Scent and Sensibility

Through its carefully curated range of pure, unadulterated scents, Call of the Valley hopes to reconnect city dwellers with nature, discovers ISHA SINGH SAWHNEY

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THE FLUTE BROUGHT Jean-Christophe Bonnafous to India, but scents are what carried him into the next chapter of his love affair with the country. I was leaving a party one summer, walking the streets of Mumbai, when the most magnificent smell caught me unexpectedly, and memories from my childhood came flooding back.” The smell was raat ki raani, a floral, heady and romantic scent that haunts the streets during the summer and is ubiquitous with the time of year.

His perfumery, Call of The Valley, was born in 2019, on the heels of Bonnafous’s decade-anda-half-long career as a senior disciple of flute maestro Pandit Hariprasad Chaurasia. Fragrance and music have a lot in common, this feeling of coming and fading. Smells stay longer, but have a similar ebb and flow,” says Bonnafous.