Of Madhavilata, Petrichor, and the Engagingly Buxom

"Perfume became the candle that illuminated memory so it could be relived, reworked, reshaped and tamed."

-- Maggie Mahboubian  in Persia, Poetry and Perfume: My Journey Home

The other day when I was in the middle of my  golf swing on No. 10 at Tolly, a heady scent wrapped itself around me and I was flown to my childhood as many moments, in forever formed frames, fleeted and filed past in a polychromatic procession. The whiff had  come from an adjoining  Madhavilata creeper , slung across an iron mesh by the side of the Tee box, much like the two we had in our house in Dhanbad - luxurious green foliages, entwined around the  verandah drainpipes, joined at the top to hang  like a green canopy interspersed with prints of white, pink, peach and red blossoms.

But more than the sight of that Madhavilata , it was the

distinctive fragrance  of the flowers that had jogged my  memory and stirred up emotions -  of playing  carrom and a host of board and card games and even cricket with my brothers and friends, of the Wednesday evenings listening to Binaca Geetmala on Bush Baton, of the loud sounds created by slapping its leaves  on cupped palms, of the playful  transfer of  the  evening swirl of mosquitos from own to someone else's head.

Smell unsheathes our individually experienced  or episodic memories with  greater sharpness and completeness  than  either sight, sound or even taste  can. More than the percussive connect between the mother's heartbeat and the child's ears, it is the smell of close contact, probably due to breast feeding, which is  a bigger bond. RD Burman's puja songs  - Akash keno dakey,  Aami boli tomaey dure thako, Chokhe chokhe kotha bolo - in themselves do not take you the full distance to the para puja pandal unless you have smelt the fragrance from the white and brown  carpet of  Harsingar ( or Shiuli ) or inhaled  the  dancing wisps of dhunno . More than the sight of your daughter's school pencils, it could be the scent of the fascinatingly twirly and curly wooden flakes coming out  of the sharpener which delivers a stab of nostalgia - conjuring up images of your late Dad doing it for you in your Kindergarten days.

Anyone with a head cold will attest that food " tastes' different when the sense of smell is impaired. Infact, as human beings we  possess the quality of 'retronasal' olfaction which sets us apart from all other animals. Okay, no need to honk, I will  explain it. It is the ability  to send back aromas from the back of our throat to the nose  even as we chew food - other animals can smell only by sniffing. Talk to a tea taster, he will explain better. Scent goes in our food as well - especially as the Muslim influenced cuisine in North India uses up a lot of kewra jal, gulab gal,  kesar and meethha attar. 80% of perfumes produced in  Kannauj, the perfume capital of India, is actually is used up by the gutka and zarda manufacturers

To move on from one end of the alimentary canal to the other, smell has been  found to have laxative qualities as well - a friend of mine  would pavlovially feel the tenseness in the stomach  when entering the bookshop and getting the gust of  fresh book odour. This was probably due to the habit of reading books on the toilet seat. And even though out of politeness, or  social correctness,  people do not talk much about flatulence , the breaking of wind'  at the wrong time and place have been occasions of shredding of reputations, levelling of accusations and counter -accusations, much consternation and ,quite often,mirth and jollity.  The latest we now have , from the scientists of University of Exeter, is that hydrogen sulphide, (present in flatus in small amounts) could be a possible 'healthcare hero'  due its positive effect on the mitochondria which is the powerhouse of our cells( see Times of India dated  12/7/14).

Smell is a  boundary marker, the MacMohan or Durand  or the  Radcliffe Brown line in the lion kingdom. Infact, the development of perfumes in many European countries was to do with the urge of the rich to ward of the body odour on account of infrequent bath- and to a large number of Indians, there is this  deep rooted notion that  the Firangs  bathe, defecate and brush their teeth much more infrequently- hence, the need to perpetually envelope themselves with perfumes, deodorants  and mouth fresheners. 

But to  be fair to them,  the charm of fragrance has been  an old one . The Egyptians associated them with the gods - infact Nefertum, the God of Perfume was also the God of Healing and can be said to have been the world's first practitioner of aromatherapy which has now become a billion dollar business. Attar  or ittar is a common gift in India - presented in small bottles or in cotton swabs on small sticks. Causal theories have been built around impact of ambient odours on mall shoppers emotions, cognition and spending. But what carries forward perfumes to their  obsessive popularity is  the fact that  when it comes to sex and mating, smell  is the most important sensory organ .Males and females release pheromones which are odourless chemicals,  activated at puberty and produced by glands in the armpit and genitals , and processed throughout the olfactory system, which influence sexual behaviour and attractiveness.

Aromas, fragrances, scents, oils and unguents have been used for centuries to enhance the experience of seduction and lovemaking - Cleopatra's special blend of rose, cardamom and cinnamon , the use of sandalwood oils in Tantric sexual practices to stimulate the second chakra, and even the  scent of cows in the cattle raising Dassanetch of Ethiopia which makes the men wash their hands in cattle urine and smear their bodies with manure  even as women rub butter in heir heads, shoulders and breasts! In short, fragrances make us desirable and a host of deodorants, splash colognes  and perfumes today are marketed as agents to enchant and ensnare the opposite sex.

The ability of a fragrance to make us feel desired , connect us with memories, help us to escape and show our individuality is phenomenal. All these account for making the perfume industry a huge one - perfumes, flankers, eau de cologne, era de toilette, But with desire being a human weakness, the probability of fraudsters and tricksters  to make merry on ignorance and gullibility is huge.Perfume samplers hang around like 'urban cowboys', choose their targets, accost them aggressively, glib talk and exaggeratingly flourish the sampling strip with deft fumigation techniques and you are sold as a sucker shelling a few grands for some fruity, nutty, or shitty bottle of perfume. 

Tourists are often the prime targets and the fellows did not spare my Bhaiya who had gone to Egypt, famous in Antiquity and no less even now for its perfumes. Unfortunately,  he succumbed to the aggressively polite salutations of 'Effendi, Effendi',  and was conned into buying bottles of  perfume oil from a shop in Khan Khalili AL Azhra . On arrival in India, they  turned out to be basically  ethanol . For  a person who could identify Single Malts by blind tasting, it  was particularly bad to be fooled by a type of alcohol.

So I was not expecting any gift from him at a party thrown by one Manguram Sekhsaria he had got me invited to at the Grand the other day shortly after his return to India. I had reached the party earlier, Slick Back Cut and Straight to Heaven-ed,  and settled to my first Caol Ila  before piling on  a quartet  from a clutch of  Dented Painteds (DPs) who were discussing about Grasse and its perfumeries .

"You know what is petrichor,"  I asked and  paused for the Greek sounding word to form ripples of curiosity and, more importantly, to allow me in.

" What? Is it some kind of moussaka? " the Naughtily Knotted-choli asked, playing with a tendril of hair around her left ear. 

" Far from it," I said and proceeded to explain that it is a word coined from Greek which meant scent of rain on dry earth or the scent of dust after rain, that it was derived from two Greek words: Petros meaning stone and Ichor for the fluid flows in the veins of the gods.

"Wow!" the Deep Neck let out ever so slowly, drawing a circle of  mauve lipstick with a how well- informed -well -read -despite- being -a -cop wonder in her kohled eyes. 

"Oh I just looooove that smell,"  the Backless Blouse  cooed. 

"I too looove that smell," the Netted Blouse DP puckered, " but it hardly rains in Delhi." 

"Ooh la la!! I can give anything to have a whiff of that mitt ki sondhi sondhi khushboo," the Engagingly  Buxom heaved pneumatically to make her presence felt in more ways than one.

"Anything, my Lobongolata?" a familiar voice floated across. 

And we all looked around. There was Bhaiya, his not very insubstantial frame covered in a golden Indo- western jacket and black Jodhpuri,  his eyes and moustache smiling in competition,  and before we could  wish him or  the Engagingly  Buxom  lodge  a  mock protest of " Call me Lovey" , Bhaiya fished out a tiny bottle from his pocket, and rubbed small amounts of attar  on the back of  the palms  of the  DPs.

As expected, he did not rub the ittar on me, and I, too, did not let down his  wink and proceeded to sniff, snuggle, palm and nuzzle in soft succession.

"Oh My God, it smells like petrichor," we all gushed  in wondrous symphony.

"Yes, but this is not Greek, but from Teen Darwaza area of Old Ahmedabad" Bhaiyya said in a matter - of - fact tone.

" This scent  reminds me of my last journey to Jaipur when it  rained after  lunch at Nimrana Fort ," the Netted Blouse started. 

"What do you call this?" I asked him, offering a cigarette,a match box, a Talisker and the Engagingly  Buxom .

 "Oh, this is  called Mitti Attar,'' he announced through a smoke, " you can also call it itr-i-khaki."

" More like Attar -i- Akhiri Hansi," I muttered as I saw Bhaiya  Last Laugh his way with  the Engagingly Buxom in tow.

The Beautiful Game

     It was in 1971 that I picked up my first football hero- Warren de Prazer, with Elvisesque sideburns, rumoured to have been 23 years old in Class XI, and my school captain. He looked something like 7 feet tall but  I can't be quite sure because  to any seven year old, the boys in Class XI never looked to be under six. Herded in single files from our primary section for  the 3 to 3.45 pm afternoon matches, I  just adored him. De Nobili never lost a match at  home that year -  at least in the matches I kept vigil . And I never missed a single day in school that year. 

     The captain in 1972 was Derek Hamilton, not as tall as Warren ( probably because I had also grown an inch or two over  the year) and started off well. But when on a drizzly morning  we played host to St. Vincent's and  lost 4-0, with poor Madhususdan of Class VIII under the bar, I wept inconsolably and declared Derek to be a mere mortal.  It would take me over a decade after that  to have another genuine football hero.

     I did play football, loved the game passionately, and even watched the Seven A Side tournaments in my local mohalla.  The football matches were also  occasions to enjoy the rains and slush- the usual schoolboy's delights. My Bengali friends who wore their pants from their navels,  buttoned their collars, ate too many  boiled eggs and were bananas about  fish,  harmonia and tablas excitedly talked about a few  star footballers  from the three Calcutta Clubs.  But I could neither  follow Bengali commentary nor read  Bengali print in Jugantar. I was also not one for this low level equilibrium trap of stardom, and when Sardar Inder Singh's Punjab blanked Bengal 6-0 in Santosh  Trophy in 1974, I ceased to think much about the Maidan Clubs or their stars like Subhash Bhowmick, Samaresh, Habib,  et al. More often, the Maidan violence would make as much news as football and even a match between Mohun Bagan and Cosmos did not do much to change my affection for the Maidan stars.

     Meanwhile I  continued to follow World Cup quadrennially since 1974 and my first favourite team was Holland under Johan Cruyff. The 1978 World Cup was as famous for an Argentine triumph as it was  for the mysterious 6-0 victory over Peru,  and had thrown  up a moustachioed star in Mario Kempes . The  1982  was memorable for a Brazilian team touted to be the best team which never won. It was also for the first time that I picked up a hero to cheer - Zico, also called the White Pele in a quirky race reversal. But after that, for more than a decade, and even now, it has been  the diminutive giant Diego Maradona all the way. Since then a host of stars like Ronaldo the Brazilian, Ronaldhino, Robert Baggio, Gary Linekar, Jurgen Klinsman, Kaka,   Enzo Francezoli, Schifo, Platini, Zidanne came close to him, one Lionel Messi even replaced him but none could eclipse him. He has remained there ever since, holding the World Cup with a hand that he claims was given by God.

     I was destined to reconnect with the Calcuttans'  craze for football  when I got a job  in this state and came over in 1990. Football was  as much a part of a Bengali's life as were  Ranindrasangeet, politics, Durga Puja, fish ( its smell, taste, weight and price),  bad stomach,  and homeopathy. It had given them a taste of anti colonial success which cricket never gave when in 1911 Mohun Bagan won the IFA Shield defeating  the British clubs- its enduring memory would even make up for the loss of shifting of capital from Calcutta which was announced within a few months. Football was discussed and debated- in buses, in shops, amongst hawkers of Gariahat and shopkeepers at Bata outlets and even amongst ladies waiting for their wards outside the school gates. Our son Tanuj took to this game and as parents we even went to watch a few  matches.

     Football in Bengal is absolutely crazy. The people are united in their love for football and divided over support to either  Mohun Bagan or  East Bengal. With the shifting of football from Maidan to Salt Lake Stadium, there has been  a dip in the fortunes of Mohammedan Sporting Club who no more remain the force they were till the mid 1970s. I saw this rivalry at very close quarters during the Derby or boro  matches at the Salt Lake stadium, especially during 1994 -1996. I had a  taste  of it even earlier  when I was in the city briefly in 1982 and we had won a match  against Malaysia in the Asiad. I was travelling in a Mini when suddenly  I saw an altercation because an East Bengal supporter could not stomach the comment that the goal scorer was a Mohun Bagan player. My borrowed erudition about football, Bengali nationalist movement and Mohun Bagan's 1911 IFA victory was at once put in its place by a virulently acerbic East Bengali tongue and flailing arms which pointed out that the real stars of that team were of East Bengal stock.

     But much as I could understand the passion amongst  the Bengalis for football, and even the rivalry on club lines, I could never fathom why they were so one - sided in their support for Brazil. Right from my school days, I heard my school friends support only Brazil. When I came to Bengal, the position was the same. I thought that probably as an extension of their great nationalist past and leftist orientation, the Bengalis  would root for South Americans who were the only challengers to the White European supremacy , especially the Anglo Teutonic. It was but understandable the romanticism around Che Guevara  or the love for Garcia Marquez ,  the  revolutionary and the literary in  a Bengali would egg him  to support a Latin American country- but why only Brazil I always wondered. Fine, their samba brand of artistic football , from the days of Garrincha and Pele , could make Brazil a favourite. But such  an overwhelming one? It was not quite cricket. It took the  sublime genius of Maradona and Messi to dent this support , but just that bit. 

     Couldn't there  have been any other choice? The Goans have no qualms about supporting their colonial masters Portugal so why can't  the Bengalis  root  for the English whose language they claim to  have mastered as much as any British and for whom the celebration of  Shakespeare continues to be a celebration of their own lives? What about Germany? Could not legions of Netaji's supporters pitch in for  the Germans?  And why not for Holland, my first favourite in international football  ? And couldn't anyone see that this was the weakest Brazilian side in anybody's memory? Okay, one doesn't want to drag this too much- a mother doesn't leave her weak child  after all.

     One day this all-eggs -in -one basket  madness would explode in the face. And  it did. Yesterday, the Germans blitzkrieg handed a 7-1 rout. It broke the back of a country- it shattered its most fanatical supporters. It was unprecedented, quite unexpected .  Brazil has  gone  into a national mourning, there could be some incidents of violence  and  the loss would most definitely trigger a baby boom .

    But out here, people have  reacted on fairly expected lines. The only reason for such a loss, they feel,  is that the team has been bought over.  My friend's  driver clearly stated, " Gaarmany poysha khaiyechhe oder." ( Germany has bought them over with money).

     No, this is not a one off reaction. I have seen it happen so many times and have even come up with a standard template of fan's reactions to humiliating losses  in football matches. It runs like this:

First goal- abuse the referee ( shuarer bacchaa or son of a swine)

Second goal- abuse the referee  ( Khankir  chhele) or son of a hussy,  his female relatives and accuse him of  being purchased  ( ghooshkhor  or bribe taker)

Third goal - abuse your own players and  the coach, throw the chairs from the gallery, assault  the team management and head for the Team Bus to smash it. If one could not do any of these, hang around and stay back to avoid the khisti  or  ridicule and abuse in the para, and probably inside the house by the spouse.

     I am still wondering where it all could have led had there been seven goals in that match when I had to save the Mohun Bagan players,  their bus and Tutu Bose.