During my weekly session with the shrink, while undergoing a session of Hypnotherapy,  I was asked to think back about my earliest happy memory. As I closed my eyes, I imagined myself in a tonga or horse carriage with a wicker basket in my lap, munching away on a bunch of ripe,red cherries. My mother was sitting beside me and I could feel her warm, mummy presence, a memory I can still recall  after all these years. I don’t even know whether these memories exist or if they are a figment of my imagination but it they do, it is something truly embedded in my subconscious because this memory of mine goes back to the time when I visited Kashmir with my parents way back in the early sixties. If I remember right, I must have been around 3 or 4  and if my recall is accurate, proves that I am a really happy person who has had a happy childhood;  psychological studies apparently show that the further back your happy memory goes, the happier your childhood.

They say that every human being has a particular smell and I remember my mother’s distinctly. She has that lovely warm mummy smell. When we were children, I remember for years we would wipe our hands and faces dry on her sari, taking in that special smell of starch and perfume that she would apply most generously.

I loved watching her dress up – dot her face with foundation, then spread it out before patting a dry face powder. She would then generously sprinkle talcum powder on her back and finish off with splashes of cologne or a spray of perfume if she was going out  to dinner. Her make up would be finished with the flourish of a lipstick and she would get up and adjust her sari, pulling it tight , the pleats just right, the length just gracefully touching the floor and then picking up her handbag she would be ready to face the world.

She would repeat this process at least twice a day because even now my mother believes in dressing up for the evening. So it almost seemed that whenever you entered her room it smelled just divine – talcum powder and cologne. Sometimes there would be the sharp smell of acetone which she would use to remove the nail polish . But the smell of perfume I associate with her is always a sweet, mellow smell that would rub off on her clothes, her bags and even us when she kissed us goodbye.

I am blessed indeed that I still have my mother around to talk to every day. At 8.30 every morning I call her up and chat with her. Most times we have nothing of import to talk about but it is comforting to know that we have each other at the other end of the phone. For the past several years now, ever since my children have become independent, I have visited her on her birthday preferring to visit my parents when they can talk to me rather than go and visit them when they can’t. This year I won’t be visiting my parents because I will be traveling .

I will close my eyes and remember her , her yummy mummy fragrance – all warm and comforting , her gentle hands as she pressed my feet at night especially now when I lie down tired after a day of walking.

Happy Birthday Mum and thank you for always being there to press my feet!