Smells

I was 10, my brother was 13 and we were swinging on the main gate of our ground-floor house in Kalkaji (Delhi) on a typical summer day.

The conversation that day was unusually serious. You see, most of our friends were like us - middle class with middle-class names like Bittu, Shanti and Titoo. But that day we were talking about our other friends. Friends who went for vacations abroad, friends who had houses with a separate bedroom for each family member. We were not talking about how rich they were. At that age, everyone is rich!

We were talking about their smell! They (the rich ones) always smelt so nice!

My brother and I had very little exposure to the materialistic world back then. So less that we didn’t even know perfumes existed. Dad used an aftershave but that was different. That was if you shaved! How do our 10-year-old friends smell so good? Maybe God made these rich people like that only - Nice smelling people!

My brother came up with a plan to mix a few drops of Dad’s Old Spice after-shave into a bucket of water and take a bath. So we did! And there it was, for a brief moment, that nice smell. Excited we went out to play football, deliberately standing close to others.

However, we got so engrossed in the game that after a few minutes, the smell didn’t matter. We forgot about the smell. Perfumes don’t help you play football better :).

The game mattered more!

Both my parents were teachers

Growing up the smell of books was always in our house. Not the novels. Academics books. However, my initiation into reading was through comics. Wish I could say it started with Tintin or Asterix but it was more like Chacha Chaudhary and Sabu ki Waapsi.

In those days, book rental shops were a thing. I would go pick one every week and then would plonk myself on my bed and read them while Mom would keep bringing something to eat. Over the years and decades, I lost that smell. Progress brought technology and technology brought Kindle. But even today, sometimes, when I open a new book, close my eyes and smell it - I swear I can smell that moment of sitting on my bed and Mom making snacks in the kitchen.

It was a smell that said - the world is a safe happy place!

I went to a regular school, with regular teachers and regular students

What made schooling special was sports. From very early in school, I was part of the football team. That meant that while regular school started at 8 am, the football team had to be there at 6 am for practice. Those days parents were not so paranoid as they are today. So I could take a public bus or ride my bicycle to school. We would reach the grounds when the dew was still there. The smell of wet grass. For some, it is the smell of peace and tranquillity. For me, it has always been associated with rigorous football practice. Sitting with the team on the wet grass after a hard round of football practice. The smell of competitive spirit.

The smell of belonging to a team!

When I graduated from school, I went to Bangalore to do my engineering.

Our college was on the outskirts of Bangalore, surrounded by greenery. Bangalore also was different then - not yet corrupted by IT-fuelled growth.

One day. I was sitting alone in my hostel’s common TV room, watching songs on a 21-inch TV. It was raining outside, and the song from the movie Bombay - ‘Tu Hi Re’ was playing. Outside the window, I could see dark skies. I was graduating from college in a few days. I went towards the window and took a deep breath in. Ah, the smell of rain. Have you ever experienced a moment that you know you will remember forever, even while you are in the middle of it?

In a few days, I was about to head into the real world. I had no idea what to expect. I did not know what my place would be in the world. I did not even know if I had any talent to make anything of myself.

The smell of rain always reminds me of that moment.

Just a young boy hoping it would all work out

A few months later I was sitting in another room. A new world - MBA

And she walked in. I don’t remember the smell of the perfume she wore as we became friends or even what she was wearing when we got married. I don’t remember the name of the perfume she asked me to get from my first international trip. All I know is that she has spent two and a half decades with me and through it all, the only clear smell I remember is that of honesty, compassion, friendship and love. 23 years ago she brought into this world the smell of a baby, our son. He exists in only 2 smells now - the smell of sweat from his gym practice or the smell of fancy deodorants. But the smell I remember is his smell when he was a baby.

The smell of love, innocence and responsibility all rolled into one

Somewhere in the process, corporate life happened.

The smell of suits, laptops and fancy offices. The smell of hotel rooms, of different countries, of airports and airplanes. The smell of progress from a Fiat to a Santro to a Ford to a Honda to an Audi. The smell of success. The smell of illusion. That fake smell. It’s the kind of smell that changes you as a person. Change your priorities. Makes you forget all the other smells in your world and makes you a slave of that one smell - the smell of money.

After 18 years of that corporate smell, I gave it up in 2016.

The day after I left corporate life, I found myself sitting in Starbucks. I was about to become a standup comedian.  As I sat in that coffee shop alone, I was scared, excited, energised and unsure. All those feelings merged into one smell - The smell of coffee.

I spent 2 years working out of that Starbucks. I started my company there. I cracked my first deal from there and I wrote my first original joke there.

The smell changed. Now it is the green room smell. The smell of stage. The smell of fans taking pics. When the jokes land and people laugh, the room has a unique smell. The smell of you changing the mood of strangers with just your words. It is a beautiful smell.

I work from a different place now but I still go back to that particular Starbucks every time anything big happens in my life and career. That smell of coffee for me is the smell of finding my purpose. Purpose that brought clarity.

Clarity on the smells I should focus on and the ones I should let go of

I was 10, my brother was 13 and we were swinging on the main gate of our ground-floor house in Kalkaji, Delhi on a typical summer day…. on our way to find our unique smell in this world.