Autumn Smells Like You
This morning, after lazying in bed for almost an hour or more before the world wakes up, when I finally dragged myself out, I shoved my face into the bellies of my kittens, one by one. And they smelled like… Autumn.
I know it’s July and probably a bit too early to “smell” autumn. Nonetheless, it smelled like Autumn to me… fresh… cosy… perfect…!
Like the smell that winter is around the corner, but not yet here. While on one hand there’s the anticipation of leaves drying and falling, on the other, there are fresh midnight jasmine blossoms quietly announcing themselves.
And it triggered something in me.
The old times…
Texts from the bygone days…
Waiting for a reply…
or just… JUST an acknowledgement…
Just a glimpse… Just a story… Just some kindness… Some reciprocation…
Maybe just an emoji.
Maybe just a “Seen.”
We both know who we’re talking about.
As I pulled open my curtains and looked down at the garden of my housing society—the very place where the Durga Pujo pandal rises every year in my housing society — I realised something.
This is the same room, the same window, the same view… the same place where, not too long ago, I lay desperately hoping for just one conversation with Him. Just enough courage to say, “in a strange turn of events… I think I may have started having feelings for you.”
A lot of time has passed since then. A few people have come close to occupying that space, and gone. A lot of therapy has happened. So has meditation, journaling, healing…
Poems have been written and read…
Friends have been made and forgotten…
Life has given me reasons to laugh and reasons to cry…
And time has quietly mellowed the blow of feelings that once consumed me…
The definition of Love, as I knew it, has changed and yet, somewhere something is still tied to the bygone days!
Love has stopped being something that only arrives from another person. Somewhere along the way, it became something I learnt to cultivate within myself and within the life I was building.
That doesn’t erase old memories. It simply changes the role they play. Perhaps that’s why this memory felt different.
There was no desperation, no bargaining, no urge to text him, no fantasy of being chosen.
Back then, I stood at this very same window hoping for “just a reply… just an acknowledgement… just an emoji.”
Today, I stand at the same window remembering the man who once occupied that part of my life.
Those are two very different experiences.
For those who don’t know yet, I met ‘N’ on 26th August 2024, Janmashtami, at Tirupati, darshan waiting line…
Looking back, that meeting became the seed from which so much grew— Baazgasht, The Nishant Conundrum, therapy, a deeper understanding of myself, and, in many ways, the person I am becoming today.
Perhaps that’s why, as August approaches every year, something inside me begins to stir.
At first, I thought it was probably my circannual rhythm, or maybe it ain’t!
Maybe it is something far more human. It’s like our brains quietly remember seasons… the quality of light, the smell in the air, the arrival of festivals, morning routines, places, rooms, windows…
Somewhere, my mind has learnt this sequence by heart:
Late July – August – Janmashtami – Tirupati – ‘N’
The memories begin returning before the anniversary itself arrives, not because I summon them, but because the season does.
And this morning, of all things…
It wasn’t an old photograph or his Instagram profile, or our old chats or a poem…
It was the smell of my kittens… that made me smile… because perhaps that’s what healing really looks like.
My present life is now generating the memories that lead me to my past, rather than my past pulling me away from my present.
My kittens – a quiet morning – Durga Pujo ground outside my window. They’re all part of my life today. The memory simply arrived as a visitor… not as a destination.
I remember a time when I used to wonder if, as ‘N’ faded from my life, I would lose the poet in me too. After all, wasn’t he the reason Baazgasht existed? Wasn’t he the reason I first considered therapy? Hadn’t so much of my writing emerged from the silence he unknowingly left behind?
And in fact when I had discussed the same with my therapist long back, he had mentioned – “Even if that happens, still no one can take away from you the fact that you’re already a published author!”
But perhaps I had misunderstood where poetry came from. The poet remained… The writer in me, remained… The pain however had simply changed form. There is no bitterness anymore. No longing to rewrite history. No attempt to convince myself that I’ve forgotten him. Just an acceptance… that some people become seasons in our lives.
Autumn doesn’t have to return for us to appreciate its fragrance. Some memories are not meant to be relived. They are simply meant to remind us how far we’ve travelled.
And that’s okay…
Memories are, after all, there for a reason. 💖
Journal entry
19th July 2026, 6:29am
