The Night Scent

The prize of every perfumery palette, and after-dark marvel, the Indian tuberose is a study in contrasts

- Divrina Dhingra

It was just about past dawn, the sun not yet up. I was awake, but still pleasantly loose-limbed with sleep in the back of an SUV, driving through Madurai, and out towards fields and farmland. My mission was to see the cultivation, and hopefully catch some part of the harvesting, of tuberose flowers, which is done in the wee hours before the sun gets high, usually between 4:00-8:00 A.M.

The car moved rapidly through the empty streets of a city still rousing itself. The only activity was around small food stalls where people were lining up for coffee and breakfast. As we drove, the scene got more rural with buildings giving way to huts, goats tied outside and women emerging with brooms to sweep the front. Another 20 minutes and all of that had fallen away too. Around me was green, paddy fields to the right, and to the left a two-acre expanse of cultivated tuberose.

If you’ve only ever seen the flowers at a florist or being sold in huge bunches at traffic signals (the way they are in New Delhi), the sight of them growing out of the soil is almost comical. They are spindly and awkward, and all stalk. They remind me somewhat of the garden eels I had seen sticking out of a sand patch on a dive in the Andaman Islands. As with the eels, tuberoses are best not judged on appearance. This is a flower that makes no sense until it is smelled.