Smells like home

What happens when a scent that once made you self-conscious suddenly becomes aspirational? SARA HUSSAIN traces the smoky trail of oudh through memory and modernity

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Perfume is a time machine disguised as a bottle. One whiff and I'm seven again, legs swinging off my grandmother's velvet sofa in Dubai, watching her light bakhoor in a brass burner. Tendrils of smoke ribbon through the room, casting a quiet kind of magic.

Every summer holiday, I'd leave Delhi for Dubai, and for about two months, this scent was home. The city air was thick with it—the olfactory equivalent of a soft shawl wrapped around my shoulders. The souks carried hints of dried rose, spices and amber. Even the aggressively air-conditioned malls had an undertone of oudh from the burning bakhoor wafting from shops and kiosks. Oudh was tradition. And in a life of constant change between rental homes back in Delhi, this city and its fragrance was the closest thing to permanence.

Then summer would be over, and the scent, and the ease of embracing it, would disappear. The attars we brought back were used hesitantly, if at all, in public. The bottles of Abdul Samad Al Qurashi, Swiss Arabian and Ajmal Perfumes would grow dusty in dark drawers. They were too strong, too heavy, too much.