Stealing fragrance from granny’s garden

The term ‘evocative travel experience’ takes me straight forward to my granny’s garden. During summer vacation, I would visit my grandma. I and my brother would jump together on the idea of travelling to granny’s home. Apart from loads of love and fairy tales (which come inherent with grannies), what fetched us towards granny’s place was her fragrant garden.

Yes, she had a tiny, beautiful and sweet-scented garden located in the backyard. A lawn that had lush green carpet of soft grass and was filled with beauties like Milk and wine lily, roses, mint, basil and Henna. Every morning granny would pluck some Henna and Basil leaves and crush them in big copper jar filled with water. She would sing beautifully while doing this. Me and my bro would wake up with her soulful & sweet voice enveloped in freshness of fragrance from her garden.

She would sprinkle the Henna and basil water at us while we would stand closing our eyes, feeling the morning dew freshness, which had blooming essence of mint, lilies, roses, Henna and of course, the Holy Basil. Nothing could beat that freshness… the joy of inhaling Mother Nature’s natural air freshener is beyond explanation. It actually requires words from the book of heavens to express how lively and gorgeous that fragrance was.

*Stealing the Fragrance*

Granny moved in with me because she had turned really ill. Dad couldn’t let her stay in our ancestral home anymore. She needed special love and care. But, she wasn’t happy staying away from her garden. She used to miss her daily routine of waking up with Uncle Sun and taking an aromatic bath (Yes, she would bathe with the scented water aka water with henna leaves and rose petals...aha! What a gorgeous granny I had), followed by worshipping lord Shiva, which was situated in her garden only.

She didn’t like the smoke could sense in city’s air. She claimed that she could feel carbon being tossed down her throat. This made us sad. We didn’t want her to feel suffocated L

Me, Mom, Dad and Bro, we all had sleepless nights to find out solution for this. Finally, my brilliant brother came up with the idea of stealing the fragrance from granny’s garden.

That was it, we travelled to granny’s place, with a clear intention of taking each plant, flower and fruit with us, which had essence of hominess. The plants in flowerpots were easy to transport, but the challenge was to arrest the fragrance of that entire garden somehow… But we were prepared to take up that challenge…with a glass bottle.

Yes, that glass bottle/jar was supposed to be our potion bottle. We carefully plucked the leaves of henna, mint, Holy Basil, lily and rose. We put all the herbs in that jar and tightened its nob so that not even the air can steal the fragrance.

While back home, we asked Granny to open the bottle and smell it. She carefully twisted the nob and a fresh and divine fragrance from the heavens, which has been struggling to be free, blown out in the air.

The bottle stayed with granny as long as she stayed on the earth, with us. And, my father placed it in her hands when she was leaving this world forever.

I never smelt anything as refreshing and gorgeous as granny’s garden. With loads of efforts, we were just able to steal a pinch of it. The herbs were so common and easily available in the surroundings. But the way granny had placed them together, had turned the scent so special…

Ah! I wish someone could steal such fragrance and fill it in a spray for me. I would love to visit my granny’s garden again and again, by just pushing the spray knob.

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I would sincerely like to thank Godrej Aer and Indiblogger for bringing up this idea to Inspire a fragrance. 

PS: This post is my official entry to Inspire a fragrance contest organized by Indiblogger in association with Godrej Aer

Guys check out Godrej Aer's official page here. They have some awesome fragrances for your room, car and life, I would say. You can also checkout their facebook page. Also, don't forget to catch #InspireAFragrance on twitter.