SCENTED STORIES

Ever paid heed to what your Deepavali smells like? Here are Chennaiites, recollecting and distilling them into bottles of memories

- DIYA MARIA GEORGE

CLOSE your eyes. Inhale.. What do you smell? Not the grand, obvious things, but the whispers in the air, the ghosts of festivities from the past and the present. For a festival of lights, it is remarkable how deeply Deepavali is etched in our minds often as a potpourri of smells.

CE set out to bottle this essence, asking Chennaiites to share the scents that define their Deepavali. The responses were not just a list of aromas, but a collection of core memories and personal histories from across cultures.

A feast of fire

For publicist Nupur Pagawad, Deepavali is a more visceral, thrilling, and sometimes frightening affair. Her memory is a bustling kitchen scene. “The aroma of chakli, oil, ghee, sweets, and karanji comes to my mind the moment I think of Deepavali.” But this culinary warmth is contrasted by another, more dangerous scent. “Apart from the food, what strikes me the most is the smell of crackers.”

Nupur recollects, “I once saw someone burn his eye while lighting a firepot, and during Laxmi Pooja, a rocket even set my window curtains on fire. Deepavali does scare me when it comes to crackers, but despite that, it still manages to light up the entire atmosphere.” Her neighbourhood was a symphony of sizzling ghee from shankarpali and the “sharp smell of gunpowder.” She even detects the scent of the impending celebration in the very dust of pre-festival cleaning and the “faint smell of sweat that signals Deepavali is on its way to make it hotter.”

Sacred smells