What’s That Smell?

“What’s that smell?”

“Eh?”

“There is some smell!”

“Oh?”

“It’s like socks or something…

“Socks smell!  That reminds me of the computer lab in my college where…”

“Maybe it’s the carpet.  They are quite old!”

“… our shoes had to be… wait… eh… what…?”

“I want to get them changed, what do you think?”

“Eh?  Oh!  I… er…”

“Maybe we should just replace them all with hardwood…”

“Oh?”

This totally two-sided conversation repeats itself in our home approximately once every week.  Usually with no resolution. By the end of the conversation, one of us is generally lost in memories of smelly computer labs from one’s college days and the other is irrationally having a panic attack while forecasting the ruthless seizure of our house by giant mold patches.

Smell is a rummy business.  A human adult nose supposedly has millions of copies of about 400 intact smell receptor subtypes that are spatially distributed in a way that specific areas respond to pleasant and unpleasant odors.  Furthermore, the neuroanatomical link between olfaction and certain parts of the brain is so incredibly strong that odors can easily invoke memories and trigger strong emotions.  What makes these two physiological phenomena fascinating is that an unpleasant odor can sometimes paradoxically trigger a pleasant memory and vice versa.  For instance, the combined unpleasant scent of stale raw onions and rancid vinegary achaar reminds me of dinners with my family at a particularly dimly lit restaurant and on F.C. Road Pune.  Such restaurant visits were rare treats, and happened probably not more than 10 times in my entire childhood.  I remember I would walk excitedly into the dark dining room of the restaurant with my parents as the cold air conditioning would hit our faces along with "that restaurant smell".  I vividly remember eating malai kofta or some similar brown substance and pineapple raita with butter naan.  I also remember always wanting what my mother ordered instead of my own order.  Similarly, a particularly nice smelling perfume can trigger memories of an unpleasant person who would wear it.

I wonder if memories are triggered more readily if you have a particularly powerful olfactory sense.  Medha and I share this unfortunate blessing.  I have a sense of smell keen enough to not only identify what is cooking in the kitchen but also tell the cook of the day whether they over-salted or under-salted the dish.  Medha too has proven time and again that she can accurately guess what's for dinner by simply sniffing the air.  While Medha and I have olfactory sensibilities that are biased toward food smells, Pavana has an olfactory knack for picking out imminent unhygienic circumstances in her vicinity way more proactively than Medha or I could even imagine.  She is often found wandering around in the house with a crinkled nose, usually with a semi-planned home improvement conspiracy cooking in her mind, chanting "What's that smell... what's that smell..."