Lost fragrances from the past

Rajnigandha has lost its fragrance. As have roses. There are other things too that are now like a forgotten memory calling from a distance

“Don’t bring me flowers; take me to the flowers.” This caption accompanying a picture of yellow wildflowers posted by a friend long ago often comes to mind when I see cut flowers on sale. You could say it’s a conscience keeper that checks me from buying those pretty bunches. But the face peering through my car window this one late evening melted those words away.

It was a girl, wide-eyed and cheerful, selling milky-white rajnigandha. Her face, lit up by the headlights of the vehicles at the traffic crossing, glowed like the buds she held to her cheek. As my window rolled down, she dropped the flowers on the car seat, took the money held out for her and disappeared into the night with an animated “bye”.

Rajnigandha — the heady fragrance of which travelled through the course of Basu Chatterjee’s 1974 film titled after the flower and based on acclaimed Hindi writer Mannu Bhandari’s short story, Yahi Sach Hai. Cinema might be an audio-visual medium — never mind those modern-day 4D and 5D experiences — but this movie also played on the sense of smell. And how. You could practically smell those flowers brought for lead lady Vidya Sinha by her beau, Amol Palekar.

Naturally, my car, too, would soon be overwhelmed by them. Only it wasn’t. The flowers just lay there, as though determined not to let a whiff escape.

At home, that giant bunch demanded two vases. The flowers filled the room. But no fragrance still. One day. Two days. Nothing. The buds bloomed. I buried my face in them, and took a deep, deep breath. It was there, yes, but so faint. Like a forgotten memory calling from a distance.

Rajnigandha’s lost its fragrance. As have roses. I don’t recall the last time I held a rose that smelt so painfully sweet that I could eat it. Even rose gardens that are resplendent with all kinds of varieties every winter — like the beautiful BRICS Friendship Rose Garden in Delhi — appear restrained in this aspect.

There are other things, too, that I don’t recall. Like drinking water straight from the tap, with no filter attached. Actually, this I do. It was possible barely 15-20 years ago. Going further back in time, into childhood, I also recall — with a bit of horror now — drinking straight from the garden hose, breathless from all the maniacal running around with friends in the evenings.

Twenty years. Thirty years. Forty years. Fifty years… These are blips in the life of a planet. But they’ve changed it drastically. And a lot of the blame for it goes to the manner in which our engagement with nature has changed.

If cinema is a reflection of how we see the world, then we’re clearly not seeing this part of it. Even our film songs no longer acknowledge, let alone celebrate, nature and its romance. They used to — again and again and again, tirelessly.

The sun, the moon, the flowers, the night, the breeze, the seasons, the rain, the sky. They were the lyricist’s muse for every mood, every emotion: Whether it was the night of pining spent wondering when the beloved would turn up (Suhani raat dhal chuki); or about welcoming the arrival of the beloved (Baharon phool barsao); or simply about enjoying a pleasant journey in beautiful weather (Suhana safar aur yeh mausam haseen); or about romancing in the rain (Rimjhim gire sawan). The last one, a delightful ode to the Mumbai rain, also captures the city like few other cinematic endeavours do.

The list of such songs is long and vibrant — certainly not one that can be accommodated in 800 words.

The magic of the elements wasn’t lost on us even into the 1990s, when you had songs like Aawara bhanvre jo holle holle gaayein (the vagabond bees that hum a soft song) from the 1997 film Sapnay (the Hindi version of Tamil movie, Minsara Kanavu). The number is a melodious tribute to the song of nature, with lyrics by Javed Akhtar and music composed by A R Rahman — a musician who doesn’t shy away from experimenting with new sounds.

Another genius who was known to find music in the unlikeliest of things was R D Burman —Pancham. The last film he gave the music for, 1942: A Love Story, has some beautiful songs that draw inspiration from nature. Listening to them, you can hear the pitter patter of the rain; or feel the moonlit night... This film, too, is from the ’90s.

A more recent song is Aaj din chadheya tere rang varga (the day that has dawned today is like your complexion) from the 2009 film, Love Aaj Kal. Rendered in the soulful voice of Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, it is as much an ode to the morning blush as it is to the beloved. And this particular line in the whole song is its most beautiful. But it wasn't written in the 2000s. It was borrowed, courteously, from another poet, the incomparable Shiv Kumar Batalvi, who died in 1973.