Smelly Smell

Women love the smell of flowers, men love the smell of 50 year-old whiskey, and children love the smell of fresh rain on the mud. Although it sounds simple, is it so? Is each and every woman supposed to love the smell of flowers? What if she doesn’t like it? Take my example. I not only hate flowers but I hate their smell too. Unfortunately for me, the deodorant and perfume companies simply fail to grasp the fact that women love other smells too apart from flowers. Every time I need to buy a deodorant, I want to weep.

As soon as I enter the perfume/deodorant section of any mall, a salesman/woman will drag me to the women’s section and will start showing off their cloying fragrances to me. Usually, I just get disgusted and walk away in huff, only to barge into the men’s section.
As soon as I enter that section, salesmen get scandalized and try to divert me back to the women’s section. I specifically have to tell them that I want to buy men’s deodorant/perfume and so I am in the correct section. Then I get another typical question: are you buying it as a gift for someone? Of course not. I am buying it for myself. As soon as I give them this answer, they either look bewildered or petrified. I know, baffled and addled is okay but panicked? Startled? After receiving this kind of looks, I too started getting scared, scared of their reaction and looks. In fact, I got to the point of dreading the whole ordeal. However, I was enlightened about the real reason by my brother few months back when I asked him to get a deodorant for me. He said that those salesmen think any female who is willing to buy men’s perfume is either crazy or having a nervous breakdown. Well, to be honest, I am still not sure whether he was serious or kidding but whatever.

So just imagine my reaction when I saw the Ambipur contest wherein I was required to blog about different smells or fragrances that I get nostalgic about. Somehow or the other I have never noticed various types of smell unless anything stinks. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why I like only couple of smells?

But let’s not digress to the lack of working neurons in my nose. Coming back to the subject of nostalgic smells, to be honest I can’t think beyond the delicious smell of Pau Bhaji to get myself geared up. However, I am sure it’s not a good idea. Why? Because if I keep sniffing Pau Bhaji , I will just keep on eating irrespective of whether I am hungry or not. And given my existing flab, believe me it’s not a good idea.

So I moved on to my next logical choice: fruits. If I think of fruity smells that I am able to stand since childhood, it’s only watermelon. In fact, my love for watermelon is so legendry that nobody, and I do mean that literally, will dare to stand between watermelon and me. When I was 8 months old and I had just learnt to crawl, I used to go wherever my mom had kept watermelon and would start licking it. And if anybody dared to come within a meter of me with watermelon, I would scream my little heart out. Of course I don’t remember all this but my family never lets me forget it. As I love watermelons even today, I do believe them.

So if somebody asks me which fragrance makes me yearn for old times, it would be watermelon for me. Watermelon simply reminds me of my carefree summery childhood days when I used to play in the grounds entire mornings, come home, have lunch and some watermelon, and again go back to playing outside. In the evening, we will again have watermelons after dinner on the terrace while my mom or sister will tell me stories from either Ramayan or Mahabharat. Ah, those wonderful days when you weren’t bothered about reviews, increments, bonuses, promotions and office rivalry.

What about you? Which smell reminds you of your childhood? Please do share with me. I would love to know about them.