Perception of Smell

Perception of Smell, when sensed gives a sensation of something that goes deep within your hearts and minds. Smell is what primarily makes us judge a place. A trashcan with the scent of Jasmine won't be as much untouchable as when it smells like actual trash.

In the morning, the only thing that varies from the changing roads and landscapes outside the vehicle is the smell we perceive from every other area the bus ventures in. Through the window, the breeze smells like freshly mowed grass with a tinge of jasmines and mogras. The flower vendors transporting themselves and their stock, bags and baskets overflowing with beautiful flowers and gajras would smell like fresh river and flower-valleys amidst the mountains. Whereas, the petty labourers still smell like sweat, what they would smell like after a long day of hard-work. Poverty doesn't really allow much for you to spend on menial things as washing clothes. It is not pity that you feel, but it is the sense that the nation still has hard working people who don't really bother about their physical state, but their ability to work and contribute more and more and more.

The sweet smell of cologne from the elite class, heading to their Air Conditioned offices, hard sprayed deodorant from the young students, and a very plain bodily essence from kids explain how the haste of the generation progresses the change in the society. Each smell is derived from different people of different backgrounds doing different work, but all of them sometimes give a feeling of the destruction of what the natural breeze smells like. And it is heavenly.

Vada and Samosa has been creating a difference between the two genres of humans in India. The North Indians and the South Indians. But them being freshly made around the corners and roundabouts on the streets direct our senses to the majestic food of this great vibrant nation. It may have created thousand of stereotypes on food, colour and occupation, but what makes us stand together is that we are all one nation, and the love we have for the cuisines of each other, especially the lofty smell of the street food.

In the evening, the smell perceived is a billion times different to what is sensed in the morning. Sweaty armpits, soiled shoes, smoke and pollution, concreted earth, burned rubber is all what you can sense through your nose. While being rubbed onto a sweaty and smelly arm, struggling to find a window to get some fresh air, only to realize that outside the window all you can smell is Carbon Monoxide and dirt. The office bags, stinking shoes, give an idea of how exhausting it is for everyone living in this city.

When it rains, the smell of wet soil gets around everywhere, with dirt on hard concrete to mix up and smell like something even better than cologne. And it is not anytime long to see rains in Bangalore. When it is in morning, it doesn't make much difference, but in the evening it actually serves and is sensed as a huge relief to smelly seats and soiled shoes. Each one of us have always wondered and wished to have a perfume scent similar to what it smells after it rains after long.

The sensory perception of Smell sometimes bounds our emotions to be biased about some certain negative factors while ignoring the positive ones. The prejudices we generate within ourselves over the greasy and rotting smell from the decaying foam within the seats; we actually ignore over the beautiful scent of the Gajras aboard the bus with them. Thy it is really much of a wonder how different your nose can perceive what goes around in the surroundings while on board 369E, commuting to the place we actually get to travel for. But it is kind of every day for Bangaloreans, thy very much sensitive towards it.