The scent of a city

When I was growing up, my neighbourhood library had these international fashion magazines that, apart from the glossiest pages and the most beautiful people I had ever laid eyes on, had something even more special—a ‘smellgram’. It was an extended bit of the page that was neatly folded, with instructions to peel open and sniff.

That was how big perfumeries spread the word and scent of their latest creations. You rubbed that folded bit of paper on your wrist and sniffed in awe as it conjured up faraway destinations full of lithe women and gorgeous men looking piercingly at each other against spectacular skies.

In my mind, I was instantly transported to exotic walled gardens and images of places that were always a bridge too far.  This was obviously before air-fares became cheaper and the so-called global village happened. Now we pass through not-so-exotic but impressive duty-free zones where eager saleswomen call out to us to try a million colognes and clouds of perfume hang low and seep into our clothes without asking.

My olfactory senses have always been heightened. In fact, there are some who have nicknamed me ‘the bloodhound’. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that when I enter the lift, I know if it’s the 4th floor below me or the 7th floor above me who has just exited, based on the traces of Clinique, YSL or the humbler Fogg. But I digress.

The reason I speak about my sense of smell is because it has been honed by the aromas of food that I learnt to identify throughout my childhood. When you love food as much as I do, you learn that all the elements of a dish—aroma, taste, ingredient, technique—add up to something greater than nourishment. They tell stories. For me, these are the stories that make up the fabric of cities.

The connection between food aromas, emotions and events has been widely researched and it is proven that smells are linked to significant memories. I have a whole world of fragrances trapped in my mind, and when triggered, each one unlocks a memory.

Sometimes when I walk into the older parts of Bombay, more than peeling paint and old faces, it’s the aromas wafting out of tiny kitchen windows that take me back to a time when this city was all about open front doors and shared plates of food.

The chawls that still exist in pockets of this city are testament to this sharing, and to the larger story of migration into the city. One room is all a family of five or six had, so the women of the house eked out small corners for kitchens to make sure everyone had enough place to sleep at night. Predomi-nantly Maharashtrian neighbourhoods like Lower Parel, Dadar and Girgaon, where chawls still exist, are fascinating.

These beautiful bits of the city’s architectural and cultural heritage are giving way to high-rises. Why we have this obsession for knocking down homes with character and building nondescript towers is beyond me! Ironically, when we visit far-flung Europe, we marvel at and live in their carefully preserved centuries-old homes converted into Air BnBs.

Most of the chawls were built in colonial times and housed hundreds of textile mill workers, mainly from the Konkan belt of Maharashtra. When the mouth-watering smell of coconut chutney and ghavne (a softer version of the dosa) wafts around me, it isn’t just breakfast that’s calling. It is the story of a Konkani man, pulled away from his hometown of swaying palms and shaded supari groves who is reminded of the comfort of sitting under his tiled-roof house each time he dips the ghavne into the delicious green chutney.

A simple taste of home before he sets off to the noisy, soulless factory that will consume his day. It is also the story of the cruel death of these mills, the loss of livelihood, and the families who stayed on, making Mumbai their home and giving their children the best education within their means.

The next generation is indeed well-educated, they have good jobs in the city, but their food and its aromas are thankfully still unchanged. As I walk down these gullies, the scent of poha, coconut-based gravies and the unmis-takable spice mixtures of the Konkan belt takes me back to that long-ago time of the matriarch’s soft, faded sarees and the hubbub of chawl children playing their way through the long corridors.

The other thing that aromas do is that they mingle to form a symphony that is unique to a street or locality. It’s like a guessing game you play as you walk, following the scents, figuring out which community dominates, and which ones have amalgamated into the milieu.

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A prime example in Mumbai is Byculla (which my grandfather used to tell me reminded him of a similar set up in Kharagpur, West Bengal). A walk through the lanes of Byculla at any time of the day is an absolute delight.

The aroma of wood-fire baked chicken patties from Regal Bakery, the locality’s almost century-old Irani café; the intense meaty scent of kebabs grilling over charcoal in the Muslim area; the sizzle of fried fish from Mangalorean homes; and the mellow fragrance of yellow dal and ghee from the Hindu neighbours—all come together to create this heady melange that I can almost see assembling on my imaginary plate.

What’s amazing is that not one of the smells overpowers the other. They seem to speak, listen and fuse to form a rich olfactory ode to India’s deeper story of unity in diversity.

Sharing food has historically been the way Indians break the ice with people of other faiths and cultures. Never ordered in. Never bought from the newly opened French/ Italian-style patisserie. Home-cooked, from a recipe passed on from generation to generation, giving the receiver a welcome unique to your family. A demonstration of both pride and warmth.

I have lost count of the number of times I have walked through fishing villages, dargah streets lined with sweet shops, and quaint gaothans (East-Indian villages in Mumbai) sniffing the air and smiling like a Cheshire cat. Even peeking into kitchens and cauldrons—only to be invited in for a taste. I must seem either terribly malnourished or overwhelmingly curious to be allowed into these homes where I’m invariably offered a small helping of whatever is cooking. India for you? Yes, please.

You’ll find that in areas where the community spirit is strong, the children are the first to have favourites among their neighbours’ culinary creations. Dishes that probably aren’t made in their own homes are eagerly awaited when their redolence fills the air with the unsaid promise that some of it will be shared, sent over or swapped at some point that day.

As a friend of mine in Chandigarh once explained to me as I looked longingly at the baingan ka bharta his mum had lovingly made being handed, literally on a platter, to the neighbours. There I was eagerly waiting to devour it, and there she was, gladly receiving another dish in return. Which turned out to be—and that’s when my jaw dropped—baingan ka bharta!

My friend’s reasoning was simple. Like our people, no two bhartas in India are the same, and so the two mothers simply swapped the dish, knowing fully well that each would be totally different, a welcome treat for the other’s family. I think of this as India’s intangible cultural heritage. Our tables may be set differently, the ingredients may be added in a different order, but the fact is we can still identify a home and its people by the smells emanating from their kitchens.

That’s not just heart-warming—it’s a heartening sign of our uniquely Indian plurality, and how deeply ingrained it is for us to acknowledge it in something as fleeting as a wisp. 

(DENISE D’SILVA is the author of Beyond Curry Indian Cookbook, and co-founder and creative head of Hyphen Brands)