and covering her face with a cloth. For a moment she thought her mom was crying, but then, her mom looked up, and pulled her close and hugged her. And when asked what she was doing, her mom said, that she was remembering the scent of her father, that cloth was her dad's jacket. Her dad had gone on war then. The daughter remembers how at that moment it felt so strange to her, so difficult, to understand her mom's emotion, which, now being a married woman herself, she can perfectly comprehend. And i was amazed at the beauty of that scene. The thought that then goes through the daughter's mind, who at present lives a marriage of convenience, is that, she could never have done the same with her husband's cloth. She realises that she never cherished the memory of his scent. That was the beauty of the concept. It was plain and simple. The scent of her husband, that her mother was trying to frame in her mind, reveals the intensity of love that they both shared. And the way the daughter thinks about how she can never do it, shows the lack of it in her marriage. Buck uses beautifully that powerful and intricate link scents hold to our emotions..


That was almost the same way i put fragrances in my remembrance chest. The scent of Cuticura powder which, twelve years down the line,still takes me back to my grand dad's room where i sat next to him listening to his stories with happiness and wonder in my eyes ..the Santoor soap, the neelibringadhi hair oil and the guruvayoor chandanam which made up for me, the scent of my grandma, then the scent of my mother, and my sister, starting from her baby days of gohnson's baby powder to her recent deoderent, my dad and his variety of perfumes each of which I recognise as his, which gives me a sense of being safe when I am near him,the scent of my close friends, which i recognise as they stay around me. The smell of popcorn that reminds me of the days of bunking and movie watching with dem. The scent of dosa and hot and spicy kadala curry at a Kayamkulam railway platform outlet, which reminds me of childhood days spent with every weekends, friday evenings and sunday nights in train travelling to and from on our visit to grand parents. And so many and so many.


Scents, powerful, intricate and capable of holding fond memories.I have got a chest full of them. And I thank God, for being able to hold on to them, thus capable of summoning memories and being at peace, knowing that life is all around me, behind, and forward, still loud and alive, thrilling and waiting to be explored.