How do we associate fragrances with festivals?

What is Nostalgia? The feeling you get when you see, hear, smell or feel something that makes you realize that you've already seen, heard, smelt or felt something similar.

By this definition, fragrances are integral to your memories. They hold the DNA of the very memory that's preserved in your mind. When we encounter a familiar scent, it acts as a catalyst; the brain goes in overdrive and starts opening file cabinets associated with that scent. Thus triggering a backlog of emotions in the head, which is too large to process on time. The result: half-awake, half-asleep sense of nostalgia where the person loses his sense of time. This nostalgia might last a micro second, a minute, an hour or even a month. 

Nostalgia is like a drug, it makes you do the things that you can no longer do and go to the places that no longer exist. But it's not necessarily as bad as it may sound. And just like every drug, this one also make its user (all of us) addicted.

Now, what if I told you that you experience nostalgia on a daily basis without even realizing it? There are so many smells around you, that reminds you of life's biggest and most joyous moments.

The most joyous moments in anyone's life are festivals. That's because weddings and births happen just once in a while but in our culture-rich country the festivals a lot more often. Each festival has a unique flavour - an peculiar aroma, attached to it. 

Imagine! You're walking by a shop and you smell the unique scent of a brand new piece of clothing; and it instantly reminds you of Durga Puja and when bought a new saree.

Imagine! You stop by at a dhaba along the side of the higway and truck driver next table orders thandai and you're instantly transformed back in time when your uncle prepared bhang for your and your friends during Holi.

Imagine! A baarat is dancing on the streets hampering the flow of traffic. Your car crawls next to the dancers who couldn't be less bothered by who's watching them; suddenly, the traffic comes to a screeching halt because someone decides to fire a series of 5000 minibombs in the middle of the road. The smell of the burnt gunpowder throws you back in time when you were 9 and couldn't hold your excitement knowing that the evening before your Diwali vacation, your dad were going to bring firecrackers for you.

But now, you don't have to pass through a crowded market place, eat at a dhaba or get stuck in a traffic jam to relive your memories. Whether you're at home or in the car, the gorgeous scents that keep you happy and can be with you, by your side, always. And this has been possible thanks to the brainy people behind the Godrej Aer. Check out their entire range of fragrances and see which one throws you back in time. 

So, what's your drug, again!