I have an uncanny sense of smell. I can detect smells before others can, and out of all of my senses it is the strongest and the most able to transport me to another time and another place. Sure, photos and memoirs have some affect on me, sounds and songs, sights even, but the slightest whiff of an aroma, a note of a particular fragrance seems to have the utmost power to evoke memories, to take me on journeys of reminiscence. Back in time, back to certain events, back to people.

Recently I switched moisturisers for the umpteenth time. Always a slave to advertising I had been changing brands whenever a new one came out promising smoother, softer, younger, flawless skin. This time round my moisturiser costs less than a fiver, comes in an unassuming pot and every night when I slather the heavenly pink stuff on to my face, I take a deep breath and I am hurled 6000 miles away to a land of snow peaked mountains. A land where the night sky is black velvet and peppered with the brightest stars, where the rain smells fresh and pure. Every night, that pink stuff, my gorgeous moisturiser transports me all that way back to Kathmandu so that I am next to my tiny Ma as she kisses me goodnight, her cheeks smooth from the very same moisturiser that I had unintentionally started using, brushing past mine and her soft lips planting juicy kisses on my face, “Mummy loves you. Good night sweetheart.” It doesn't matter how old I get, I still and always will love that nightly ritual of hers. And the older I get the more I seem to miss my folks, the more that 6000 mile divide throbs and aches, reminding me of just how far away they are.

Thank God for my sense of smell, for memories, for Oil of Olay.

I don't think I'm going to change my moisturiser anymore.

|