I have recently picked up a unusual hobby. I have started running / jogging on Bangalore roads. Living in close proximity to the Airport road I find the Airport Road's wide foot paths as a good jogging destination in the late evening when office is over. Usually it is dark when I jog on the foot paths illuminitated with street lights and traffic lights.
There are three things I enjoy in this ritual. First, the sheer effort in running for anything from 2 to 4 kms which leaves every tissue aching when I reach back home. The second thing I love about this hobby is the cool evening breeze in bangalore ruffling my hair as I run. The third thing which I like abut running on the footpaths is the smells of hundreds of scents / perfumes / deoderants which passerbys' wear.
You can call me strange but my third observation is a remarkable experience if you ever paid close attention to it, the first two being prosaic.
So as it happens, Airport Road in Bangalore is a big hub of corporate offices and people employed in the corporate sector live in localities around Airport Road. Many of these people walk to office and back. The foot paths thus are partially crowded in the mornings and evenings. Since all these people are white collared professionals, etiquitte and societial norms advocate wearning some perfume or anti odour spirit. The market is also replete with hundreds of nice deodrants which sell like hot cakes (if hot cakes sell any more).
With such a perfume bonanza my evening jogging has become a real pleasure. I guess my olifactory sense is also a dash more developed that with my heavy breathing through my nose while running, the air carries in all the smells of the surroundings. Besides the backdrop of pollution and smoke, the occasional perfumed lady or a gentleman passing by gives me great delight. Infact I have started noticing that I try to breathe in more as I run by anyone or any strange landscape just to grasp the perfume in the air if any.
All this is trivial but as I look at it, these trivial things in life have a tremendous capacity to give boundless joy and in ways so subtle. The fragrance of perfect strangers is like a painting which by all means has a dynamic landscape even as the painting is being painted. This is a experience which is plural in all dimensions and is so full of suspense. Imagine my position as I brace myself for the long jog each evening, I try to imagine what all perfumes will I encounter and if I shall be treated by a newer stranger fragrance.
Such is the charm of this tiny detail. You have to shut your other senses to dicsover this joy. I sincerely hope that you don't percieve me to be a lunatic after reading my unusual thoughts on a usually banal issue - the fragrance of the passing by stranger.
There are three things I enjoy in this ritual. First, the sheer effort in running for anything from 2 to 4 kms which leaves every tissue aching when I reach back home. The second thing I love about this hobby is the cool evening breeze in bangalore ruffling my hair as I run. The third thing which I like abut running on the footpaths is the smells of hundreds of scents / perfumes / deoderants which passerbys' wear.
You can call me strange but my third observation is a remarkable experience if you ever paid close attention to it, the first two being prosaic.
So as it happens, Airport Road in Bangalore is a big hub of corporate offices and people employed in the corporate sector live in localities around Airport Road. Many of these people walk to office and back. The foot paths thus are partially crowded in the mornings and evenings. Since all these people are white collared professionals, etiquitte and societial norms advocate wearning some perfume or anti odour spirit. The market is also replete with hundreds of nice deodrants which sell like hot cakes (if hot cakes sell any more).
With such a perfume bonanza my evening jogging has become a real pleasure. I guess my olifactory sense is also a dash more developed that with my heavy breathing through my nose while running, the air carries in all the smells of the surroundings. Besides the backdrop of pollution and smoke, the occasional perfumed lady or a gentleman passing by gives me great delight. Infact I have started noticing that I try to breathe in more as I run by anyone or any strange landscape just to grasp the perfume in the air if any.
All this is trivial but as I look at it, these trivial things in life have a tremendous capacity to give boundless joy and in ways so subtle. The fragrance of perfect strangers is like a painting which by all means has a dynamic landscape even as the painting is being painted. This is a experience which is plural in all dimensions and is so full of suspense. Imagine my position as I brace myself for the long jog each evening, I try to imagine what all perfumes will I encounter and if I shall be treated by a newer stranger fragrance.
Such is the charm of this tiny detail. You have to shut your other senses to dicsover this joy. I sincerely hope that you don't percieve me to be a lunatic after reading my unusual thoughts on a usually banal issue - the fragrance of the passing by stranger.
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