Of Smelly Indians and Elephants!

Sensations can be one of the things we most take for granted. Yet there are many of us who romanticise that first gush of cool air in November in Bombay or the first drop of the most awaited rain in the hot months of July or it could be the smell of Cuticura powder that reminds you of your childhood. The point is, we are barely aware of these sensations unless they strike us in unexpected ways.

For me, there is one particular sensation that instantly makes me feel comfortable. It comes everyday when I reach home in the evening and smell the food that is being cooked for dinner. It is that beautiful smell of ginger, cumin and garlic crackling in oil with many other spices. For those of us who have stayed away from home and Indian food for some time at least, we know how comforting that smell could be. And despite walking home to this smell everyday I still appreciate it. That smell is heaven. That smell is home.

It so happened that a few months ago on an early autumn day I was at a friend’s for dinner. That night the temperature fell unexpectedly low and my friend lent me her jacket so that I wouldn’t feel cold while walking back home. The very next morning I brought it to the department so that I do not forget to give it back to her. But forgetful that I am, the jacket remained in the department room for a good two weeks before I could return it. Upon returning it, the first thing my friend did was to smell it. I could not believe my eyes! I did not know whether to be offended or appear calm. At that point, all I managed to do was tell her (with a smile on my face) that I do not smell. I did not know what to make out of that incident for a long time because she was my friend and offending me would have been the last thing on her mind. But unresolved questions have their way of getting resolved and understood in due time and for me that time came when I spent the Valentine’s Day Weekend (as we called it) in Plzen- the European City of Culture 2015.

You see, the people in my friend circle are those who have lived in at least 4 different cities in the last ten years and have interacted with people of many nationalities. And more often than not, they would talk about the strange ways of Indians and in particular, about the way they smell. This topic was brought up and discussed extensively at the dinner table on one of the nights in Plzen. Their common experience of Indians was that we always smelled of Indian food. My friend explained the jacket incident mentioned earlier saying she expected it to smell the same. At this point I remembered that some other friends had long ago told me that Indians smell of food and it dawned on me that this statement was not meant as an offence but just an observation. I know this because some of these people are crazy about Indian food.

So the primary culprit is the Indian spices and techniques we use in cooking our food. As one of them explained, some compounds of garlic, onions and a few other things pass through the stomach linings and are absorbed directly into the bloodstream causing body odour. They demonstrated this by telling how the bachelor Indians started smelling different once they got married and brought along their wives who cooked Indian food for them. They asked me if I could notice the change in the way they smelled. Obviously I couldn’t!

If you guys do not believe me check this out. Till that weekend in Plzen I did not know that a common stereotype about Indians is that we smell bad. Going through the different links that Google provided me on the subject only reassured me that-

1.    Indeed Indians smell bad and the older they get, the worse they smell. Especially men.
2.   The food is the main culprit. Too bad for Britain where Chicken Tikka Masala has officially been declared the national food
3.   That people attribute the bad smell to lack of hygiene culture in India. Indians apparently do not bathe!
4.   And Americans can be really idiotic! Not to mention extremely racist.

Well, it might be a stereotype for all we know. Or maybe we really are smelly and need a European/ American to make us aware of that fact. So where do we go from here? My solution is to liberally use my Victoria’s Secret perfume, to afford which I had to sell my kidney last summer. Once this bottle is over, maybe I will ask my friend who is an expert at making cosmetics with home supplies and natural ingredients to teach me how to make perfume so that I do not have to sell any other body part.

So while we figure out what else to do about our foul smell let me talk about this completely unrelated and hilarious issue that my Iranian friend and I cannot stop obsessing over. One of the first things I realized when I moved to a cold country is that the weather here makes your eyes water and nose run. So you always have to carry tissue with you so that you can clean your nose at regular intervals. In the beginning when I was still getting used to this I noticed that somehow I had managed to slightly irritate my friend with whom I was taking a walk. Soon enough he told me the reason. You know, how in India and many other Asian countries we softly sniff when our nose runs a little even after draining it out completely? Well, in these parts, sniffing is offensive. Especially if women do it, it is considered uncultured and unladylike.  So I asked him what to do when I do not have enough juice in my nostrils to blow it out. He said that there is always enough juice if you blow it out properly and then demonstrated that by blowing into his handkerchief loud enough for me to get shocked for a second and for my eardrums to go numb for a while. That lesson did not remain for long in my mind until last November when a series of illnesses made me have a runny nose till the beginning of January. In one of the department meetings on Monday I sniffed quite loudly (obviously like it was the most natural thing to do) and everyone just paused and looked at me. I wondered what was happening. And then my supervisor laughed and said “It’s okay Tess, we all do things in India that can be perceived strange”. It was only then that it dawned on me that the meeting had been disrupted because of my sniffing. I shared this episode with my Iranian friend who I generally go to for discussing the strange ways of the Europeans and he never disappoints me and gives me the semi-Asian assurance that I seek. That day at the dinner table he complained of people generally blowing their noses loudly at the dining table while the rest were eating and we both agreed that it’s seen as a bad practice to do it in front of people if they are eating in both our countries. Funnily, right at that moment, a friend at the table blew his nose hard enough for the whole restaurant to hear. And no, nobody blinked. Because that was a normal thing to do. Because many other people at other tables were doing the same. But, oh my, try sniffing softly and then try to ignore the stares!

As the Iranian said, when it comes to nasal etiquettes, Europeans are like elephants who blow their trumpets anytime and anywhere.

Oh, and we are smelly. Now please excuse me while I go and have some khichdi with garlic pickle. 

Until next time.