Every international flight I’ve ever taken to India lands between 1 and 5 a.m., and this was no different: 1:05. I’m now ensconced at my friends’ house at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi, and it’s 3:30 a.m. All I can write tonight is something that every inveterate traveler knows: the second you step off the plane in India, you know from the odor alone (even in the airport) where you are. It varies from place to place, but tonight it’s the smoke of a million cooking fires with some coal smoke mixed in. If India were a perfume, what perfumers call its “bottom note”—the dominance fragrance—would be smoke. But the top notes include rosewater and sandalwood, as well as dung and the odor of frying chappatis. Nowhere in the US or Europe smells like it.
When I looked up the weather report in Delhi the day before yesterday, it didn’t say “rainy” or “clear” or “foggy” (which it often is). It said “smoke.”
I’m delighted to be here, as it’s been 12 years since my last visit. And so to bed.
Enjoy your trip!!
So much sad news out of India recently. 800,000 infants dying each year from antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and atrocious sanitary conditions due to inadequate waste management. Don’t drink the water and don’t breathe the air, indeed.
Not being bitten by the mosquitoes which haven’t cleaned their proboscis since their last meal would be a good idea too.
The smell of a place is remarkable. I spent some time living and going to school in East Africa in the mid-late 60’s. For years after that my most vivid memory was the fragrance of the highland air (Kenya/Uganda). Sadly, the fragrant memory eventually faded.
Two opposite ends of the smell spectrum. I have the fondest olfactory memories Kitale, Eldoret, Limuru, and Kericho – crisp clean air, wafting fragrance of eucalyptus trees, and endless green expanses of tea plantations. And then there are memories of India – a continuous burnt smell interspersed with the fetid odor of poorly maintained sewers. It’s a smell I associate with cacophony, untidiness, non-existent social discipline and prolonged bronchitis. Most Indian cities are true dumps even by third world standards.
Hahaha, have fun!
i guess it’s no surprise when someone whose job it is to make up BS makes up BS about the BS of someone else whose job it is to make up BS. Still. I think the wise answer would have been “no comment.”
Oh my gosh! Stupid WordPress – that’s meant for a different thread. Please ignore.
Have a fun and safe trip, professor!
I was wondering why you were bringing theology into this discussion!
Oh, I thought it was me and you were being “deep.” Find the connection, Sastra, it has to be there …
I wonder if some recent strands of sophisticated theology ever got started because someone commented in the wrong thread.
That’s what’s great about TS: there are no wrong threads!
Sub
Welcome to jet lag city.
Growing up in El Paso, TX, Ciudad Juaraz provided a very distinct set of smells I have never smelled except in other places within Northern Chihuahua, Mexico. Sometimes burned trash, different woods, a little coal, blanched corn and tortilla materials, raw textile materials, leather and oil, tires, sulfur…just to name a few. Hard on the eyes and not good for asthma.
I’m glad you arrived safely.
My sister and her boyfriend (now husband) spent seven years after Uni travelling to and working in every place imaginable. What made them come home? Well, they’d been in India for three weeks, at this very time of year, and despite their experience, they managed to eat the wrong thing . . .
Glad you arrived safely. One of my Indian friends was home in the summer. “You’re going in the summer!?” I gasped when she told me because I, personally hate hot weather. She told me she had no choice because of her kids being in school. When she came back, she said she’s never returning home in the summer again!
I hope you have a great time.
Have a wonderful time!
Years ago I left a bad situation in Chicago area for a more promising situation in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Several factories (including Quaker Oats) are located around the city, giving it a distinct odor (well, many distinct odors, depending on the wind direction.) To me, it was the smell of freedom.
Plus the downtown sometimes smelled like oatmeal cookies.
My old home city, Norwich, used to smell of beer from the brewery or chocolate from Mackintoshes sweet factory – now both long gone – alas!
Some of Milwaukee’s lost smells…. Ambrosia Chocolate had their factory downtown. A wonderful fragrance! Also, along Red Star Yeast was located next to the freeway and always gave you a punch of fragrance when you drove past. When I was a kid I didn’t like it at all, but later grew to love it.
Then there were less pleasant odors… slaughter houses, tanneries, and sewage treatment in the Menomonee Valley used to make that area ghastly at times. Happily those odors are now gone.
I’ve been to India a couple of times. It’s an amazing place, but very confronting (this seems to be the word du jour for this kind of thing). Entire villages of people living under overpasses, on a mountain of plastic bags, was the thing that stays in my mind, along with the traffic, which is insane. The food was fabulous. Don’t miss the tandoori prawns Jerry, they’re fantastic.
You should read Behind the Beautiful Forever by Kathryn Boo!
Exactly what I was thinking.
One of the best books I read last year:-)
An absolutely riveting book. Can’t recommend it highly enough.
Added to my Goodreads list!
Enjoy! I envy you… 🙂
India presents an interesting conundrum to us atheist biologists/conservationists. If ever there was a place that should be an environmental disaster, India would be it. Yet because of Hindu mythology, the vast majority of the people do not kill and eat the large mammals of India. They often do not even kill tigers and elephants, even though these animals kill hundreds of people every year. Compare this to our own treatment of grizzlies, wolves, etc. Large mammals, including ones with the power to kill humans, can be found very close to major cities. Here perhaps is a place where, at least with respect to conservation, religion has had more positive effects than negative ones, and probably a more positive effect than atheism would have. Something to think about with respect to some of Jerry’s posts of the last few days.
You so often have the most thought-provoking posts. I really enjoy them.
And this makes for an interesting trade-off, because of (say) the history of sutee, the caste system, etc. are filled with bigotry and violence. How do we compare?
So–if I researched it right–you’re only about 1.5 hrs off from being exactly opposite Chicago, time-wise. That must be interesting…
Never been to India–looking forward to your posts!
SONG OF INDIA
Music: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, from his opera “Sadko”
Modern Lyrics: Johnny Mercer
An outstanding vocal version by Mario Lanza easily-enough found on Youtube. Mel Torme in his book “My Singing Teachers” (?) said he didn’t care for Lanza’s version. Okie-Dokie, Mel. In any event, Mel spoke highly of Mercer’s lyrics.
I think Mercer’s lyrics and Lanza’s vocals respectfully capture exotic India.
And still the snowy Himalayas rise
In ancient majesty before our eyes,
Beyond the plains, above the pines,
While through the ever, never changing land
As silently as any native band
That moves at night, the Ganges Shines
Then I hear the song that only India can sing,
Softer than the plumage on a black raven’s wing;
High upon a minaret I stand
Upon an old enchanted land,
There’s the Maharajah’s caravan,
Unfolding like a painted fan,
How small the little race of Man!
See them all parade across the ages,
Armies, Kings and slaves from hist’ry’s pages,
Played on one of nature’s vastest stages.
The turbaned Sikhs and fakirs line the streets,
While holy men in shadowed calm retreats
Pray through the night and watch the stars,
A lonely plane flies off to meet the dawn,
While down below the busy life goes on,
And women crowd the old bazaars;
All are in the song that only India can sing,
Softer than the plumage on a black raven’s wing;
Tune the ageless moon and stars were strung by,
Timeless song that only could be sung by
India, the jewel of the East.
Alternate [Lanza] version :
And still the snowy Himalyas rise,
In ancient majesty before our eyes,
Beyond the plains, above the pines.
While through the ever never changing land,
As silently as any native band,
That moves at night, the Ganges shines.
Then I hear the song that only India can sing,
Softer than the plumage on a black raven’s wing.
High upon a minaret I stand
And gaze across the desert sand,
Upon an old enchanted land
There’s the Maharaja’s caravan,
Unfolding like a painted fan,
How small the little race of man.
See them all parade across the ages!
Armies, kings and slaves from History’s pages,
Laid on one of Nature’s vastest stages.
The turbaned Sihks and beggars line the streets,
While holy men in shadowed calm retreats,
Pray through the night and watch the stars,
A lonely plane flies off to meet the dawn,
While down below the busy life goes on,
And women crowd the old bazaar,
All are in the song that only India can sing,
India, the jewel of the East!
Hope to go to India some day. Closest I’ve gotten is Sri Lanka when I was in the Navy in the 80’s.
That’s one of the really cool things about the Himalayas: they are still forming! India first hit Asia fifty-something million years ago, and the collision is still in progress!
I remember when I went to the Soviet Union in 1981 – my forst trip abroad – thinking that it smelt very peculiar, at least around Moscow. I think it was the Power Stations & the diesel fuel but I cannot be sure…