Tag: fiction

The room smells like a medical ward these days. Faint traces of unpleasant odour wafts through adjoining spaces outside the room too. The washroom has another kind of smell, its own kind. And lastly, Ma has another kind of body odour which wasn’t there earlier. She sweats a lot these days. She rests or sleeps in one posture without moving for long. We frequently find her shirt wet at the back and the bedsheet semi-soaked. The cupboard, which has her clothes, has the third-kind nostril tingler which again is not pleasant. I normally don’t open her cupboard but I do close its open shutters as I move around that space to either pick up her walker or the wheelchair which are normally parked there. 

The olfactory in me works overtime these days. It triggers and works on my senses in many unknown ways now, especially since the time Ma has been unwell and has taken to bed. My sensory neurons have become rather sensitive, picking up the faintest cues – at times offensive – when interpreted by others in a social environment.

I shared my predicament with a doctor who was visiting to check on Ma. ‘Hyperosmia’, he said, ‘is a state of heightened sense of smell. It is when certain odours overwhelm you and make you feel uncomfortable or nauseated. Hyperosmia also affects your sense of taste’, he said and turned his face adding, ‘Just ignore it’.

I am ill at ease by the hospital-like smell of the room. This is despite the room being swept and cleaned every morning and the wet mop done thoroughly. An air freshener hangs on the IV stand which has become a permanent feature of the room. Its fluid bottle swings when full and lazily dangles when it is empty or if its contents have been transferred to the vein in Ma’s left hand where a cannula has found semi-permanent position. The IV, or saline stand as I call it, stares at us from the corner with its shining steel rod visible even in the dark of the night. There are two walkers and a walking stick on a standby.

An air mattress together with its pressure pump lies in another corner. The slightly tilted bed tells you that a recliner mattress is fixed over it so Ma can be made to sit up in between. Mostly, she finds comfort in lying down – either on bed or on the couch. For some strange reason she loves the couch. Maybe the upright backrest of the sofa supports her left shoulder that was hurt when she fell two months back. Unlike me, she doesn’t stare at the ceiling, which I do when unwell. She doesn’t even focus on the walls where a Krishna/Ranjha painting looks at her with its black eyes over blue body. The flute in his hand resonates the painful Uh and Ah notes Ma rehearses every hour she turns. 

Ma is conscious of all the new additions to the room and the spaces occupied by each, especially the wheelchair. She, probably, doesn’t like it and turns her face every time her eyes come to rest on it. She keeps pulling the thin cotton sheet over her legs and her shoulders every time any of us comes to speak to her to bring her the soup, tea or some light meal. Bare legs or exposed shoulders are a taboo to her even now that she is 91+ and in the company of her son and grandson. 

The second or the rear door to her room which faces east is usually kept shut. It is June. This summer temperatures have been abnormally high fluctuating between 40 to 49.7. Outside, it gets very hot as early as 10 am. Loo-like strong breeze enters the room from that side. Even dust enters Ma’s room from that door as a house is being constructed right behind ours. The air conditioner runs for nearly 20 hours. Basically the same air keeps circulating in the room aided much by the fans running at high speed. Her nursing attendant, some of us, our household help, or a stray visitor also contribute their collective breath which adds to the mixed unidentifiable but not very pleasant smell. We do open both the doors in the evening for a couple of hours but that, I suppose, is not enough to counter the inner day-long activity.

The side table in the left corner and the round table facing the main door are stacked with medicine baskets, bottles of cough syrups and a laxative, a bottle of sanitizer, wet wipes and strips of vitamin tablets. There is a thermos-like water bottle and smaller bottles of drinking fluids like Electral, Coconut water and Jeera drink for intermittent swigs. 

A black hairband rests atop the plastic lid of Threptin biscuits tin. There are other sundries like her hair pins, a pocket-book Hanuman Chalisa, Vicks VapoRub etc. etc. which jostle for space.  Pushed to the corner are her hearing aids which are not used these days, its charger still in the socket. A deck of playing cards awaits her good mood.

She hardly uses her mobile phone these days but surely keeps an eye on it as it blinks or rings. The phone lies next to her on the table. With little strength in her body she speaks very softly and at times, when she is not wearing dentures, we can’t make out what she says. Her gold betrothal ring she handed over to Rajni for safe-keepint when she was admitted to the hospital the last time.

Whenever I walk out and walk back in the room my lungs are filled with two different kinds of air. Perceptibly different and distinct to the lungs, nostrils and even the mouth. Our saliva is also triggered by smell. 

I wonder, are there different kinds of airs floating in the same space or is it my nose and the mind that are playing tricks. I had read somewhere that in our body new cells are formed and old cells decay and die constantly. Do the cells have a smell? They may, the dying cells surely will have some kind of smell as they swim through blood in our body. I almost smell dead cells in the room. Dying and decay is equally noticeable in nature – when leaves or roots die they have a peculiar smell – when rodents, insects, reptiles die they have another kind of smell even when water turns stale and sort of dies it has another smell. The stink of putrid air is known to all of us.

However sanitised, smells emanating from a washroom are pretty much known to all of us. When fresh, it has fragrances of modern day disinfectants and cleaning agents with traces of the peculiar blue colour that they have. The smells of Lizol, Harpic, Roff, the white phenyl, Detol and lathering soap are all mixed up here. Despite all these agents there is a kind of unessy smell of pee or puke that hits one as we enter the washroom. The fan, inside the toilets, runs almost through the day. Its netted window opens to the verandah, the place has lots of light and the rays of morning sun also hit it for an hour or so – despite that, yes despite that, the smell hovers in the bathroom. Despite the toilet being flushed about twenty times a day, despite it being washed with running water a few times.

Is it only in my head? I doubt and question myself. There is even that Coconut oil smell in one corner.

I suppose we should replace the bed sheets twice a day instead of every morning. Same with the covers on the couch. I go around the room wrinkling up my nose and sensing odours. I think I can do it as well as a pet. The pet won’t be able to explain, I can. Ma looks at me with questioning eyes and we smile at each other. 

We have just given away a pair of mattresses which were being used on Ma’s bed. For sometime now she has no bladder control. Other than using diapers and wheeling her into the washroom every hour one can’t do much about her incontinence. I know Ma feels guilty and awkward but we try and laugh it off. Occasionally she soils her skirt or pyjamas which are quickly changed but then the clothes stay in the washroom overnight till these are washed. Maybe it is the smell of all the medicines that are being pumped in to her which seep in her clothes as she sweats. Or the culprit could also be the diapers – though these are changed three or four times. Ma hates diapers but nothing can be done about it – it is so very difficult for the lone night attendant girl to lift her from the bed and move her to the wheelchair. Ah! What can one do about age? I wish I could do more for her.

I rarely use perfume or deo, not even talcum powder or similar body agents. I have no body odour even when I sweat. In fact my family and friends envy me for smelling fresh through the day. Maybe that is the reason why I am over sensitive to smells around me. I can’t eat foods that have smells not to my liking – desi ghee being one. Some flour dough makes me turn my face, some vegetable oils make me puke. I am very sensitive to the taste of wines or whiskies on my tongue. I can have bitter karela or a dark rum but I can’t have soups with butter or fat floating in it. 

I am a man with a nose-without-filter and I hate myself for it, because right now what matters most is Ma and her health. The way from here is long, so I suppose my nose and my life will have to be put on hold for a while. 

Looking at her ailments, infirm body and thinking of her age I worry – Is it the Whiff of the Inevitable?

20 June 2024