The Song of Stench

I wake up into a lazy sunday morning, the yellow rays of a mellow sun pushing through the fluttering curtains. I can't see the sun, but the distant horizon running parallel to my window sill has turned orange. The twinkling lights of the previous night have disappered. In their place, I see a distant hill, that has drawn oscilloscopic lines in the sky.

Someone has woken up early. Through the gaps of my bathroom door, I can smell his soap. I can hear puja bells ringing and get a faint smell of incense stick burning.

Such a perfect morning to wake up to, I think. I shake off the remnants of the night and slip into my slippers. I walk up to the window and look outside.

There is an assault on my senses.

A terrible putrid stench rises from below, from outside the boundary wall of my housing society. I see an open drain, filled with bubbling filth, brewing like a forbidden wine. I see a bunch of tin houses outside, their roof held down by bricks and old tyres. The shanty has recently come up. These are the construction workers working at the several concrete mosters that are taking shape nearby. Some naked kids try to put their feet into the maze of stacked steel rods. A woman without a blouse tends to her long pitch-black hair, looking at herself in a mirror smaller than my credit card.

I am gripped by strong emotions. How do these people live in such conditions? And what business do they have to spoil my surroundings? There was a time when, as you looked outside, you saw only the greenness of untouched grass. You saw long-winged birds lifting off stunned frogs. In less than a year, things have changed. All I see now is blocks of steel and concrete at a distance and stacked tin-tyre-brick just outside.

As I turn my face away, something falls in my ear. A long forgotten song, coming straight at me from inside the tin houses. Another assault on another sense. The lovely voice of Anuradha Paudwal freezes me in my tracks. "Hui aankh num aur yeh dil musquraya, to saathi koi bhula yaad aaya..." A song from the movie Saathi (1991).



Suddenly my heart becomes lighther. It wells up and fills my throat. My head fills up with images of yore. The days of childhood. The days of gay carefree living. Of unburdened innocence. Of dancing naked in the bathroom, spashing bucketfuls of water. Of running around the house in wet feet and clinging to mother in the kitchen. Of climbing trees in the rain and hanging like monkeys from the branches. Of looking at young girls, dreaming about marrying them one day.

The assault continues. "Kya karte the saajna tum hum se door rehke..." from Lal Dupatta Malmal Ka. "Jaane jigar jaaneman mujhko hai teri kasam..." from Ashiqui. "Mere rang mein rangne wali, paree ho ya ho pareeyon ki raani..." from Maine Pyar Kiya.

I find myself glued to the window, my adult self completely taken over by the child inside me. My eyes are shining from a layer of moisture on them and there is an unknown pain in my throat.

The stench has long ceased to matter.