“Ho! Ho! Ho!”
Well, to be perfectly honest, the sound of it was somewhere between the “Ho” and the “Ha”. The man jiggled his expansive belly and laughed, truly happy at his current state of affairs. His body exuded mirth with little shivers of joy as he threw back his head again and again, and laughed even more volubly. His cheeks were well cushioned, rosy, and his eyes were crinkly, barely visible. With his bushy eyebrows and his luxurious, upwardly spreading facial hair, she was surprised he was even able to see. Ollie or Olympia Ghoshal Chattergé’s hand went instinctively to her face and she felt the prick of newly sprung unwanted hair along the sides of her face and her chin.
Ollie had been named on her aunt’s suggestion. The inspiration was Édouard Manet’s Olympia, the controversial painting of a nude woman painted to look directly into the viewer’s eyes instead of coyly averting her gaze (as was the practice at the time). The name had spoken to her of a world she hoped this child would inherit. One in which she was completely free to be herself.
She turned her attention back to the TV. It must be nice, Ollie thought, to be quite so pleased with one’s life and to be able to belly laugh in public quite so contentedly. He wasn’t Santa though. No. His head had little buffalo horns on them, like a Viking, and they gave him the air of a chubby toddler playing dressing up. This was Mahishasur, the demon. Yes, some plunder had happened, some looting of the weak, troubling of the holy men, and whatnot, but one had to admire the complete lack of fetters and inhibitions.
Ollie gasped melodramatically as all of a sudden, a lion appeared in the scheme of things and mauled him hungrily. She had grown a strong sense of affinity with the fellow in the short while he had been on screen. It was brutal, but the tension eased shortly. The lion, who had no idea that he was going to star in this show, gave a little yawn mid-attack and licked his pink nose. They had likely filmed him (without his permission, of course) while he had been at a leisurely post-hunt lunch and then superimposed footage of our hairy demon friend in action. One could even see a little bit of the African savannah in the background.
Ollie leaned forward in the cane chair she was seated in and it creaked noisily.
No, Ollie wasn’t exactly petite. She was twenty-nine. Her largish frame was softly padded by years of indulgent treats, and she didn’t love physical exercise. She had a dimple on the left cheek, an upwardly turning mouth always ready with a quip or a self-deprecating anecdote. Her eyes lit up often and were framed by long naturally curling eyelashes that gave her an air of childlike wonder and merriment.
Her shoulder-length hair was naturally unruly and curly, and fell across the sides of her heart-shaped face giving her the air of an ungroomed cocker spaniel. Speaking of cocker spaniels, it may make sense to mention something else that had defined Ollie’s experience of life since the age of thirteen. It was her extraordinary perception of and sensitivity to smells of all kinds.
Tuberose. Spiced ginger. Sweat from morning run. Mosquito coil ash. Toast. Runny eggs. Sausages. Toothpaste. Bitter gourd juice.
Ollie could smell the ginger waft closer and closer as Ellora Chattergé or Laura, her cousin and best friend, took the seat next to her. Laura took her headphones out of her ears, still blaring the retro classic rock hits she usually started her day with, something she had discovered as a teenager and never switched loyalties. She checked how many kilometres she had run that morning on her Strava app and applauded a colleague for his biking achievements. Then she took a sip of the heavily spiced tea she had just made herself and rolled her eyes at Ollie’s exaggerated reactions to the scene unfolding on TV.
Ginger was in fact a smell Ollie loved primarily because of Laura’s love for it. Laura smelled bodily of it, thanks to a ginger-scented body wash and shampoo she used. It’s funny how smell associations work.
The rest of the room’s unique “scent sequence” was easily decoded. Ollie saw the fragrant tuberoses waiting to be done up in the big yellow vase. My favourite flowers, incidentally. The symmetric ash rounds from the mosquito coils, a very old-school solution for pest control, from the night before lay under the table, and the glass of bitter gourd juice sat waiting on the table as a natural cure for diabetes. Fishy would drink this when she came in for breakfast. The toothpaste was from Laura. Ollie had skipped that step hoping to roll back into bed after they’d watched the show.
It was very early on Mahalaya morning. It was the day that it was said the goddess descended for her stay on earth for the days of Durga Pujo. Traditionally, this was also the day that artisans all over Bengal painted on the eyes of the beautifully crafted idols that they had painstakingly created by hand over the last month.
The girls were watching as they did every year the early morning telecast of Mahishasur Mardini or the killing of the demon by the goddess. They had watched some or other version of the story so many times that there were no surprises expected. There were always some snippets of Chandipath the prayers invoking the mother goddess in Birendra Krishna Bhadra’s voice, and some belting out of other songs, solid old pujo favourites, typically.
Ollie loved Durga. The original female superhero kicked some serious ‘derrière’ and this was her favourite part of her religion growing up, which for the rest of it wasn’t always wonderful for women.
Excerpted with permission from The Scratch and Sniff Chronicles, Hemangini Dutt Majumder, Olive Turtle/Niyogi Books.
