SMELLS LIKE NOSTALGIA

As we regress into memories of happier days, we discover how fragrances make us feel good again

- PRATIKSHA ACHARYA

The second wave of Covid-19 raged on in the summer of 2021 with all of us relentlessly trying to evade its clutches – but it eventually made its way to our doorstep. Between hushed phone calls with the doctor, crowdsourcing medicines for an ailing parent as they fought the virus and trying to keep it all together – what took me out was waking up with no sense of smell and taste. Yup, Covid got me too.

I woke up each day hoping for some reprieve in the form of my mother’s cooking and once even hoping for the milk to boil over, but there was just disappointment. As things began to look up a few weeks later and I gradually got back two of my major senses, something still didn’t feel right.