Chanel, by Chance

I was stalked this week - by a perfume.

An unusual smell that kept reminding me of a weekend shopping trip; it kept coming back time and again – while working at my desk, while driving to work, through meetings and during my lunchtime, until I got back home in the evening.

It took a while for me to realize that the culprit was a Parisian creator of olfactory promises – Chanel. On Saturday, during a visit to a local mall, I had loitered towards the perfume section while waiting for the shopping to finish. The whole floor looked radically different from my last visit; previous occupants of prime-space had been shoved to the periphery and the center was now occupied by a few eye-catching, black & white, dramatically lit Chanel counters.

I must have been immediately identified as a potential sucker – just as I was wondering why the famous No.5 bottles were displayed like crown jewels, a salesman sided up, “Looking for something special, sir?”

“Uh?”, I mumbled something about being just curious and was about to slink away when he quickly offered to show me around. The fellow looked sincere and affable, without a hint of superciliousness. He introduced himself as Al-tamash. Yes, a namesake of the sultan who once ruled North India from his citadel in Mehrauli. “It means 'Leader of Men’, and is often mis-spelt as Illtutmish by ignorant historians”, he said. Bonded instantly by the love for history and etymology, I asked him about the hype behind No.5.

The Leader smiled and took out a bottle with a flourish, sprayed the contents on a strip of white paper, waved it in the air and passed it to me. I took a whiff and immediately felt hungry. Not a reaction worthy of classic perfumes but how could I confess this to the Leader? My thoughts went to Pavlov and his dog. Perhaps my mind associated the floral smell with formal parties and weddings where the food and drinks were just around the corner.

Having found an eager student with a hungry expression, Al-tamash proceeded to introduce me to something called Chance. “This one is special”, he said, “It is floral, spicy and woody depending on which of its ingredients makes an appearance - hyacinth, white musk, pink pepper, jasmine, vettiver citrus, iris, and patchouli.”

Patchouli! That rang a bell - hunger all forgotten, my mind now wandered off to a little shop in CP that sold perfume oils in tiny bottles. I remembered being interested in a bottle of patchouli – an interest that was quickly extinguished the moment my eyes met the price tag.

Al-tamash told me that each bottle cost over Rs. 5900 - hardly surprising considering the brand-building effort involved. He told me the difference between eau de toilette and perfumes. Toilettes are cheaper but they contain only a fraction of the active ingredients, so you need to spray copiously for the same impact.

I was introduced to a few more perfumes and I dutifully tucked away the paper strips in my pocket notebook, and removed them as soon as I got back home. But the brief encounter seems to have given my shabby dog-eared scratch pad the airs of Coco herself.