The Scents
The smells of childhood do not arrive in sequence. They just appear and fill you with memories; it’s actually an ambush. There is no orderly procession where one memory politely follows another. Instead, something in the air shifts—barely noticeable—and suddenly you are elsewhere. Not remembering, but inhabiting. A room, a corridor, a courtyard. The past does not feel like the past in those moments. It feels current. Immediate. As if time, for a brief second, forgot to behave. Oud was always dense. Not just a smell, but a presence. It did not float in the air so much as settle into it. It lingered in clothes, in curtains, in conversations. On my maternal side of the family, it felt less like a choice and more like a constant. You did not notice it when you entered. You noticed its absence when you left. It had a way of anchoring a meeting room in the old bungalow in Solapur, a space, making it feel inhabited even when it was empty. Sandalwood was different. Quieter. If oud was a statem...