In the dog house

Lolakutty Vincent is the most benign creature to exist. In fact, my father- Mr Vincent- gives you full permission to refer to all the non-malignant tumors of the world as Lola, henceforth. (“Oh, nothing to worry about. The biopsy results came out… it’s only a Lola. Thanks for asking,” and so on…) She’s the most harmless thing in the world, after all.

Myth!  

A myth that is as fat as her mutt-ly majesty’s bum, and perpetrated by meticulously creased facial wrinkles, large eyes and a tongue that perennially hangs out her mouth, giving her the appearance of an adorable village simpleton. It works for her; she might as well wear an LED display board on her head, that says, “Love me, love me.” Everyone adores dear, overweight Lola. Precious Lola. If you ask me, her tactics are too tacky for my taste. Anyway, I digress.

Two days ago, my father wanted some help. He was undertaking the mammoth task of cutting Lola’s claws, and he needed my help. Because, you know how the sweet stream-roller gets when a clipper dares nudge her aura, let alone cut her claws. Oh, you don’t know? Let me elucidate. My father held the ‘poor pooch’, in the manner of a mother holding her infant against her shoulder. I was to stand behind him, and go for her claws ‘without her knowledge’. Only problem- her flat face was in perfect alignment with my own. I took the clipper to her paw and without much of a struggle, managed to tackle one claw. All this while, the tiny darling didn’t believe a low-life such as I would even dare complete such a daredevil act. But, the deed was done…1/20^th of it, at least. And, all hell broke loose. Lolakutty began throwing the hissy fit from hell- screaming, yelling, kicking… the works. The clipper and I had formed a cruel tag team and bothered her aura more than it could take. We were to leeeeeave, screeeech, sreeeeech, squeal, squeal,*ultrasoooooonic*. All the while, my father urged me to go for the other claws. Nu-uh, I was done. Hell hath no fury, apparently, like a woman whose nails are at peril. Destroy her soul, but not her nails.

I was dismissed. ‘Okay, I’ll cut her claws. Two or three every night, when she is asleep,’ said my dad, resignedly. Resigned not because his canine daughter was such a scheming, manipulative hag. But, because, I, Anusha Mary Vincent, his human daughter, lacked the tact and skill to cut the former’s nails. 

Later that night, the fair maiden communicated to my dad, no doubt through grunts and heavy breathing that she wanted access to my room. She had just come back from her walk (which entailed my father carrying her down the stairs and to ‘her spot’, where she would wee and poo, only to clamber back onto her master’s loving embrace, and be re-transported to her lair.) Naturally, I had to oblige. She came into my room coyly enough, with my father dotingly looking on. (Both daughters getting along and all that nonsense-joy parents derive from such things.) But, the moment the door shut, she calmly placed her huge bum smack on my feet. I must repeat; this little pest had just come back from her wee walk. Which spells two things- residual wee!!!!! She knew how anal I was about such things. I shrieked and ran into the bathroom to wash my feet. When I came back to the room, she was royally perched on my rug, throwing the smuggest looks in my direction, through her cataract-y eyes. Revenge is sweet, they say. Sweet as dog piss.

The furry female had won. I was inextricably and irreversibly thrown in the doghouse. 

My golden valentine

In the hypnotic swirl of his golden glitter I dwell, today. Interrupted only- and rather cruelly- by random reality, which prods my forebrain with multimedia precision. I brush it off with all the absent-minded impatience of a woman who waits for the sinful scarlet hour, when she can rush off to meet her lover. Not entirely an analogy, this. For, in the evening, once the mundane proceedings of the day are wrapped up and discarded in virtual plastic, I will run toward my bittersweet rendezvous with my gilded valentine.

He has always made me feel warm ‘n’ fizzy, cool ‘n’ dizzy, I reminisce with a half-smile, enjoying how the anticipation tickles its way down my back. Only a precursor to the night that will be. His dulcet voice, as on cue, will probe something awake inside me; keep me in a suspended state of blushing. I will be shy at first, look at him, from under eyelashes, and mutter that today, ‘Today, we won’t dance. We’ll keep our hands to ourselves.’ He won’t argue, but, I know, he will begin singing to me. I can discern how it will feel… so distinctly. Like swimming in a sunny sea of gentle little bubbles that will brush against my skin, soothing the bruises of banality. Like the piquant surge one experiences from an activity as simple as biting into a very virgin plum. The head rush, followed by a state of spent calm. The need for more. Eventually, I will give into his liquid embrace; watch as his fingers massage my throat, decorate it with traces of tranquility. My eyes will shut, opening only sporadically to take in his burnished brilliance. The little glands on my tongue will come alive in a karmic chorus, as they are treated to his serous song.

Quite as suddenly, he will effervesce. Pull me up out of my sweet stupor and begin twirling me about in a rush of auric ardour. Emotions will run thick, reaching an apex of feverish froth...

But, now, as my present fights relentlessly to be transformed into the past, all I have to hold on to is the shimmery, aqueous fabric of contemplation.

The golden hour arrives, ultimately. In my apartment, even as I step into my special outfit for the evening, I feel the vapid walls of the everyday closing in on me, inching menacingly toward my being. They bear rusted needles, poisoned with a serum of pure bromide. Visions of the hoi polloi- dolled up in dirty masks and filthy intent, and barking at me in fluent gibberish- begin to cloud my eyes. But, today, they all melt away like cheap paraffin. They form a puddle on the warm, iodine-rich floors of my absolute nonchalance. They sublimate. Gone; just like that.

The world isn’t a blot upon the universe. Not today. Because, in a few minutes, dressed to the nines in my favourite pajamas, I will meet him. My chilled beer. 

The geography of smell

 Calcutta is the smell of a certain fleshy, voluptuous flower that used to carpet the grounds of my favourite park. When I was young, I would fly to the city during my vacations for a few blissful weeks of being pampered, buried under new clothes, fed Gulab Khas mangoes, and taken to the park every day. I don’t remember the park’s name, but, it was somewhere near Elgin Road. Or perhaps it was in Elgin Road? That detail is unimportant… for now. However, I do remember straying away from the other kids in the park to go to the huge, damp, mossy tree that produced the exotic flower. I would squat to pick the white-and-pink beauties up, take them to my nose and be transported to some olfactory Shangri La. I would grudgingly walk towards the area that housed the merry-go-rounds and see-saws only when my aunts herded me away from ‘my spot’. They were worried, no doubt, that I was displaying psychotic, loner tendencies.

The tree was located in the corner of the park and was well-shaded by collective foliage, giving the space a dark, Secret Garden-esque feel. God, how I obsessed over that book. The city, to me, is also the smell of delicacies stewing in mustard-in-all-forms, the aroma of hot tea just as it makes contact with the miniature clay pot it is served in. It is also the not-altogether-disagreeable body odour of an old artist who rushed past me one day, when I was walking to my summer painting class, with my strictly-summer-vacation friend- Chithra.

Chennai is a nose-y bag of strong filter coffee (duh), the Cooum River, salty beach air, fishy Central station. And molaga podi (why on earth is it called gunpowder?).

People remember cities by the friends and family in them. I connect cities with smells. I remember smells before all the awesome/ disgusting memories begin to hit me. In fact, the memories come flooding in only because each of them is associated with a particular smell. Why? I don’t know. But, I reckon I was born with a giant nose for a reason.

Okay, so back to Chennai. Chennai is also the smell of home. It is the smell of confusion, for that same reason, because we went through cooks faster than we went through jeans.

Belgium, ironically, isn’t the smell of Godiva. It will always be the warm whiff of fresh Mc Donald’s French fries. When I was around 15, I did a tour of Europe with my mother. Our Sabena aircraft landed in Antwerp. After checking into the hotel, we decided to take a walk and find some food to eat. We found a Mc Donald’s (the first ever one I entered) at the corner of our street. It was a beautiful grey, chilly evening and a couple was heatedly kissing right by the entrance. It was my first experience with PDA. Once my jaw came back to my face, we entered the eatery and were hit by the delicious smell of anorexic potato fingers in the fryer. So, that’s why Belgium will always be connected to frying tubers, in my head.

Switzerland is the scent of bitter chocolate. But, not the kind that is eaten in cute, super-expensive Interlaken cafes, as tinkling cow bell sounds and fresh air are enjoyed. It was in Jungfraujoch. We'd taken that charming little train to the top, and once there, we were surrounded by a bunch of oldies. I was smugly thinking about how they were all going to pass out due to the sheer altitude and pressure. Until I passed out. I had to be revived with a steaming Styrofoam cup of bitter chocolate. When I came to, I wanted to die. “Robust tennis girl faints”. The shame.  

Scotland is the rustic tang of obese sheep and the woolen heat of a random church service in Glasgow.

Dallas is the redolence of Indian food (not deep fried chicken), courtesy the Indian couple I stayed with for a few days, before I decided to hot-foot it back to India.

Kerala is a nice bouquet of jack fruit, mango pickle, rain, a particular black insect that bit us all one year, and the heaped clothes of my cousins.

Malaysia. Anchovies. Sambal. Yuckose.

Mahabalipuram. That magical land fragranced by the sea and chewy calamari.

Thailand is an interesting olfactory mélange of galangal, overpowering drag-queen make-up and Sambuca (yes, it is an interesting story).

Bangalore. Sigh. The sweet perfume of beer, beer, beer and BACON. Makes sense, since I spent countless lazy hours in my favourite pub there- Plan B- with my partner-in-beer. Bangalore is also the lovely Lavender incense I used to burn in my room, and the kebab-scented living room.

Mumbai. I don’t remember a single smell from that city. Let’s just say my time there wasn’t the happiest. So, maybe that’s why my dear brain erased it all away.

I also associate people with smells at times. A good friend of mine is a walking bag of dust. Another pal is a tube of B&B cream. One of my old schoolmates is a talking banana. Random memories of another friend, who is thankfully no longer in touch, always hit my nose in the manner that a hard cake of dried sweat might. I also have a disturbingly vivid recollection of his ‘breath of death’. It would make me want to evaporate every time he said ‘hello’. Imagine this: let us assume the devil does not bathe or brush. Therefore, his mouth is already tarter-land. One fine day, he decides to lob a few onions into his mouth. But, before he can get into the act of chewing, he is called away on urgent business. When he comes back a few days later, he meets a beautiful woman and says ‘hi’, only to realise the onions have been happily fermenting in the acids of his cavernous cavity all the while. The woman dies a million deaths. I was always sure this friend lied about bathing. Yes, I did ask him if he bathed... of course, I cleverly masked the question. But, he lied. Unless, of course, his body produces sulphuric acid instead of sweat. Andddd, I also wondered how he got all those women... he often spoke about a time when he had enjoyed multiple dalliances. Did he lie? Or, did they all die? Leached to death by the toxic fumes? I am not being mean. You must smell this person to know what I am talking about. You don't even have to go out of your way to meet him. Any time a wind blows in your direction and brings with it a stench, it's probably our little friend exhaling.  

My daddy will always be the whiff of Brut-after-a-nighttime-shower, even though he has since shifted loyalties. Mummy is a God-scent combo of jhaal muri, Nivea cleanser and liquid kumkum. 

I remember good-looking men by the perfume/deodorant they wear, or their natural scent. Intoxicating! 

For some reason, I don’t have any specific smells for any of my best/close friends.

One of my closest childhood friends associates the smell of molaga podi with me. We were at a movie theatre recently, and wafting about amidst aromas of fresh popcorn, hotdogs and other unhealthy foods, was the smell of fresh idli podi. She turned to me and said, “That reminds me of you, Anu! You would bring dosa and molaga podi to school every day, at one point, remember?" I wish I were associated with something else. Even the comforting perfume (yes, I will call it that) of stale beer would do.