Scentolgia

A shaft of warm sunlight falls on the newborn I am holding in the crook of my arms. As I play and coo gibberish in his ears, I revel in the smell of love.  I miss that fragrance. There are moments when I miss it so much that I can smell it in my dreams. How do I even begin to describe it? 

The scent is a mix of milk powder, baby oil, baby shampoo and pure innocence. Of all the seductions of motherhood, the most memorable remains the joy of cuddling and snuggling your toddler. Something is so ineffably beautiful about the moment that it transcends the physical. It is bliss. Nothing else matters.

Smell may be an abstract sense but nothing is more memorable than a smell. Even if the whiff was momentary, it can evoke distant memories. And when a certain scent is tinged with emotion, it transcends beyond the realm of words.

Smiley Flashback

If I close my eyes, most of my smell nostalgia relates to motherhood: the smell of chocolate reminds me of the fresh cakes I baked; the smell of books reminds me of the tension during board exams; the smell of Vicks reminds me of the bouts of cold; the odor of Dettol reminds me of the deep gnash on his right knee, and the faint smell of a balloon reminds me of blowing several balloons on his birthday.

How can I not talk about the smell of coriander? A mini explosion had rocked my kitchen. It so happened that I was preparing chutney with a generous sprinkling of green chilies in a mixer grinder. As I was about to close the lid after one round of mixing, my four year old obsessed with pushing buttons, sauntered in the kitchen. He playfully pressed the grinder button resulting in the splattering of green chutney all over the kitchen. And all over my face. Those manic moments with hot chutney in my eyes and mayhem in my kitchen are as fresh as the bunch of coriander my grocer delivered today! So clearly, when you think of certain smells, memories come alive, jumping out of nowhere.

Smiley to Smelly - Sport, Sweat and Scent

His Room, 2005

If your teenager loves to play soccer under scorching sun, can you stay away from sweat and smell? I remember picking up moist socks, wet tees followed by endless arguments about taking a shower. "It is for your own good, Take a bath right away, Don't lie on the couch, you are sweating, Your shoes smell." But, when your son announces that he scored a winner during a penalty shoot-out, you can’t trample his enthusiasm with heavy boots of smell, can you? How I wish Ambi Pur comes up with a device that can be installed in soccer studs and other sport shoes. Later when he left for college, little did I imagine that I will yearn for that same whiff of cologne tinged with the sporty smell of sweat!

Back to Smiley

If you are a mother, you can smell mischief. The deodorant in the cupboard reminds me of his college days. Though I always wanted to ask who he was meeting, I consciously refrained from intruding his privacy. When his dress was casual and hair ruffled, I imagined he was meeting his school friends. But when he used a cologne or a perfume and asked me if his shirt was just right, I could smell girls around.As always, the bounce of his gait, the tenor of his voice and the smell of his cologne tell me more than his words do.

Time flies. Today it is the sweet smell of his success that makes me smiley.

As I write, I realize that scents can be more evocative than pictures. Try it. Close your eyes and concentrate on a smell. Time will soon begin to roll backwards. No wonder fragrance and flashbacks go hand in hand. Or is it my remembrance that has implanted a whiff of scent to my nostalgia. Scentolgia, anyone?

This post is written for Smelly to Smiley contest held by Indiblogger and Ambi Pur India

Photo Credit: smashinghub.com