As I reached my aisle seat, I hoped that the adjacent seat passenger will be one that I will be able to talk with for a while. Well, it was not to be.
But, he was a character enough to catalyze my thoughts into blogging about, ahem, odors.
He looked about seven to ten years younger than me, and was in a suit, while I was my usual drab self.
He spent a few minutes trying to match the overhead bin space with his carry-on bag. Finally, he succeeded and then got to his seat.
As he passed me, I got a whiff more than I would have liked. “I hope I don’t have a body odor like that” I thought to myself.
Years of living in the US has made me sensitive to such issues.
Growing up in India, I never gave these matters even a moment’s worth of attention. In fact, there is a good chance that I stank, particularly with my constant sweating.
Once, when my brother complained about the stinking sweat—not my sweat, but in general—my great-uncle, who was known for his repartees, quickly commented, “let me know when it smells wonderfully; I will bottle and sell it by the ounce.”
In the US, I recognize that I might be the only Indian that many of my students get to know, which means that I need to try to present the best of everything that the land of a billion has to offer. Thus, a body odor is not what I want to impose on my students!
My seatmate proceeded to remove his jacket and tried to catch the attention of every passing stewardess. When one finally paused at our row, he gave her his jacket and requested that she hang it.
As she walked away with the jacket, I wondered whether the other clothes hanging in that cramped space will acquire that body odor. Imagine if you were to retrieve your jacket and it smells of an odor that you know is not your own. Perhaps this alone will make you conclude that it is better to wear a crumpled jacket than to let it mix with other clothes, right?
In the traditional Brahmin weddings that I have attended when younger, the male guests were always welcomed with sandalwood paste. As a kid, I figured that there was nothing religious about it and was a social ritual that effectively eliminated body odors in large gatherings and, instead, spread the pleasing scent of sandalwood.
Women wore plenty of flowers, jasmine in particular, which also played a phenomenal role in masking the natural odors that result from life in the tropical heat and humidity.
One of the dialogs in a Tamil movie that I watched as a kid was a heated exchange between two debaters on whether women’s hair has a pleasing smell even naturally, or whether they result from the oils and flowers. Why even debate about this: I cannot imagine anything natural about the human body having any pleasing smells—we are born to stink, and some of us stink more than others.
Which is why humans have invented an array of products.
These days, unlike my younger years, I use many, many products, for which, as I enjoy pointing out to my students, we owe a lot to the petrochemical revolution: anti-perspirant/deodorant, shampoo, soap, cologne, chewing gum, and, of course, toothbrush and paste, and more ....
Yet, I bet I stink in the classes I teach, and it is not my body odor that I refer to :)
No comments:
Post a Comment