#Perfumes
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Becoming a Master Perfumer’s Apprentice
I will teach you the meaning of perfume, he said. You have to start with a name. Name is everything. Will you smell this, he gave me a smallbrown bottle to tell him whats inside? Yes you are right, it isCocoa , now will you try this second one. Something in me was telling me that I know this smell, it was pleasing to senses and homy, but I was not able to name it. It took me more than a little while to finally recall it was the smell of coffee (and for some reason it reminded me of my last morning coffee…
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Hints
Hints Like slight hints of cinnamon and cloves whispering songs of antiquity in a perfume full of wild roses of Isparta I feel you… in those hints of life. Missing… yet so much there all present , yet all hiding As if, though covered in thousand veils of silk curtains in concrete medieval fortresses in skies after skies of surrounding nudity, Yet all these efforts of veiling reveals you more and more.. Like a universe revealing itself in the eyes of the smallest Babushka doll. And I write these songs of longing and hope in pursuit of those slightest hints of cinnamon and cloves. And i wonder If , in…
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Neroli Lady….
تجھے صبح بازار میں ،بوڑھے عطار یوسف کی دکان پر ،میں نے دیکھا This morning in the bazaar when I saw you At old Yusuf the perfumer’s shop تو تیری نگا ھوں میں وہ تابناکی تھی …….. In your glance was that shine (Excerpts from N.M.Rashid’s Hasan the pot Maker) I am sitting now in this Lebanese restaurant called ‘Epidor’ in the oysterbay area of Dar es salam, and for no reason I am thinking of this Neroli lady i happen to meet in my trip to U.S. It was my last day in America before flying back to Africa, where my hosting brother took me to this old Pike-place…
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Dreams…
Aaah! the world of dreams… What a world… no body wants to come out it if inside, and no body allowed to enter once he wakes up no matter how hard he tries to stop the lights entering into the door of his eyes …. So it is in this world where the first time i found my self talking to you, in a room ful of smoky noises and dancing shadows. I didnot remember who you were,where was I and how I happened to be talking to you…it was as if I was talking to you for ages, as if I was just born in that fixed setting for…
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Samsara
I am becoming more and more engulfed with the lures of my physical senses these days. I become easily disturbed by the changing smells around as if these little yellow butterflies are hitting my nose reminding me of old memories and lonely moments, the other day i prefered to hear the slow buzzing of the sea and waited long to see the moon rising from the sea from my apartment, preferring the disgust of waiting for the moon more then waiting for my lazy existence to turn off the mute television showing meaningless images. Is it something to do with my living in africa for so long….Africa where the sense…
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Smelling the imaginition
We were walking in the long Dubai airport transit lounge when i see the shop selling perfumes and told her ” I want to learn making perfumes, someday” “You know their are more astronauts in the world then their are perfumers” said Ertyaas” “Yes, i know, but somehow i am beginning to enjoy these fragrances” “you have to start from the very basics i think, my dear”, she said and added..”First rule, stop infatuating with all the perfumes from these big fashion house and celebrity name brands…. specially the ones who were selling clothes and started selling these beautiful bottles carrying empty smells to make more money.” “That’s not fair…
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Smells, sounds, Imagination
I was wondering if it is the imagination we associate to a certain music or smell which changes it to a music of longing, or a fragrance of subtle remembrance of life. Or is it in these invisible singing birds carrying fragrances from old times and far off places which reminds us of our mute existence and paint our imagination in their own colors…Yesterday Ertyaas was preparing a potpourri with alot of dry Champa flowers she collected from near by tree, grounded fresh cloves and cinnamon from the Zanzibar island and local sea salt. She imagines the five petals of the Champa flower as the five phases of women (Birth,…
