Inhale… exhale… inhale… exhale…

Sounds familiar? heh… no if the thought was that of a yoga instructor, u r way away…

This is more like when u smell any random looking thing, and suddenly ur head swings and flashes a special person, moment or place that u had been associated with, and to make sure that it is a smell u have smelt before, u inhale.. exhale…. inhale…. exhale… I am trying to make relevant, the (rather boring) research done by scientists (and they won a Nobel Prize for it too) that tried to link the sense of smell and the memory that it links to…

It has happened a lot of times with me, but particularly when it comes to my ex- girlfriends… you see, I being me (and as testified in my orkut profile) have been a Dog and hence have had the liberty to go around with more than one members of the opposite sex at different periods of time… At that time (and in the heat of the moment, following my Doggy instincts) whichever female was with me, her smell did make a place somewhere in my head. I never cared about the names of those perfumes/deos/scents or whatever ‘Eau De Toilette’ (in simple words toilet water) they used, but now it seems it might have been a good idea if I had done so then, and here is why…

When I am somewhere with a gorgeous entity (otherwise why wd I be somewhere with them!) and by a quirk of fate, I don’t quite remember her name, and God forbid, if she is wearing a ‘Eau De Toilette’ that already exists in the associative array stored in my head (umm I am at a loss of words and had to use some software terminology. L ), the only name I would utter is the one that is already in my head!!!... Many times I have mixed keertana with surabhi, ruby with ramya… and … never mind…

So here lies the problem. Since some scientists enforced the link between what u smell and what u remember, not thinking that sometimes such links are best forgotten, I have to face the music and that too of a heavy metal rock band with a female lead singer whose name and voice are similar to the femme fatale standing next to me (which alluva sudden is the only name I forgot and now remember again, but its too late any ways), singing very emotional morose songs (Alanis Morissette style) and u r the main villain in it!!!

And on the other side, u r walking in a densely crowded market, having Gol Gappe, and suddenly ur head is hammered with the pictures of a person that u had tucked away somewhere in ur head. The side effects? The Gol Gappa gets stuck in ur esophagus, u gulp it down without relishing the taste, and have to pay for one more to guarantee satisfaction…

So the real problem, now I understand, is this. This smell linking actually encourages more spending, and is a threat to the Indian economy, because we end up saving less!

Mr. Chidambaram, are u listening???