SULAWESI FROM BOMBAY PERFUMERY
RECOMMENDED BY VIGNESH SANKAR:
This is perhaps the most literal answer I could give, but I'm going to talk about a fragrance.
A few weeks ago, while I was in Bengaluru for the first time, I stumbled across a perfume brand called Bombay Perfumery. I ended up buying a fragrance called Sulawesi. On paper, it opens with bergamot, cardamom and coriander seed, before giving way to cinnamon and warmer woody notes. I remember choosing it because it felt strangely familiar, although I couldn't work out why.
When I got back to London, my friend Jay was staying over. We were unpacking everything I'd brought back from India, and before I'd even sprayed the perfume, he looked at the bottle and said, "This reminds me of something."
About thirty seconds later, he was on the phone to his mum.
Variyali.
Fennel seeds.
The smell had unlocked a memory neither of us could quite place on our own. Suddenly we were talking about the little bowls of fennel seeds left by the till at Indian restaurants, chewing them after family meals, and all the tiny rituals you never really think about until they're unexpectedly handed back to you.
I've been wearing the fragrance ever since, and every now and then I'll catch a glimpse of it on my sleeve or scarf. It's funny how smell seems to bypass thought altogether. Before you've had time to identify it, it's already carried you somewhere else.
I think that's what I love most about scent. It has a way of reminding you that memory doesn't always arrive through photographs or conversations. Sometimes it arrives quietly, hidden inside something as ordinary as fennel seeds.
For more RECS like this one, check out the rest of vol. 009:
