Reminiscence

I pick up the soiled coffee mugs and throw them into the sink. I then stack the set of old newspapers in the rack, clear up the knick knacks in the handbag, broom the dust off the window panes and fill the bottles with drinking water. I then hide the vodka bottles in the attic, almost forgetting that I live alone and that I have to hide them from none.

I then see that I have bedspreads and sheets all over the house; the ones my friends wrapped around themselves last night. The old brown from the college hostel days, the ugly green one from the schooldays and the beautiful crimson red purchased with my first salary.

As I pick up each of them , fold them neat and put them back into the closet I bring them a tad closer to my nose; each of them smell just the way they ought to, just the way I remember their smells. I wonder if smells lend character to inanimate bed sheets. Or create some meaning for their existence.

It seems then that my bedroom is filled with my nostalgic flavor of smells. My mind space is occupied solely by the aroma of people, perfumes and places these sheets borrow their smell from.

I imagine I have goose bumps. Or may be they are for real. The pungent humidity of southern summers and a dreamy childhood spent throwing tantrums and seeking parental approval, the scent of rusted rims in the Mumbai monsoons and a rebellious teenage where rebellion had no cause and ambitions were triggered by peer pressure, the musky Bangalore chills and a melancholy filled romantic quarter life; all of that comes rushing to me.

It seems that my sense of sight or touch doesn’t even exist, that I recognize and experience life and its various forms through these fragrances that stir such poignant sentiments in my being. The feeling is akin to that of being transported to another world, from the past; a word so vivid, eloquent and fulfilling. I let myself sink into the overwhelming bolt of nostalgia that grips me.

I then cry, may be because such emotional opulence is unbearable. I then smirk, at the irony of how the memory of a beautiful past can bring a tear to the eye and that of a joyless time can bring a smile to the lips.

That was when I had this flash. It was then that this new memory revealed itself to me, a memory I have been searching for all these years. A memory that was not overt in my conscious but camouflaged deep inside, the scent of my grandpa.

My Grandfather! He is one of those people I have loved, revered, and trusted in an intense entirety. The loss from his death is a pain I will carry with me to the grave. Of the many regrets that one associates with people that are gone from their lives is the inability to recollect some special moment or unique experience shared with that person.

I have carried the weight of such regret all these years, of not my being able to recollect his smell. When I tried to figure out the reason behind my ill memory I realize very strangely there is some amount of shame associated with the idea of love for bodily odors that society imposes on you.
But for in an intense love relationship, I have never openly unabashedly admitted why and how I love the way someone smells. This is probably why I didn’t remember how grandpa smelled. It is a memory my conditioning pushed to the background, a memory I yearned for so long.

However this discovery and recollection of the smell does not seem to appease me or cure me of the regret; instead it aggravates the agony of my loss.

The taste of his smell brings visual images of those lovely summers spent with him; the naïveté conversations about my dreams, my unending questions about monkeys in the monkey park we often went for a stroll in and his passionate narration of the love story from his life in the army.

I also now smell the aroma of those biscuits he dipped in the filter coffee and relished every evening; he would tell me that nirvana lies in experiencing such little joys of life. I would then pester him with questions about nirvana; I enjoyed the idea of listening to philosophical explanations of nirvana I never made sense of.

I would nod my head in understanding, raise my eyebrows to project an image of active listening and enjoy his animated explanations with rapt attention. I would tell him I perfectly understand where he comes from; he would commend my maturity and insist I’m one of those bright kids. Both of us would then rejoice and revel in such false pride and joy.

Few years went by.

The last time I met him at the hospital I apologized, “I’m sorry, I never understood a thing about Nirvana”. His eyes were filled with tears; he had no strength to speak. For many years to come, I believed that he cried because I didn’t understand Nirvana. I still think so.

I had then asked him, “Are you dying?” He nodded in denial and replied “I’m going to be around.” He very much is. And will be till the overwhelming edifice of smells and memories live in me.