God in Gucci

I have discovered that when you boycott something, or proclaim disdain for it publicly, it is actually because you like it more than you care to admit, to the world, and sometimes, to yourself.

Like perfume. I never buy and rarely wear perfume. The only perfumes I own have been given to me by friends. Why? Because I don’t care to smell good? Wrong. Because smell to me is the most inebriating of senses, the most powerful, the most heavenly.

Smell is an obsession. I associate everything with smell. A sliver of a long-forgotten smell is like the key that opens long-locked doors inside my mind, the lubrication that gets those rusty hinges to swing.

The smell of my sister’s baby skin in the days when she would still let me hug her, the stench of Salt Lake City when I was a hot-headed-wear-heart-on-sleeve kinda punk kid, the cold remembrance of the air conditioning at Sinhal classes where I was easily the most painfully-shy, short-skirted, fifteen-year-old in her own ditsy Neverland, the perfumed nail-polish and the musty odor of second-hand Sweet Valley Highs from then, when I was quite the bimbo, the skin cream we all love to hate on my lips for the first time - the feeling’s gone, but the smell remains, the ghastly gobhi-aaloo when I would wake up feeling homeless and lost - remembering the smell of my mother’s love, the Vodka in plastic cups - brilliant hazy nights and freshly-laundered rosy mornings. And lately, the roses that smell of Hugo Boss.

The list is endless.

I love smell so much that I don’t think there is any smell in the world good enough for me. And so, I never wear perfume.

The same goes for love. People who say they don’t believe in love, in fact, believe in it so much that anything less than the over-powering, all-consuming, absolutely-exhilarating emotion is not acceptable - is not love.