Sensory Maps: An Olfactory Exploration of India

Market in Jaipur, India

A Personal Sensory Experience of India

Travel through India isn't travel through India without blaring horns, cockroaches, saturated olfactory cells and sweat. The polarity of India both in experience and smell are difficult to process. When travelling there, I consistently found myself simultaneously tearing up and warm of heart. A girl begs while a flower merchant smiles. A young boy serves masala chai while vultures feed on a corpse. I ogle at market trinkets while a Mahila branded by acid burn passes by. Graffiti reads Namaste on a residence that houses gender-based discrimination. Few places in the world rival India in its sensory overload particularly smells and sound. These two only rivalled by colour in the land of Bharat. At times the odours play games with your mind at other times they form a template filled in by sight and sound and tactile elements. The smells can be as assaulting as the heat and the smog. But they also mosaic your Indian adventure. It wouldn’t be an Indian adventure without it, particularly in the Golden Triangle: Delhi, Agra, Jaipur.

I’ve heard Indians are very patriotic of their smell palate. It’s undoubtedly unique. Masala chai, incense, mange, camphor flames, spices, fried foods, cow dung, blooms. The odours are comparable to the aesthetic of the region. A direct depiction of the disparity, turbulence and sentiment of India. The land of contrasts: Bright colours and taupe, fiercely religious and farcical, enveloping kindness and visceral cruelty. It was in this land that for the first and only time I acutely experienced the smell of acrid, but also unparalleled spice blends. The smells of India conjures feelings you’ve never experienced before that have no terms to describe them. For the natives of India, I’m sure it’s all based on nostalgia.

Vegetable merchant in India

If Countries Exhibited Synesthesia

If a country exhibited synesthesia, it would be most definitely be India. Colours and smells melding with experiences and linguistics. The sound and smellscape of India is perhaps a reflection of the serene and chaotic emotion felt by the land. There exists desperation, dogged beliefs, grotesque growths, marigold, saffron and cumin. Fruit offerings and sacred cow dung, dusty bougainvillaea, hot milk and fry off. You would assume that the waters of the Ganges would douse the multi-dimensional tapestry of odours. But in fact, it seems to augment the assault on the nostrils. Perhaps it’s all those microbes in the water. For Indians who bathe in the Ganges each day, it’s a sacramental practice that builds immunity. For tourists the Burning Ghats of Varanasi, the floating carcases in amongst the floral wreaths, trinkets and offerings can bring on queasy.

Heart-breaking and raw: Indian girl begging

Smellscapes

Urban environments have been lauded for many things—namely their diverse sights, sounds, flavours, and interesting people—but scents usually don’t register on the list of attractions. The world of urban “smellscapes” has opened up to us a perspective of appreciating and recognising, all odours and their corresponding associations.

The term smellscape, which was first coined in 1990 by geographer J. Douglas Porteous (in his book Landscapes of the Mind: Worlds of Sense and Metaphor), is used to describe the “smell environment” of a given place (both its individual component odours and its overarching scent). If you have ever been to, for example, a small coastal British town or city, you can likely recall the pungent odour of fresh fish and chips wafting out from countless shops, the salty tang of the sea air, the mossy, slightly moldy scent of perpetually damp buildings and trees, and the misty kiss of gentle rain on pavement.

Sensory Mapping

Smell is one of our most evocative senses, and it is most closely tied to memory and nostalgia. Graphic designer and photographer Kate McLean, the world's current leading “smellscape mapper”, explains why this is so relevant, particularly for travellers who wish to hold onto the precious memories of their many journeys:

“Smell has a 'do not enter, brain processing' connection with our emotions, making smell the supreme retainer of memory over our other senses,” Kate explains. “We have 100 per cent smell recall after one year but only 30 per cent sight memory after three months.”

To aid in this endeavour, Kate works in creating smellscape maps of various cities documented on her site Sensory Maps, based both on her impressions and countless interviews with local people regarding what they smell in the environments around them. The maps display colour-coded areas depicting the margins (and overlaps) of various smells within a given city. The site now offers taste and tactile maps as well.

The smellscape phenomenon as part of tourism appears to be catching on, to the point where interested parties today use smell maps to help devise specialised “smell walks” around cities with particularly diverse and delightful scents.

While sensory tourism remains in its relative infancy, a handful of cities around the globe have already been pinpointed as having particularly rich scent environments. Paris, perhaps unsurprisingly, tops most people's lists, with its many outdoor cafes, it’s bakeries, cut flowers, and perfumed citizens. Scotland's Edinburgh has the unique attraction of being one of relatively few major European cities to still be dominated by the smell of a brewery, and Amsterdam likewise gets a favourable mention owing to the rich odour of flowers that permeates it at certain times of the year. It doesn’t appear as though India makes an appearance on the sensory map list, but that’s okay, we can create our own. Clearly, it will be nowhere near as sophisticated as the sensory maps compiled by Kate.

You don't have to travel to one of these bustling destinations to begin enjoying the world of urban scents and sensory mapping. Simply seeking to tune into the smells of your surrounding environment and taking note of each one can prove to be a fascinating, immersive experience.

The Ganges of Varanasi, India

Tones of Noir & Cassis: Classic Cinema with Classic Cocktails

Noir moods: Kir Royale, scotch and cards

Mum would prepare the popcorn. The quintessential staple. No microwaves back then. The kernels clapping against the side of the pot. No butter flavours in bags. Traditional only. Served up in a (now retro) wooden bowl on a table with a tablecloth. On occasion, dad would smoke his pipe. On some occasions purely because mum enjoyed the smell of the smoke. If dinner had been early, or it just never happened there would be something resembling a charcuterie board or other fanciness. As fancy as the 70s spilling over into the 80s could be. Our family Friday night film night. Sometimes it would be what the TV schedule offered, sometimes it would be VCR night. We would all gather in the living room. Our living room then were cowhides on the floor (which mum and dad collected humanely during their travels around Australia when they immigrated from Germany), tassel lamps, beige cotton-velvet wingback couches with baroque buttoning and of course the tube television and VCR. I assume most people would have film memories, and it may well define elements of their lives as it has done for mine.

Noir moods: Kir Royale

Then the drinks. Mum would make two cocktails, something different every time. One for dad and one for herself. Whatever she had grown a fancy to from the pages of a Woman’s Day. My sister and I would be served the G-rated equivalent. A Brandy Alexander for us would be chocolate milk in a thickly blown martini glass. Once we were old enough (pre-teens I think?) we were even trusted with the breakables. Kir Royales were Ribena in a champagne flute, sometimes with a twist of lemon.

Classic Cinema

In Australia, this was the era of Bill Collins presenting us with his picks of daytime cinema classics and for us Friday night film night. John Wayne, Doris Day, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, Cary Grant. Mesmerised and enchanted by Hitchcock, Westerns, slap-sticks, Agatha Christie’s and Pink Panthers. Sometimes film noirs, although it can, at times, be such an ambivalent genre. Our exposure to noir back then primarily consisted of Hitchcock. Perhaps that’s why noir now intrigues me so. A time to embrace the noir underdogs. Only underdogs in the context of the shadow of the Hitchcock spotlight. Not through talent or esteem by any means. Louis Malle, Robert Siodmak, Fritz Lang, Joseph Losey, Claude Chabrol. No CGI deluge in those days. Not that I phewy CGI. It is brilliance in its own realm. Digital vs analogue. There doesn’t need a be a vs. But the films of those days. They couldn’t be painted over with Command K for keystroke. Sleight of hand and illusion had to be troubleshot and deciphered. They were the days of angst hunched over rolls of tri-acetate fed through a Steenbeck. Cutting room floor and all that cliche. Sure, there were methods like Day for Night, MacGuffins and set perception but cellulose was unforgiving, there was no ‘we’ll fix it in post’. In those days I’m sure it was more like the counter statement of ‘we’ll need to see how bad that is in post’, ‘let’s shoot it again’.

Noir moods: Drinks in front of a fireplace

There is cinema noir that is explicit in its violence with sub-genres such as giallo (Italian horror) or noir that focuses on crime such as the French film policier sub-genre. Arguably, noir directors have an ability to utilise the trades of cinema to illustrate story more effectively than other genre directors. Such as their manipulation of shadowplay and lighting to imply violence or suspense. Evidently, the use of sound is key for any piece of cinema but noir provides the thriller backbone and enables the distinction of sound to deliver an intelligent mystery rather than gaudy horror.  Likewise, the archetypal love scene within a noir, its narrative played out in the landscape of gun holstering, sleuthing, back doors and rear windows. And of course, there are the neo-noirs such as Blue Velvet and Lost Highway (David Lynch) and A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick). With age, I feel more affinity for the classics rather than the pastiche endeavours.

Memories of Noir

My noir exposure of those cherished days, or nights as it was, centred around the auteur himself, Hitchcock. Although my favourite thriller perhaps not a film noir, although I would easily slip it into the noir section of the catalogue, was Charade by Stanley Donen. At times referred to as ‘the best Hitchcock that Hitchcock never made’. I tend to agree. Perhaps the set was not as dark as a classic noir, but the psychology sure was. I can’t recall how old I was when that was first screened on one of our film nights but I remember having nightmares for a few moons and then it evolved into ‘play it again’.

Cocktail hour in a film noir is as much a staple as femme fatales, cigarettes, cutting shadows, signs flickering to an abstract beat and men Who Knew Too Much. The drinks in noir are typically hardball: Whiskies and cognacs. No salt rims or paper umbrellas. In the 30s and 40s, the prime noir era, and in the wake of prohibition, speakeasies were loose cannons. To me, cassis is the sophisticated darkness of the 30s and 40s. The dark, thick and sickeningly sweet allure of cassis sits pretty while watching pearls break, faces slapped in lust, and detectives catch their man. As a male, a whisky straight would be on the cards of course. As a female, it seems so much more satisfying to enjoy The Third Man or Les Diaboliques with a Kir Royale in hand and fireplace of course. Creme de Cassis is traditionally from Burgundy, France and the classic blackcurrant Noir de Bourgogne berries are slowly macerated in alcohol to produce the final liqueur.

Noir moods: Drinks and ice

I now like to revisit the film nights my family shared, in my own solitary manner, on occasion inflicting it onto others. I pull out my Josephine glasses, add something sparkling and a touch of something dark and blackcurrant in flavour. Cassis and a film noir. No better pairing. Oh and a charcuterie board of course. I save the popcorn for Doris Day and Jerry Lewis. Although those times are rare. Hitchcock, anything with Cary Grant (I believe I may have stalked him had my years coincided with his) and Pink Panthers (the originals of course) are the most frequent. Frequent being when I have the time, which isn’t frequent at all.

Film Noir Directors

I’m by no means a noir habitué but here are three directors worth exploring in my view:

Jacques Tourneur

Peak filmmaking period: 1930s-1950s

Known for his amalgamation of morphing human with animal and exploring the connection between man and beast. Nocturnal scenes are prevalent and a talent for utilising lighting sources within the mise en scène. His directorial focus was consistently on creating the atmosphere. Although performance didn’t play second fiddle, Torneur relied on more naturalistic acting. His powerplay with the art of suggestion contributed significantly to his auteurist style.

Recommended:

Berlin Express (1948)

Out of the Past  (1947)

Henri-Georges Clouzot

Peak filmmaking period: 1940s-1950s

One of the few directors who aroused envy in Hitchcock. The perceived political skew common in Clouzot’s films often resulted in a public backlash that Clouzot could never quite shake. His autocratic on-set behaviour often led to his cast having to actually experience the macabre scenes that they were ‘acting’ out. With Clouzot’s meticulous nature it may have been to psychologically maim and debilitate his actors so as to more realistically portray the film’s plot. At times his taste for violence bleeding from his scripts into his directorial life. Clouzot’s passion, insomnia and persistent drive to emulate the dingy and decrepit lower realms through his films may have led to his death at age 69.

Recommended:

The Assassin Lives at Number 21 (1942)

Quai des Orfèvres  (1947)

François Truffaut

Peak filmmaking period: 1960-1970s

His work also featuring comedy with an emphasis on portraying intellectual plots rather than palpable progression through chronological events. Truffaut often used the psychological tapestry of his films to illustrate his political bent at the time. He floated between explicit and implicit cinema; the contrast of what goes on behind closed doors and the wider world. Mental anguish and societal parading.

Recommended:

Shoot the Piano Player (1960)

Jules and Jim (1962)

You can enjoy a Crème de Cassis based elixir with the recipes below:

Kir Royale

1 part Creme de Cassis

9 parts champagne

Kir Communard

1 part Creme de Cassis

9 parts red wine

Vermouth Cassis

1 part Creme de Cassis

6 parts Dry Vermouth

Fill glass with soda

Noir moods: Creme de Cassis