What are memories made of? Ask your nose. Our senses take us back to sights and sounds long forgotten. And truly, there's nothing like a smell, an aroma, to bring back the past. Every night, when I pour boiling water into our coffee filter, the heady aroma of the bubbling coffee takes me back years--to when I was a little girl in Calicut (Kerala). I used to wake up at dawn just to savour the coffee my mother made. It had that subtly sweet flavour of jaggery. And something about sipping a steaming cup at that early morning hour, made the experience more special somehow. Another enduring memory is of my cousins and I sipping instant coffee on cold mornings in Ketti Valley, a small forested area that lies between Ooty and Wellington in the Nilgiris. My aunt used to teach at the Laidlaw Memorial Residential School and she had a cottage in the valley. During my 'study holidays' I'd go stay with her and my cousins. I always loved going there. The cottage my aunt was g...
Some facts, a little fiction and random facets of life....