Happy Senses - 1

Our last edition on IndifictionWorkshop was on horror and there was a lot of talk about bringing in the five senses into the narration.This post has nothing to do with fiction or horror. All this talk made me reminisce under what circumstances each of my senses comes to life and fills me with vigor. 

Okay, I have been drinking cup after cup of Horlicks and Bournvita to get my cerebrum , hypothalamus and the rest of the folks to work in unison and come up with ideas for a new post. This is what they suggested after a lot of pushing and prodding!

Sight:

By notStudio - studio fotograficzne (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

• Sometimes in the temples, a screen would be drawn in the sanctum sanctorum  for the pujas or naivedyam(offering) hiding the deity from public view. As we wait, in a flash the curtains would be drawn open and one would witness beautiful lamps(aarthi) with multiple flames being shown as the entire place reverberates with the divine sounds of the ringing bells.
• Yesterday I cleaned up my refrigerator; Today when I opened the fridge to get some water, the clean and sparkling look sans any clutter gives me a satisfaction, an exuberant feeling of a job well done. During my programming days, after hours of struggling with a piece of code, when I saw it finally working on my monitor,  I could almost do a jig. Adding the final garnishing to a dish done perfectly, standing back and admiring a painting I just finished- Fruits of Effort are always treats to the eye.
• The cascading Niagara, rivers of the Himalayas running through the beautiful white pebbles, green still backwaters of Aleppey, the ever stretching ocean one witnesses at the beach - Water in its so many forms displays energy and strength.
• Even pigs and buffaloes look amazingly cute as babies.  All little ones, human or otherwise look so adorable when at play. A kitten playing with a ball of wool, a baby looking at a tubelight and laughing, a piglet rolling in mud, an elephant calf playing with its mother's tail - Simple beautiful sights in life.
• A foodie that I am, the widespread array of dishes one witnesses at any buffet always fills me with a happiness I have never been able to fathom. Just seeing it gives me more pleasure than actually wolfing the delicacies down my gut. 
• I know they pollute the environment but when done once in a while on a restricted basis they are a treat. Fireworks! During New Years Eve when the entire sky gets lit up with these blooming sparkling colorful stars its magical!

Smell :

Image courtesy of  Stuart Miles/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net

• Petrichor is a word I learnt recently though it is an experience that has always made me rejoice - The beautiful smell that spreads when the drops of rain first kiss the dry earth. 
• When one lifts a baby fresh from its bath after applying lotion and powdered well a beautiful fragrance sweeps all over.
• On removing a bathing soap from its carton , a wonderful smell fills your being. Not just the perfumed ones, ordinary deodorant ones do that too!
• When you go to the market to the vegetable vendor, the fresh cucumber, the green spinach, the gleaming carrots, radishes and beetroots, the sacks of potatoes and pumpkins and everything else on display together emit a fresh lovely odor. 
• I like wearing jasmine flowers on my hair in typical South Indian fashion and that can leave you feeling heavenly. 
• I already told you I am a foodie. Obviously a whole lot of related things would get my olfactory senses on a high - Sambar boiling on the stove, the smell of ghee that the sweet pongal in the making emanates, the smell of ripe mangoes and juicy watermelons, the aromas of steaming basmati rice and hot pizza and what wafts the air when something is baking and the list goes on!

To be continued....(unless I get a hate warning mail demanding that I put an end to this!)