I go through another steaming hot 'Lagaan'isque day when the grey clouds hover above in the skies with a promise as weak as the Met Dept who predict their downpour. And if a magical drop falls from these monsoon carriers they raise a heavenly scent of wet earth. Plop! You see the transparent drop sacrificing its droppy existence in a splat and blotching the parched earth and making that wonderful smell in a way which is too experiential to be described. You can capture the drop falling in a camera, capture the drip sound of the droplet as it explodes to its wonderful death but can't capture that scent of the wonderful wet earth - not yet! Imagine the possibilities if you could capture a smell on your mobile or on a special camera. I came, I smelt, I captured!

Even as we delve into new dimensions for audio and video with Surround sound and 3D viewing, we are yet to explore the wonderful realm of another powerful sense - smell! Aroma, odor, reek, scent, tone, spirit would smell just as sweet, pungent, acidic, sickly, woody, aquatic, floral, mushy, earthy or in a horde of other adjectives. But how about recreating them. Perfumes are the closest we've got to recreate aromas - albeit pleasant ones but those are like personal accessories. Think of a whole new mass medium - An audio, video olfactory medium. A theatre where you get to see that raindrop in slow motion falling towards the earth, hearing the splat and smelling that wet earth - in the confines of a theatre. Though experiments have been carried out in spurts regarding these, it never took off as a commercially viable venture.

Smells are very important in triggering memories  - they instantly take you back to other beautiful times much faster than a sound or a sight. Smells that make you recall your mother's cooking, of grandma's mango pickles, of firecracker smoke in Diwali, of nice smelling but harfmul diesel fumes, of new school books, freshly laundered clothes...or bad ones as hospital smells, fish markets and so on. These smells are our closest linkages to our childhood. Wouldn't it be wonderful to open an old black and white album of these scents and get lost in a memory lane of aromas.

Capturing them is the biggest challenge.But men have been known to conceive devices which were sci fi futuristic at one time. So I wouldn't be surprised if smells are captured and converted into a digital format tomorrow. People will share smells across mails and via bluetooth. They will download theme fragrances from the net. Your inbox will be flooded with goody goody forwards of floral smells and I bet there shall be porn sites too! One shall use a iPod with a literal pod which is a mask extension like headphones for smelling various flavors and downloading them from the iSmells store where only Apple flavor can be downloaded for free. Adobe will come up with Odorshop for editing digital smells and kids can write more fresh stuff in their school essay on 'Technology - A Boon or Curse'! SniffDating will be the latest fad and gals will go only for guys who smell good. Menus across coffee shops and hotels can be sniffed for easing the decision to order. There will be a bunch of sick people who'll enjoy horror films where you can smell the blood and gore like I Know How You Smelt Last Summer! In India there will still be pirated media of smells being sold dirt cheap outside stations! Godly channels like Aastha can directly take you closer to the Supreme One by offering you incense and dhoop smells on TV. Channel bouquets will acquire a totally new meaning then. Kids will be tested for their OQ - olfactory quotient. There will be new artists and connoisseurs to create and appreciate fragrances. Multiplexes will have special screens where you can feel the environment of the film and can wrinkle your nose at bad scenes and rather smell the popcorn. There will be even special awards for Best Olfactography and Best Original Smellplay and Adapted Smellplay. Stereo smell systems would create a L and R smell for either of those nose openings. You can upload old smells from your trip and tag your friends on Facebook and comment - 'This is where Raj was smelling like a horse', or 'Aww Simran you are smelling chho chweeet!'
We may be distorting our lifestyles in subtle and the not-so-subtle ways where our smelling mechanisms and fragrances will play a very significant nosey role. Who nose? ;-)



P.S - please watch the film Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Tom Tykwer. Awesome flick!