the business of mixing business of pleasure
My house is smelling like America. People always talk about the smell of foreign that used to burst out of people's suitcases when they returned from abroad. But when you finally go to foreign you have your own idea of how it smells I think. The first time I smelled what I think of as the smell of America (to be correct the USA) was about ten years ago, in Crossword, when there was only one Crossword, next to Mahalkshmi temple. I had just started teaching at Sophia college and the occasional honorarium of (then ) Rs.450 seemed good for pleasure only, not the business of daily groceries. So I'd usually go to Crossword and buy a book, take a cab to the station instead of a bus after. And then one day standing like an upside down L in Indian fiction, then a modest shelf or two, I smelled the smell of good coffee, mixed with warm baking mixed with the heady smell of new books. I experienced severe disorientation. This was a smell that I smelled when I went to Louie's in Baltimo...