Have you ever had cream cracker biscuits
with hot tea? Specially after a bout of flu. The ones I was having, smelt of
oranges! How you may ask. Well, the canister which was used to store the cream
crackers, sometime before this momentous event, had housed orange cream
biscuits (my weakness, I must confess). With every bite of the crispy crackly
dry biscuit I smelt the whiff of orange and this made the whole experience so
much more enhanced! I am sure each of us have some experience similar to this
in other fields which makes life so much better than what it seems to be. (too
long a sentence, my English teacher would say!)
I have heard that the very poor people,
especially in West Bengal do a special thing when they are having their frugal
meal. They sit around the earthen stove where the wood tinder is still
smouldering and eat their meal of rice and very watery dal. What is special
about that? Most impoverished people do that. Well….. they throw in a bunch of
fish scales into the embers, with the fishy whiff that emanates from there,
they are able to trick their taste buds into thinking that they are having
fish. This makes the whole process of eating an insipid meal, seem delicious.
Most of us non-handicapped people take our
five senses for granted. The pleasure of existence is all due to them. It is
only when we lose any one or more of them that we value them. There are pages
of stories, reels of movies and endless T.V. Serials which deal with the matters
of the heart. Of course they talk about the metaphysical heart, not the
muscular pump that beats day in and day out to make us aware of existence. Ultimately
everything boils down to our feelings and that means our senses and that leads
to that dirty mass of grey matter housed in our head! Not on the left side of
our chest cavity!
The other day as I was walking on the
streets I got the aroma of jalebis (those squiggly mass of sweetened- fried
delicacies) I was reminded of my school days in Mathura. Every week mom would
go shopping to the small town’s market place. This was around the temple where
Krishna was supposed to have been born. The endless narrow alleys where only
cows and walkers could move about. The area was a tantalising heaven of the
smell of sweets, fried savouries and the sweet-sour smell of delicious chats (typical
of north Indian snacks). Whenever I accompanied the parents I was treated to
jalebis and Pani- puris. Just imagine a few molecules carrying the scent, could
trigger off the memories of years ago. Again a source of pure pleasure!
Like all things, these minute triggers can
affect us negatively. The smell of fire
can traumatize you or remind you of a lovely barbecue depending on what kind of
experience has made an underlining impact on your mind. Petrichor, the first
cold wind of winter or the humid breeze of the pre-monsoon period all trigger
of memories of our various experience through our lives. What makes this so
rich and exciting that every man has his own tale to tell. Rarely do you find a
similar story, but when you do, then comes a strong bonding that makes such a relationship
precious.
Every republic day during school was
associated with waking up early for the march past and flag hoisting. College,
was a mandatory exercise, which was done because we would get the rest of the
day off. As adults, it was a holiday to look forward to, though for many years
we did wake up early, attended the flag hoisting and had some celebration of
sorts. What was common through the years was the small packet of samosa and a
sweet (barfi, ladoo….) that I looked forward to. Here, as I peer into the many
buildings of the concrete city from the twenty sixth floor, I notice the
shamianas, the flags, and the loud speakers. The street boys selling the tricolour
flags and the relative peace on the road as it’s a holiday. The flag hoisting
is done at a “convenient “time of nine or ten o’clock, some children and men
sing a few patriotic songs and all is done.
I do not feel the surge of patriotism. My
heart does not turn over in the guts, as it had, when I listened to Lata
Mangeshkar’s “”ye mere vatan ke logo..” The saddest part is I cannot smell the
samosas to activate my senses to wallow in the pleasure of my past. But I do remember
the days of the revolution in Egypt and I am glad that I am safe here in my own
country as the terror attacks continue unabated the world over.
So ‘Brain’ the master of all continues to
hold all the strings of our lives and the endocrine glands continue to monitor
the Master with various doses of chemicals that they produce!
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