My dark cupboard of mystery

Todayrsquos inspiration is a dark wooden cupboard with glass doors that a truck from IKEA delivered three days ago I have spent an afternoon arraying it neatly with my growing arsenal of essential oils hydrolats carrier oils and bright bottles of cobalt blue or deep amber that block lightBy the end of the year I will have seven carrier oils you certainly donrsquot have in your larder such as avocado oil Moroccan Argan oil grapeseed oil and South African marula oilInto these I will drip mathematical drops selected from my 35 highly concentrated essential oils including ones you have never heard of like opopanax imagine camphor with an edge of peppermint and palmarosa rose flirting with lemonMy dark cupboard is my mysterious chamber of secrets Though the oils are in tightly sealed bottles their molecules escape and mix A soft wave of fragrance washes over me every time I open the doors at the edge of an enchanting universe that can be sensed but never describedThe most thrilling part of my treasure trove is a 10ml bottle of Rose Otto essential oil Authentic Rose Otto comes from Bulgaria where it grows exclusively in a valley of 240 square kilometres at an altitude of 396 metres near the mountain town of Kazanlak About 60000 of these roses will yield a single ounce 30 ml of Rose Otto essential oilAlso Read Why Palestine haunted FIFA World CupThat one ounce would cost 874 I use a cheaper substitute from a cheaper rose I cannot afford the originalI also cannot describe the original And that is why Irsquom writing the first of this threepart eulogy to a world of scents and fragrances I am tiptoeing intomdasha world quite beyond wordsTry it for yourself Describe the smell of a rose I guarantee you will fail Try any other scentmdashjasmine turpentine sweat toothpaste a burpmdashand you will still failAs a writer my fascination with words goes back to school days when one established supremacy by flaunting words like ersatz bespoke and triskaidekaphobia It has taken age and humility to realise that our languages do not equip us to capture the stories our noses tell us You could say something smells like jasmine but for the life of you you could not tell me what the jasmine smells likeSmells shapeshift Irsquom not even sure that you smell what I smell When friends come over I allow them a sniff of my patchouli essential oil so widely used in Ayurvedic skin and hair potions In just a week Irsquove heard oil being compared to a lemon wet earth green leaves kitchen spices and flowers Patchouli smells different to everyone You have the same six million smell receptors up your nose as I do but my rose is still not your roseAccording to Ed Yong who won the Pulitzer Prize for explanatory writing during the COVID19 pandemic English has only three dedicated words for describing smells stinky fragrant and mustyTo Yong the absence of smell words in English is a WEIRD problemmdashpertaining to western educated industrial rich and democratic cultures You wouldnrsquot face this problem if for instance you were one of the Jahai people of Malaysia From childhood yoursquod have been using dozens of specific smell words that donrsquot exist in any other tongueLike ltpit which describes the pleasant popcornlike smell of a certain shaggy otter called a bearcat A Jahai can also recognise ltpit in some soaps flowers and even the intensely stinky durian fruitThe only English smell word I believe would represent the exact same scent to everyone is petrichor the word for the subtle almost spiritual aroma of wet earth after the first rainBeyond this my pen runs dry So where do we begin with the wordsMy dark cupboard of mystery full of fragrant bottled genies is my world beyond words I will tread softly in here to train my nose play with these bewitching molecules discover how these powerful drops can change usmdashbody mind and soulLike ordinary mortals and butterflies I was first drawn to essential oils because of their aromas In a matter of weeks I have learnt that these oils are the botanical equivalent of atom bombs They deserve awe and respectMy first aromatherapy lesson came three days ago when I lifted a pressure cooker off a hot stove placing a hand on the base and instantly burning two fingers severelyThe pain was searing Within seconds the fingers were red inflamed and on fire I washed them in cold water I smeared minty toothpaste over them all to no availAnd then I remembered my essential oils I found instructions in one of my new books Six hours later as the sun set in Bangkok my fingers were as normal as they had been when I woke that day No pain no inflammation no peeling and no blistersCome back next week and Irsquoll tell you what my essential oils did for meYou can reach C Y Gopinath at cygopigmailcomSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper