It is rare for a thought to seize me so fiercely that it demands to be written down in a single, uninterrupted session of writing. But some memories do not ask for permission; they simply pull you back into their embrace. It started with a simple, almost unsettling question:
Can we smell emotions? Do we carry a signature stench—or perhaps an effervescence—of the things that have broken us?
To answer that, I have to take you back to the winter of 1991.
The Basement in Sector 22 Chandigarh - Pnkaj Hotel . I was twenty-one, and Chandigarh in the winter was a quiet masterpiece of order and biting cold. Whenever my work there came to an end, I would chase the last DTC bus to Delhi from the Sector 17 stand—a princely journey that cost all of fifty rupees. That night, I was too late. The DTC bus had already departed. My only alternative was the lone Haryana Roadways bus parked in the dark, taking a long, cautious detour through Narayangarh to bypass the turbulent Punjab border. The conductor casually informed me that the driver wouldn't show up until ten. It was barely past seven, and the frost was settling in. Driven by a smoker's quiet radar, I wandered across the road toward the dim glow of Hotel Pankaj. But first, I made a ritual stop at my regular haunt—Deepak Radios—to pick up two fresh cassette tapes and a pack of batteries for my Videocon Walkman. Tapes in hand, I slipped down the stairs into the basement bar of Hotel Pankaj.
The air inside was heavy, smelling of cheap spirits, stale smoke, and ambient chatter. A handful of men—their ages spanning decades—were shouting incessantly. I hate noises, and I hate crowds. I took a corner seat, ordered a large Old Monk with Thumbs Up, lit a Classic cigarette, and asked the bartender if he would play my newly bought cassette. He loaded the tape. The velvety voice of Jagjit Singh spilled into the room, and everything shifted.
Voices softened. Conversations dissolved into silence.
In a city then haunted by the dark shadow of terrorism, a room full of rough, drinking men suddenly found sanctuary in poetic verse.
Back then, I was the quietest person in any room—at school, among my cousins, and certainly in that bar. I was the youngest, a complete outsider. Yet, as my tapes played until eleven that night, something remarkable happened. I watched my own introversion melt into a kind of veiled extroversion.
That night, I realized a fundamental truth about human nature: Strangers rarely connect through trivial happiness. We bond through our vices, our shared crimes, or our unspoken trauma.
As the ghazals washed over the room, a phrase took root in my mind: "Jaana Jee."
It was a name for a beloved who exists nowhere except in the architecture of imagination.
We like to believe we fall in love with flesh-and-blood human beings, but we don't—not at first. We walk through the world carrying an empty mental frame, desperately searching for someone to fit its exact contours. Not contours of body but contours of soul. Sometimes, a person resembles the portrait enough that we fool ourselves that that's her.
Sometimes, the reality breaks the frame entirely, exposing the utter fragility of our fantasy.
We fall in love with the imaginary blueprint first. But true magic only happens on the day the real, living, breathing person outgrows the ghost in our head. The raw, beautiful truth of their physical presence eclipses the static perfection of our dream.
Which brings me back to the scent of our inner lives. Pain carries an invisible odor—a frequency, a fragrance, or a stench. Science now talks endlessly about psychological patterns and behavioral coping mechanisms, but if you look past the clinical jargon, you see the poetry of survival: I categorise them as follows;
The Extroverted Introverts: They bury their suffering under endless, restless chatter. It is a social deodorant, applied heavily to mask a lingering ancient stench.
The People Pleasers: Driven by a terror of rejection, they exhaust themselves overextending for others, only to retreat into solitude to bleed in private.
The Hyper-Aware: Trauma has made them expert readers of rooms. They pick up on micro-cues effortlessly, only to spend the midnight hours spiraling in over-analysis.
The Push-Pull Souls: They crave intimate, emotional, and physical connection, yet independence is their armor. They step close enough to feel warm, then vanish before anyone can get close enough to see their scars.
तलाश-ए-मंज़िल-ए-जाना इक बहाना था, तमाम उम्र मैं अपनी तरफ़ रवाना था !
मैं तेरी धुन में रवां था मुझे पता न चला, गुबार-ए-राह में शामिल ग़म-ए-ज़माना था !
मैं उसको हश्र में किस नाम से सदा देता, के मेरा उसका तअर्रूफ़ ग़ाएबाना था
अजब कशिश थी समंदर की सब्ज़ आँखों में, हर इक चश्मा उसकी तरफ़ रवाना था
अजब रंग था रिन्दों का तेरी महफ़िल में, थी प्यास जिसमें जितनी, मिला पैमाना था
तुम्हारे दर से आता हूँ तो लोग कहते हैं, फ़क़ीर आता है लेकिन वो आशिक़ाना था
वही नहीं तो वर्क़ किस लिए सियाह करें, सुखन तो अर्ज़-ए-तमन्ना का एक बहाना था
समंद-ए-शौक़ था 'अमजद' रवां दवां जब तक, हमारे पीछे सितारों का आशियाना था
-अमजद इस्लाम अमजद
The People Pleasers: Driven by a terror of rejection, they exhaust themselves overextending for others, only to retreat into solitude to bleed in private.
The Hyper-Aware: Trauma has made them expert readers of rooms. They pick up on micro-cues effortlessly, only to spend the midnight hours spiraling in over-analysis.
The Push-Pull Souls: They crave intimate, emotional, and physical connection, yet independence is their armor. They step close enough to feel warm, then vanish before anyone can get close enough to see their scars.
Most people find these behavioral paradoxes odd or difficult. But my realization is simple: Do not change.
Do not alter your nature to make the uninitiated comfortable. Meet yourself where you are. Stand before the glass, buff away the dust of expectation, and look—really look—at who you are. Smell the pain. Own it. One day, the mental frame you carry will find a portrait in realism that is infinitely more beautiful than anything your imagination could have ever drafted.
Decades have passed since that winter night in Sector 22. I don't drink anymore, but those Jagjit Singh ghazals and the memory of that Old Monk remain baked into the fabric of who I am. In 1996, sitting in a crowded auditorium in Melbourne, I heard Jagjit jee sing those very verses live. Even now, decades later, that moment feels as fresh as if the notes were struck only yesterday.
Looking back at every person who has ever truly mattered in my life, I realize they all share one quiet, undeniable trait: We were in pain, an unexplained trauma which bloomed into an emotional orgasm and went back to being in pain.
We were never looking for a perfect, idealized beloved. We were just looking for someone who could recognize the landscape of our pain—someone who walked through the same fires, breathed the same cold air, and could smell the fragrance in the dark.
तलाश-ए-मंज़िल-ए-जाना इक बहाना था, तमाम उम्र मैं अपनी तरफ़ रवाना था !
मैं तेरी धुन में रवां था मुझे पता न चला, गुबार-ए-राह में शामिल ग़म-ए-ज़माना था !
मैं उसको हश्र में किस नाम से सदा देता, के मेरा उसका तअर्रूफ़ ग़ाएबाना था
अजब कशिश थी समंदर की सब्ज़ आँखों में, हर इक चश्मा उसकी तरफ़ रवाना था
अजब रंग था रिन्दों का तेरी महफ़िल में, थी प्यास जिसमें जितनी, मिला पैमाना था
तुम्हारे दर से आता हूँ तो लोग कहते हैं, फ़क़ीर आता है लेकिन वो आशिक़ाना था
वही नहीं तो वर्क़ किस लिए सियाह करें, सुखन तो अर्ज़-ए-तमन्ना का एक बहाना था
समंद-ए-शौक़ था 'अमजद' रवां दवां जब तक, हमारे पीछे सितारों का आशियाना था
-अमजद इस्लाम अमजद
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