Burnt Milk-My olfaction.

Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.

                                                                                -Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

Each person is gifted with one of the five senses being more powerful than the other. This is abundantly clear to us when we see the hearing capabilities of the ones who have impaired vision. God compensates by enhancing the power of other complimentary sense whenever one is weak. I have been gifted with good olfaction. On many occasions it becomes annoying as I am the only one to smell and at times have to suffer the comments from others. It also is sometimes very tough on me because I smell what others cannot and get into arguments. Many times, it has helped me and many times troubled me.

When I was newly married, my wife could not surprise me by making some special dishes. Whenever I came home from the office, my wife will open the door for me. As I unlace my shoes, I will feel the smell of the dishes and from the foyer itself I will shout, you have prepared this for snacks or for dinner.  I realised that I am not allowing her the little satisfaction of pleasing me. After some time, I learned not to say it loud even if I smelled it. I allowed her to surprise me and made her enjoy that feeling of making me happy. Marriage is nothing but happiness of the two people. She got to know about my good olfaction and now doesn’t get offended when I say just after entering the home, what she has prepared. She just smiles and at times tells me, no its must be from the neighbour’s house.  

Just a few days back, she had kept the milk on the stove for heating and we were all sitting and chatting. She follows the traditional way of heating the milk twice a day. We don’t keep in fridge. I was the one to first get the faint smell of the burning milk, got up and closed the burner. My wife asked what happened. I smiled and said, the milk would have burned. That moment I remembered an incident that took place long back when I was a bachelor. I shared with all, my children were there and some relatives. Everyone laughed merrily. This was a repeat for my wife, as I had shown her the utensil which was discoloured and distorted which I had kept till marriage as a memento.

I was staying in a rented house which had a single room which served as bedroom and living room, a bathroom and a kitchen. Kitchen was very small, in fact it was the genius of the owner that had somehow found the space by the side of the staircase. It was enough for one to stand and cook. Well, I had minimal utensils and a Nutan wick Stove to cook. 

Those days Nutan stove was considered to be smokeless and healthier than the other ones. It used to run on Kerosene. I had to get the ration card with lot of difficulties, to get the kerosene. In open market it was costlier than the rationed kerosene.

Those were the very early days of my career. For Getting Gas one had to wait for four to five years. The kitchen had its own door which opened into courtyard. There was a window with wire mesh next to the door and above the cooking platform. Both the door and window were metal ones. In fact, all the doors and windows were metal ones. The house owner had a daughter and son. Both were college going. One of the tenant staying in the first floor had two daughters. The courtyard was very huge and we used to play badminton and or cricket.

I had the habit of bringing milk in the morning, have either tea or milk along with breakfast. Breakfast would be Poha, Upma or Bread and butter. I used to prepare my own breakfast and dinner. Lunch used to be in the factory canteen. After coming home in the evening, I used to boil the milk first. I did not have a fridge and many times the milk had spilt, because of the heat. Then if the time permits I used play with the house owner’s son or daughter or tenant’s daughters.

On one day, when I came in the evening, all were playing and I also joined them. As, many were there it got interesting and took time. After about half an hour or so, I smelled the burning of milk. Asked all of them have they kept milk for boiling or so. Al of them confirmed no. The play progressed further. The smell grew stronger, I told them to go and check their kitchen. I also asked the two neighbours whose children had joined for the play. Their kitchen was also nearby. They all checked and came back saying nothing. But then the smell got stronger.

After another few minutes, I suddenly saw black smoke coming out of my kitchen window. It dawned on me that I was the one who had kept the milk for heating. It just occurred to me that I had it kept it on slow heat, thinking I will come and check. But in the heat of playing had completely forgotten. I ran and opened the kitchen door, the kitchen was filled with smoke, could not see anything. Kept the door open, opened the room door and put on the ceiling fan in the room. I could see that the utensil had turned black and distorted. The milk was burnt and had become tar. I was lucky that I had put it on slow heat otherwise there was chance of fire hazard.

All my neighbours were around my kitchen. Some making mockery of me, some laughing and talking loud. Some were telling though it was my milk that was burning and I smelled but made them run and check their houses. Well, the ruckus went on for almost an hour and every one departed at last laughing.

After some time, the smoke got cleared and the utensil cooled down, I tried cleaning it with no success. I threw it below the staircase. Staircase area used to be my junk yard.

To this day, I can still visualise that incident and remember that lingering burning smell my olfactory organs could catch, but had no idea where it came from. After marriage, on a Sunday my wife was clearing the garbage and junk. She noticed this utensil and asked about it. I had narrated her the incident and we both had laughed merrily. As a fallout of this incident, I got into the habit of doing one thing at a time. Multi-tasking is ok as long as one doesn’t lose track of the tasks one is doing.

There was another incident that resulted in saving the aircraft harness from burning. We were undertaking some modification work on a Regional Taxi aircraft at Safdarjung Airport, Delhi. My team was working on the aircraft. I was design lead. The manufacturing team was laying down the cables and doing other integration work on the aircraft in hangar. I used to be working from a room allotted to me in the first floor. As I was the lead for the project, I used to come down every now and then to check the things and see if any help is required.

It was in the evening, before pack up I came down and saw that the team is still working. The floor panels were open, some were working in the cockpit area and some were in the tail area. I got into the cabin. As soon as entered the cabin my olfactory senses picked a very faint plastic burning smell. I talked to my team. None of them could identify or smell anything. I said no, I feel something is burning and it is plastic. I asked them to look. One of them said sir why are you joking. I said, I am serious. They started looking desperately. I wanted no fire instance on an aircraft. Ironically I was the only one to smell, but was not able to pick up the direction.

I too started looking. After lot of searching we could hit upon the location. Beneath the floor panels, someone had left the inspection lamp on. The lamp was sitting on a wire bundle. Though the lamp had a safety wire cage, somehow the lamp was touching the wire. Over time, the heat was enough to start melting the sheath. It had just started melting that how the smell was very faint. Chances were, the team would have continued working (as they were detailed to work in the second shift, till the work got completed) without noticing and the whole loom would have gone bad and or caught fire. The team was very happy that nothing happened. I was happy for myself as it was not a false sensing and resulted in safety.

No matter which sense is stronger, one must pay heed to what they want to convey to you. We must not disregard the inputs our sensory organs are presenting to us. There could be a foul smell emanating from a dead rodent or some animal. It could be the faint smell of the gas leakage or it could be the drop by drop leakage of water from the pipe. If one notices, must respond, it might save costly repairs or severe damages. Even it might save one’s life also. All I say is sense the senses.