That familiar fragrance

This is not about the fresh frangrance of jasmine or a smell that would transport you to a different world or something exotic which would pull you to breathe and inhale the fragrance for a long time..It is about the smell of bagasse, a fibrous matter that remains when sugarcane is crushed. This residual bagasse is also used for newsprint and paper-making purposes. I studied my last two years of schooling in a school run by the management of a newsprint organisation, within the campus of the paper-factory. So, bagasse is a part and parcel of everyday life there.

The first few days were quite hard in all aspects : the new school, new people, being in a co-education school, new teachers, the long commute to school and needless to say the bagasse smell everywhere - in classrooms, in canteen, in the ground..As weeks passed by, I got so accostomed that instinctively I knew when the air will begin to smell different during the travel. A small tea-kadai about two  kilometer away from the factory is the landmark-this served as a virtual border after which the breath you take will be of different fragrance than the one before the limits of the shop :) I got used to it and life went by.

After nearly a decade , when I happened to pass-by the campus last week, I voluntarily rolled down the windows of the car to inhale "that-familiar-smell". Brought back lots of memories too.