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 Erty, you know i love Fahrenheit from Dior” i interrupted

“Well i know there are few hidden jewels in hundreds of these branded contemporaries being created every year, but you need to take a step back… good perfume is not about how much it costs, or how good its bottle looks like, good perfume is about awakening old memories ,you need to feel and smell the imagination, you need to understand the story they are trying to tell in their last whispers before dying…… Ok! lets try with this one, she picked up a perfume named ‘Shalimar’ from an old french perfumery Guerlain(french-fully pronounced Gaylaa-n) and asked

“what do you say?”

I smelled the perfume, and commented, “The bottle looks pretty ordinary, and smell, it has some thing definitely flowery in it”

“your need to change your ideas about perfume and perhaps about women as well my dear,its not the bottle or outward appearance to look for, its the elixir inside which is worth enjoying. You are somewhat right about the flowery top note. This perfume was first created in 1920s by a 2nd generation perfumer and is still being preserved and produced by his fourth generation Guerlain family. It has survived the test of time and still popular, it brings me memories of my my father prime youth, his old closet of clothes still smell of it sometimes. ”

“Now can you smell this perfume again from the same place you smelled before” she asked.

I checked and was surprised to feel the flowery thing was disappearing like clouds and alot of different smells were trying to come out of that flowery wrap, as if different musical notes were trying to emerge together in a single melody.

“Now this is the middle note you are experiencing” she said ,” there are so many things happening here, abit of lavender,mint, amber , a hint of lemon i think , as if you are in a garden, alot of these things even i do not know the names, but above all, think about passing through this beautiful garden of Shalimar, commissioned by the great Mughal king to please his beloved beautiful wife…. think about the emotions of that great king having the largest army of his time waiting for his one royal order to crush the enemies but he, still feeling weak to conquer the heart of his beloved wife Mumtaz… think of the king’s pain seeing her wife still not happy even having heaps of flowers and wealth around and the king’s head at her feet…..imagine the smell of desire by Mumtaz, imagine nothingness wrapped in this rich vanilla velvety heart asking for more….. ah! can you ascertain the boundaries of desire???”

She paused a while and said ” Are you ready for the base note”

“Honestly, I dont think my imagination is flying the same altitude as yours here” i said feeling somewhat drained.

“I think so as well, and besides the base note or the last note is very personal, its where the heart of its creator lives, its like a calm quiet sea…a painting hanging for long saying so many things silently…. it is where our stories are exposed to us from deep within us, smell is all about memories you know…..these foreign smells only awake those old memories, and there is much you find from inside then from an outside source”.

“You take these stories very seriously, i never thought of these smells like this…wait a minute, is this vanilla i am smelling now or am i imagining….”

“Yes this is vanilla, forming the famous base-note of Shalimar. let me stir your imagination about vanilla. Do you know an un-plucked vanilla pod has no smell. It has to go through a long painful curing process that takes months and months, when each day the pod is sun dried, dipped in hot water and in the evening rolled in wet woolen clothes in a box and the same process repeating everyday to mature and bring the fragrance out… imagine the pain the pod goes through, imagine the pain its grower goes through in making her perfect…. and now imagine all vanilla you have ever smelled or tasted in an ice-cream or anywhere is nothing but just a cheap by product of paper industry, made from the remaining pulp leftover and processed in hours…oh I just hate commercialism sometimes….. : )”

“Perhaps you are right, commercialism sucks… sometimes…. so what do you think i should do to start my journey in deciphering these stories”.

“Not an easy short way, i think, first you need to travel to open your nose and perhaps more to open you mind……. I suggest going to Salalah in Oman and look for “frankincense”,a rubbery matter extracted by wounding a plant that grows in harsh desert environment and grows only on the hard rocks….. another option is to go to Assam or Cambodia in search of the fungus infected agar-wood tree…. or perhaps going to french Provence to get a feel of lavender fields may give you a start…….important thing is , you need to get to the roots first, before you even start understanding the stories that starts when these people from Salalah or Cambodia or France meet to create this global music, and not to mention this is just a beginning of a long story telling 🙂 ”

That night i for some reason dreamed of traveling somewhere in the Arabian desert in search of these oriental fragrances ,or perhaps in search of the understanding of all that is cooking deep inside me, hoping these smells having the courage to take out all within me………

Photo courtesy “Wikipedia – Perfume”