Fragrant memories

Nostalgia can be your worst opponent and at the same time your best friend. At times when you are neck deep in work, shifts, patients, a glimpse of the same royal blue shirt or sniffing a simlar incense stick can take you to the bygone lanes and forgotten moments. Blame it on your senses, you see something and you reminisce, you smell something and your head is spinning in good times, you hear a familiar phrase and instantly remember where and when did you first hear it.
The crux of the story is that our senses define our existence.

Childhood is the phase where we are constantly building memories, and if we knew we would be surviving on the same memories we would have strived harder to memorize the details.
Gone are the days when the whole summer vacations were spent at Nani's place (matrernal grandmother). We could sleep all we wanted without being yelled at ,"You are getting late for school, get up!!!"
We woke up with hot aroma of french toast wafting from kitchen along with omelettes. The rose -jasmine incense stick burning gloriously and declaring that Nani had already taken bath and conversed with The Almighty. On hugging her the soft and sweet smell of the old , original Ponds talcum powder filled your nostril and you hugged her a little longer just to inhale the fragrance, which was 1000 times better than any perfume or deodorant.
I dont eat eggs any more but whenever I smell omelettes being cooked I recall each and every moment spent with my Nani.

Nostalgia can be your worst oponent and best friend. You are getting ready for work, rushing , hurrying to reach on time, when it starts raining heavily. Petrichor drowning your soul and flying you back to a rainy evening spent below a tree in lonavala, with the only person who mattered most, eating corns and talking seamlessly.
You are getting late for the work, but you still smile at your own reflection lost in time.

Mom enters the kitchen in morning and you are following her all the way from bathroom sniffing her wet, shampooed hair. You are trying to save a piece of her for the times you will be away from her in the hostel.

You find a pen to jot down a phone number when a familiar fragrance takes over your senses. The pen was given to you by your ex which was lucky enough to be placed in his pocket, near to his heart and received some liberal sprays of the perfume your ex used. The relationship vanished but not the memories. Nostalgia can be your worst opponent, it can make you stand to a complete stranger at a paan tapri and inhale the poisonous goldflake being smoked by the stranger, just because your ex smoked the same brand. Ofcourse, the stranger will assume you to be a mental case instead of senti.
Theres so much more to the sense of smell. A rose reminds you of the anonymous bouqet placed in your kinetic on valentines day long ago.
The smell of cumin seeeds in ghee reminds you of your kitchen.  Ethanol or spirit which I get to smell on a daily basis always takes me back to the chemistry lab in school and the bloopers we did.
Coconut oil reminds me of the group oiling sessions in hostel where we gossiped like crazies on saturday nights.
The vanilla smell has recently become synonymous with my cute and sweetheart dog, murphy coz yhat is his favourite flavour when it comesto biscuits and bones (dont look so bewildered , there are vegetarian vanilla bones for dogs..)
I could go on and on...but as I said earlier nostalgia is your worst opponent and your best friend...I should stop reminiscing and focus on my duty.