Thank you avinash for posting such an article. It is for the first time that i have read an article about such an issue. regards
On 10/27/13, avinash shahi <[email protected]> wrote: > http://www.indianexpress.com/news/living-with-four-senses/1187813/0 > She would like to smell ripe mangoes and the wet earth after it rains. > Shachina Heggar, a woman who has lost her sense of smell, makes up for > her sensory deprivation by indulging in nostalgia > For Shachina Heggar, tea is coffee is hot water. "It all tastes the > same," she says, sipping a chai latte. Long after I have finished my > fragrant cappuccino, Heggar takes her time with her now-tepid tea. > "Right now, I can smell water. Can you smell it?" she asks. "It's a > fresh smell. I don't know how else to describe it." Heggar can't smell > anything. Hold a jar of Vicks Vaporub under her nose and she won't > know it from goo. But, every now and then, a heady nostalgia > interrupts the sensory deprivation and she finds herself surrounded by > imagined aromas — of wood burning at the farm in NR Pura, Chikmagalur > district, where she grew up; of hot akki roti; of jasmine on the vine. > > Most of us have a range of about 10,000 different smells that we > recognise, take for granted, and appreciate or wrinkle our noses at. > For 27-year-old Heggar, who lost her sense of smell about a decade > ago, only a handful of olfactory memories remain. These phantom smells > surface at will, nesting in her mind for weeks and often months, as > real to her as the smell of the coffee on the table is to me. > > Heggar wears a T-shirt, a miniskirt and Burberry's Weekend perfume. > She has never known its fragrance, but a friend she trusts picked it > out for her a few years ago, and it is one of only two perfumes she > wears. It is flowery and bright, with a hint of musk and fruit. "That > sounds like something I would wear," she says. Her vivacious > personality does match the scent. She flippantly attributes her > disability to three accidents in her childhood, a small scar from a > particularly bad fall still visible on the ridge of her nose. "I was > about seven or eight months old, playing on my dad's chest, when I > fell and hit the edge of the cot. The scar has been there since," > Heggar says. But her response to olfactory stimuli began to > deteriorate much later, at the age of 18, and a medical examination > failed to reveal the cause of the problem. "You must think I am crazy > not to have it looked at again. I hate being subjected to medical > scrutiny," she says, joking that she is happy not smelling the garbage > piling up on Bangalore's streets. > > Of course, for every bad odour she is blissfully oblivious to, there > are a hundred aromas Heggar would like to sniff. A foodie and a > self-taught cook, she gorges on biryani but is unable to conjure the > wafting fragrance of basmati rice. Since much of what we consider to > be taste is actually smell, Heggar can't really experience flavour. "I > can tell if the food is salty, sweet, sour or bitter, but that's about > all," she says. "I make up for it by trying to imagine flavours I > remember, and by focusing on texture, temperature and presentation." > But some things remain elusive: she wants to smell ripe mangoes and > searches for the aroma of earth after the rains. > > "Shachina is a thorough foodie. She is one of those people who can go > to a restaurant all by themselves to enjoy a meal," says Sowmya > Jaganmurthy, a friend who swears by Heggar's home-cooked biryani. > Earlier this year, when Jaganmurthy was pregnant, Heggar helped > satisfy her cravings. "The two of us have driven all the way to Mysore > just to eat at a restaurant. That's how crazy she is about food," she > says. > > The irony of a foodie without a nose is not lost on Heggar. An > engineering dropout-turned-fashion designer, she came close to > becoming a chef. "I was deciding between fashion and cooking school," > she says. "Luckily, I chose right." Heggar retails her eponymous > Indian-wear label at a few stores in the city, besides designing > clothes for Kannada films. Her repertoire of 26 films includes Junglee > (2009), Paramathma (2011), Charminar (2013) and Topiwala (2013). > > The last time she thought she could taste something, Heggar was trying > exotic meats at a food street in Singapore. Each piece was beautiful, > textured and hinted at delectable, if imaginary, flavours. "The idea > of flavour is exciting to me," she says. When we meet two days after > her return from the trip, she is ecstatic about another episode in > Bali. "I was in a cab making my way to the hotel from the airport when > this exotic smell hit me. I rolled down the windows, I thought I could > actually smell again and even called some friends," she says. It was > everything she wanted a holiday to smell like —sandalwood, spice and > musk — but the next day, her nose drew a blank once again. > > Heggar's friends say she likes to travel, perhaps, in search of an > impossible scent that even her nose would pick up. "She is a strong > person. She is so used to living without her sense of smell that we > often forget about her condition," says Dipanjay Sanyal, an ad > filmmaker, who has known Heggar for eight years. According to Sanyal, > Heggar makes a mean paella but can't tell if the leftovers in her > fridge are rotten. "It is a health scare, and since I live alone, my > friends come and make sure I don't eat anything that's gone bad. Just > like they check the gas stove for leaks," Heggar says. > > Outside the realm of medicine, Heggar has tried every trick in the > book in the hope of regaining the bits of the world now lost to her — > aroma massage, looking at a pile of garbage, even repeatedly ordering > her beloved strawberry margarita. A mention of the drink, probably the > last she had before she lost her ability to smell, makes her smile. > One day, last year, she woke up to its sweet aroma, and the feeling > stayed with her for over two months, night and day. "I must have been > the happiest person on the planet. I could only smell strawberry > margarita for weeks," she says, wistfully. Yet, these sensory surges > aren't under her control. They are involuntary, like the memories of > childhood triggered in Marcel Proust when he had a fleeting taste of > madeleines years later. > > Scientists have known for a long time that odours trigger emotional > connections. Indeed, research suggests that smells can influence mood, > memory, emotions, mate choice, and the immune and endocrine systems. > "My friends joke that I will never get married because I can't smell > the pheromones on the men I date," says Heggar. Pheromones are > chemical signals that animals use to transmit messages to one another. > Forget subtle signals, Heggar cannot smell her own shampoo. Living and > non-living things release certain chemicals that upon entering the > nose dissolve in the mucus inside. Beneath the mucus is a membrane > containing olfactory receptor neurons that can detect thousands of > odours. These receptors transmit information through the olfactory > nerve to the olfactory bulb, which in humans is located in a rather > inaccessible region at the back of the nose. The bulb, in turn, > communicates signals to the brain. Thanks to this shortcut to the > cortex, the sense of smell travels to the brain very fast compared > with other senses. Heggar says she would like to have access to this > primal cue some day. Dr T Sankarshana, a well-known ENT surgeon, says > anosmia — the loss of smell — affects about 20-30 per cent of the > patients he receives, but in most cases it is reversible. "Bangalore > is the allergy capital of India. The reason for sudden loss of smell > is often an obstruction in the olfactory region," he says. As for > Shachina, she says she "would like to know my husband's smell when I > do get married". And she hopes to get there with her nose held high. > > > > > > -- > Avinash Shahi > M.Phil Research Scholar > Centre for The Study of Law and Governance > Jawaharlal Nehru University > New Delhi India > > Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of > mobile phones / Tabs on: > http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > > Search for old postings at: > http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > > To unsubscribe send a message to > [email protected] > with the subject unsubscribe. > > To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please > visit the list home page at > http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in > > > Disclaimer: > 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the > person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; > > 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails > sent through this mailing list.. > Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To unsubscribe send a message to [email protected] with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
