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Madhurika Sankar
Fire in the Sun

I would sneak into my father’s dressing room as a little girl, when the midday sun was at its sweltering peak, safe in the knowledge that he was at the office. I did this daily for some time, probably when I was around eight or nine, a pilgrimage to an arcane Holy Land, the sanctum sanctorum being a credenza upon which he kept an array of colognes. And like all Hindu temples, unlike most other religions, there were many Gods, and all had faces. But the God of gods, the Siva of this olfactory Basilica, was the Black Monolith at the center. The Drakkar Noir. Even amongst all the beautifully shaped European-looking glass testaments to Man’s subservience to the most powerful of sensate motivations, that of smell, it stood apart. Solid. Unique in its bold blackness.

Was it an overt confidence in its block-print-like beauty, far surpassing the other more delicate aromatic deities surrounding it, paying obeisance? I can’t remember, so far back is this memory I unearth, but the moment I sprinkled its mist upon my tiny wrists, I knew. This was the Holy Grail of colognes for my inchoate heart. Lest you think this is a covert advertisement placed by the makers of that brand, let me aver my nascent little nose had never experienced something so redolently assertive. (I may need a commission from them.) And so I started the ritual of going into the sanctum late afternoon and dipping myself in the sacred spray, head to toe, reveling in an almost pious state. I paint this picture as a backdrop for anecdotal purposes.

Later, in the evening, when Dad would come home and summon me to spend time, he’d chide,“Why do you like the Drakkar Noir, darling?” My face would flush, and I’d vehemently deny being in his closet to which he’d grin, ear to ear, with that signature cheesy smile and say, “Because you reek of it from top to bottom! Of course, I know what you’ve been up to!” My early days as a sensory sleuth hadn’t factored this in. My sinful trail of scent.

But the philosophical question lingers, and will stand till the end of days: Was it my love for the Drakkar Noir that made Dad wear it for the rest of his life, or was it my father’s inveterate usage of the cologne that made me have this strong penchant for its overpowering scent? The origin story is unclear, as many are often destined to remain. All I know is Dad passed away two years ago, and since I couldn’t afford it, I made my brother buy me a bottle forty years after my fragrant escapades. I keep it on a separate table in my room and use a carefully meted-out spray occasionally. And, like the Gods on our television shows in India, from deep within the white smoke of epiphanic revelations, emerges my father. He’s right there in front of me.

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