It's amazing how just a whiff of a familiar scent can trigger memories.
My folks lived in a house in J'puri for eleven years. There was this one huge tree just outside the house on the other side of the lane, with small white flowers that had a cloyingly sweet perfume. I never did find out what kind of tree it was. I just knew that it started to bloom every year around the Dusshera period, and the entire street used to be perfumed by its flowers every night for the better part of the winter.
I used to walk up to the house every evening after work. Every year there would come an evening when, turning the corner into the street, I would be able smell the flowers again. That would be the sign to me, that the festive season was beginning and cooler weather was in the offing. Without realising it, I had come to associate that perfume with what is to me the best time of the year.
I moved out after a few years and set up a place of my own. My parents shifted to another place a while ago, a nice place but no special tree with Dusshera-flowers. I didn't realise that those flowers and that perfume had remained in my subconscious, till today.
Walking home through the condo lawns tonight I passed a group of small trees, some with white flowers. For just a second or two, I could smell a whiff of a familiar perfume. Just for a second, and then it was gone. But it was enough to take me back in time. To a happier time. Put a smile on my face.
Memory is an amazing thing.
My folks lived in a house in J'puri for eleven years. There was this one huge tree just outside the house on the other side of the lane, with small white flowers that had a cloyingly sweet perfume. I never did find out what kind of tree it was. I just knew that it started to bloom every year around the Dusshera period, and the entire street used to be perfumed by its flowers every night for the better part of the winter.
I used to walk up to the house every evening after work. Every year there would come an evening when, turning the corner into the street, I would be able smell the flowers again. That would be the sign to me, that the festive season was beginning and cooler weather was in the offing. Without realising it, I had come to associate that perfume with what is to me the best time of the year.
I moved out after a few years and set up a place of my own. My parents shifted to another place a while ago, a nice place but no special tree with Dusshera-flowers. I didn't realise that those flowers and that perfume had remained in my subconscious, till today.
Walking home through the condo lawns tonight I passed a group of small trees, some with white flowers. For just a second or two, I could smell a whiff of a familiar perfume. Just for a second, and then it was gone. But it was enough to take me back in time. To a happier time. Put a smile on my face.
Memory is an amazing thing.
