BOIS INDIEN

Olfactory memory

At Dr. Babu’s home

Telling about an olfactory memory lived in India? Eh… I get a spontaneous smile on my lips. Perhaps it would be better to tell about a festival, the Elephant Festival of Jaipur in the Rajasthan region. I was there with a friend who is an expert in Ayurvedic medicine. We had an appointment with a doctor who specializes in using certain preparations to treat skin diseases, and we happened to be in Jaipur right around the time of the elephant festival. Huge pachyderms all decked out and painted were parading through the streets, dancers in colorful dresses were donating garlands of flowers, fragrances of spices and incense smoke everywhere-all this made my head spin.

We arrived at Dr. Babu’s house, and he was very hospitable and invited us to eat with him. Sharing food in India is a very important ritual. Outside the big cities it is not unusual to eat without cutlery. Their traditional medicine says that by taking food with your hand you can feel its temperature before you put it in your mouth. I emphasize hand, because only one hand is used to eat, the right. If you don’t like spicy food or spices such as cardamom and cumin, don’t go to India, it is virtually impossible to avoid them!

Having consumed the spicy meal, Dr. Babu seated us in his office and gave us a sandalwood box containing an ointment made from Ghi, a clarified butter typical of India, into which flower essences had been mixed. I don’t remember much of his explanations regarding the properties of the ointment, however, that scent has stayed with me, intoxicating, it may have been the chili pepper that stimulated my sense of smell, I don’t know, but at that moment I seemed to smell the best smelling perfume in the world.