How does one essentially smell routine or crisis or pandemic? The very familiar scent of spices dashing with one another, as if at war, while being sautéed thoroughly in that deep, elegant black utensil. Maybe that’s how! What is cooking you want to know? Oh the usual, daal and chawal in a very Gujarati Bohra kitchen. The look of the kitchen is somewhat modern, you know white ceiling with a dash of two orangish warm lights? Although the wafting aroma is very very traditional. The woman chopping onions smells of sweat and red anger, while the girl seated rather comfortably on the dining table chair, cupping Azar Nafisi’s ‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’, embraces a rather calm aura.
One can also smell the leftovers of last night’s bitterness in the air; you know the quarrel over a mere task of who’s cleaning what. The next day often carries a fresh aroma, like that of peppermint? Or maybe lavender? I suppose peppermint! It is indeed soothing. What else is soothing is eucalyptus and frankincense, the healing mix, often accompanied by a round of frustrated dullness and ever streaming tears. Oh, when you breathe in… how? Well, I’ll show you, take a deep breath in, let your stomach jut out, yes, exactly like that. Let the divine mix touching the air; mingle with your breath, and release, just like that, with your stomach pulled in.
As if falling in line, Tasneem Dilliwala, our dear protagonist, will take up the washing-vessels chore, no more inciting her mother’s chilly fury. The lemony fragrance of the dishwashing soap will accompany her less anxious self throughout the day and many more days to come. While she scrubs and scrubs, trying hard to erase the black stains on the dirty vessels arranged one on top of another, her mind will wander aimlessly around more fortunate times. Transported into her sweet nostalgia, a land of brewing hot coffee and less angry bubbles, she is wrapped around by a spicy and fruity aroma, as if she is strolling inside a vineyard or it could be a cafe. Ah! The reckless freedom to stroll, to do just as one pleases, to touch whoever and whatever one deems fit. A pop up on her phone stuns her back into this grid existence. It is the news of that journalist, steeped in prejudice. This time she seems to be arguing with a passionate aggressiveness about a certain case which has taken to sudden infamy.
Alerted by the plopping of the tap water, her tiny fingers circle around the tap, closing it tightly and inviting yet again a citrusy silence into the room, as is already in her life. Inhaling anxious musty shallow breaths, the room reels around her, rotating in a fashion, occasionally familiar. Round. Round. Thud! She falls dead to the unbearable silences of mundane existence that gathered around her life, like folds collected on a ball gown.
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