Antiserious — Body Odour, 2017
All about our Issue 3
The morning my grandfather died, I was woken up and brought to his room. I remember smelling coconuts, and I remember wondering if death smelt like coconuts. But it was just my grandfather, who was in the habit of putting overwhelming amount of Parachute coconut oil. That oil was his smell and it didn’t leave him even in death. My grandmother always smelt of a mixture of Vicks Vapour Rub and asthma medication. And that’s the smell I remember her with. My mother’s body carries the hospital smell of childbirth, and turmeric from the old kitchen and the new one, and the carbon paper she works with all day, insuring people’s lives. Mothers’ bodies carry the rotting smell of domesticity, even when they don’t want to.
Our body doesn’t just recognize the touch memory. It is also the smell that leaves an imprint on us, that forges identities of the ones we love, and the ones we choose not to. Our body, that smells like sweat, soap, shampoo, oil, the people we love, their professions, our professions. Our bodies that smell like those we left behind, those who left us behind. Our bodies are vaults of memories and moments and feelings that live inside us through smell. The nose is our ally and our enemy.
When my fellow editors, Sumana Roy and Debojit Dutta, and I were discussing how we could explore the body through writing, we thought of doing a complete series on the theme which would help us explore all that hasn’t been. Thus Bra, Body, and Body Odor took shape. We began with the Bra and the Body. It was exhilarating, reading all the submissions we got. Body found expression that was narrative and lyrical. We got visual poetry, and photo essays like we hadn’t seen before.
When we started reading for the Body Odor and Body issue we were worried that we wouldn’t be able to match our past performance. But I am happy to report that this issue, while very different in volume and style from the last one, is just as wonderful as the last one.
Sayan Bhattacharya gives us a moving essay in which he talks about a painful, haunting childhood memory that he remembers through the smell of the betel leaf, a smell that just won’t go away. Parvati Sharma writes a short story ‘Smell Test’ that engages with personal anxieties, and complexes, class guilt, and xenophobia through smell — can you recognize a person’s race or religion through odor? What’s the scent of a Hindu and what about a Muslim? Tanuj Solanki talks about grieving through smell. In his poem titled ‘Fiction’ he talks about the basest, the most grotesque of smells. When you empty your insides, what do you do if the smell resembles that of the deceased? Nabanita Kanungo in her poems titled ‘Body’ and ‘Scent’ gives shape to smells that visit us through nostalgia, and makes us touch the odor — that which cannot be touched — and not the body that inhabits it.
Adam Day in his five poems that should be read in conjunction writes the body through gaze. He invokes smells through imagery, smells that we don’t necessarily recognize, smells that are bound to revolt our sensibilities. But then, what better purpose can poetry serve, if not revolting our sensibilities? Kannupriya Dhingra’s short story titled ‘B’ has the lyricism of poetry and the fluidity of the body. No barrier of language rules apply to the body. Hamsi Radhakrishnan’s poem that resists labels and calls itself ‘Untitled’ talks about entanglement. Even when our bodies break, they remain twisted, they remain entangled.
The illustration for this issue has been done by Shinjini Sen, where she creates the various smells that trap our bodies. I will leave the interpretations to you, dear readers. And the cover has been designed by Abhishek Bhattacharjee, whose ceaseless kindness we have exploited since the beginning of our journey.
I leave you here, with the hope that you will find joy in reading what we’ve brought for you. And at least some of it will stay with you, like the odors you cannot get rid of.
Manjiri Indurkar
Founder and editor
AntiSerious
