A drop of nostalgia

A whiff of Chanel N°5 L'Eau acts as a memory portal for TARINI SOOD, reminding her of the constant tussle between who we are and who we hope to become

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The way I look at it, people in Mumbai fall into two camps— those who romanticise the monsoon and those who despise its immobilising effects. I belong firmly to the latter. On one such grey Saturday afternoon, as the rain relentlessly battered my window, my mother and I resolved to make the most of our precipitation-induced confinement by tackling the long-postponed task of cleaning out the wardrobes. My maternal grandmother had passed away from leukaemia two years ago and we had been deferring the duty of sorting through her belongings for reasons only the heart can understand.

After hauling the dusty suitcases down from the attic, we began to unpack them, the off-loading causing small naphthalene balls to fall out and scatter in every direction. Gingerly, we took out the contents within: muslin storage bags with my nani’s most cherished possessions, her saris: Kanjivarams, tussar silk, cotton silk, Banarasi, chiffon, tissue and delicate lace. As I picked one up, faint traces of a familiar scent wafted through the air—her treasured Chanel N°5.

Some of my most vivid childhood recollections are entangled with this iconic scent, its elegance and poise mirroring that of my nani’s.