Sights, Sounds and Smells

Has it ever struck you that how people and places can be uniquely identified based on how they look, sound and smell?

Isn't it amazing more in the case of places?

The feeling of the salt in your hair on a beach, the smell of fish cooking from a bengali's house, the sound of the morning aarti bells from a temple, the sight of a whole city lit up in the night!

I have always felt that India is the richest when it comes to the diversity and the peculiarity of the varied sights, sounds and smells. I do not think there exists another nation so pregnant with such sensory stimulation.
And the truth of the fact strikes you the most when you are returning from an alien (read phoren) land :). I am sure my fellow "desis" will nod their heads in agreement (and amusement). The first proofs of this are available at the airport itself.

So, this time when I landed back from my transatlantic vacation - mind warped in the rapidly changing time zones I had travelled through - as I dazed through the ramp, I heard a 4-year ABCD (yes, american born confused desi) kid exclaim in a very matter-of-fact tone, "Now, this smells like India!".
Smart kid, I asserted to the slightly embarrassed parents. It was raining, and the muffled smell of wet cement and an unhealthily moist carpet, familiar to every Indian who has experienced the proverbial Indian monsoons, wrapped the air.

I, almost instantly, realized that actually there has been no other place where I could have landed and proclaimed "Now this smells, sounds, or looks like xyz". I mean you cannot distinguish HongKong and USA at the airport - There is this antiseptic sanitation - you cannot feel anything specific to that place - there are generic expected noises and sights - no smells (which believe me is very pleasant, and no am not complaining about that :))!

Forget the airport, most fast paced cities in the developed and advanced nations look so same - you visit one and then the other and the other and there is this characteristic cloning.

It never seizes to flabbergast me how even the various Indian metro cities still manage to have their distinct characteristics that attack, revolt, and please your senses alternately.

Where else in the world would you land and be welcomed by the smell of bidis from an open construction site (Delhi airport), the shouts of "gents and ladies separate line please for security" (Hyderabad airport), the gentle chiding of the security guys, "madame no need to take out laptop" - so what if the board says so (Mumbai airport), the strong smell of jasmine flowers from the masses who have come to receive a single member at the middle of the night (Chennai airport), and ofcourse, the sight of thousands of black and yellow auto rickshaws and taxis whose drivers in khaki uniforms create a stampede to invite travellers (Chennai airport again)!

My musings were suddenly interrupted by the blackout because of a power cut.

"Welcome to India", many co-passengers joked as we went on to face shortage of immigration forms, soaked luggage, and continued power cuts at the airport, but that is a different story, isn't it? ;)