Smelly nostalgia

Mehek bhi kahani sunati hai, sun lo agar,

hawaon ke zariye batati hai, samjho agar

(Smell also tells a story if you listen to it, it tells through the blowing wind if you understand it!)

This song from movie Aiyya awakens me to the reality of what wonders can smell do and I never realised it until I listened to this song and watched this movie. The girl falls in love with the guy's fragrance without having ever seen him, she kept following his smell until she finally found him.

There's a reason why the ability to smell is a part of our 5 most powerful senses. I'd read somewhere that if people were given the choice to lose one of their senses, ability to smell would be the first one and sight would be the last one. This sense resides in the same part of the brain as emotions and is thus directly connected to our emotions than any other sense.

You ever noticed how smell of geeli mitti (moist soil) brings back a lot of childhood memories and elates one's spirits. Smokers can have the craving by simply smelling the smoke of someone else's cigarette. Similarly, a person who doesn't smoke, will get irritated by the same smell. Smell of rain takes us back to how we used to play as kids under the rain on our rooftops. A coffee lover will get overwhelmed by the smell in a coffee shop or you may get hungry by yummy appetising smell of a bakery.

Women use all nice smelling products because it makes them feel good about themselves, makes them feel more confident. People take aroma spas to relax, have aroma oils in their bath water to soothe their nerves. Couples light aroma candles to get the light romantic feel.

Once, one of my old friends told me that there is a fragrance that drives him crazy. It plays with his mind and when he tries to track the source, it vanishes. I could never understand how fragrance affects us subconsciously even when we are totally occupied with something else, that particular whiff can pull us out into a whole new world.

When choosing perfumes, people choose how they would prefer to smell, something that suits them the best and portrays their personality.

There is another theory that says that a couple bonds better if they connect to how their partner smells. Couples get turned on by how their spouses smell! Or they can even have their favourite smelling areas on their body! Someone loves to smell their partner's hair, someone would love to get lost in their neck.

They say, a guy should always invest in a nice cologne. Their aftershaves make women go weak in their knees. As a kid I used to admire my dad's perfume so much (which I still do) that I always wished to have my partner smell the same. That's how I defined manhood in that age. On the other hand, a girl may not feel that way even for a really hot guy if they smell like their dad.

Coming to what actually motivated me to write this post. On a cold evening in an open area with some green trees, there lingers a smell that many don't notice. I think it's a tree that gives out  this smell at night but I'm not really sure because I could never find any common tree in all these areas or anyone who could solve this puzzle for me. That smell makes me want to fall in love. I can get married to a guy who'd propose me amidst that smell. It takes me over, it is tranquilising, I just can't get enough of it. It makes me want to inhale as deeply as i can, take in as much of it as feasible by my lungs. I get nostalgic; I have made a lot of memories in my student life with my friends and my first love surrounded by this smell.

Smell can bring back half-forgotten, blurry memories out on surface. Some sweet and some bitter memories (reminds me of bittersweet symphony! :P). You can associate to people by how they smell. A fragrance can take you back to the memories of your long lost love while you can hate someone because their smell reminds you of someone you hate.

You may forget what you saw but what you smelt will stay there in your subconscious mind and will come out as soon as you smell it again. Your smell memory is much stronger than your visual or verbal memory.