WHAT DOES JUNE SMELL LIKE TO YOU?

 

 

This post is two days late

because nostalgia is a hard high to get out of.  

 

Do you know what June smells like to me?

 

It smells like the brown cover on books soaked with Camlin glue. It smells like fresh ink on new labels which soon gets smudged. It smells like the dalcha steaming on the stove in my grandmother's house and like the hot piping poori we’re frying together.

It smells sickly sweet, like the aroma of overripe mangoes left overnight on the table. It smells like the burnt wick of the candle I blew out in the evening once the power came back in our house. It smells like petrichor from the scattered summer rains that shook the mango tree in our yard. It smells like sweat, anticipation, and the sweet taste of victory while hiding behind doors during hide and seek.

 

It smells like shoe polish gleaming on leather shoes, aligned straight near the front door ready for the first day of school.

It smells like the steam rising from a freshly ironed uniform a half-asleep Ananya put on.

It smells like pine and bark and sunshine weaving through the leaves as you fidget under the shade of the neem tree at assembly. It smells like sharpened pencil shavings scattered on the floor and blue and black ink stains on crisp white school shirts.

It smells like fresh notebooks with a doodled last page and like the classroom where impatient hands sneaked into the tiffin boxes much before the lunch bell rang. It smells like aloo puri, biryani, dal chawal, Maggi and aloo paratha, as we sat in a misshapen circle for lunch. And like mud and canvas shoes as we raced back to be in class before the teacher threw us out.

 

It smells like the sun on a hot afternoon that fades into a golden twilight and leaves behind warm marble floors and treasured nostalgia.

 

This is what June smells like to me.