There used to be this family doctor of ours... Back then when i was a kid.

The clinic was a small, but extremely tidy one.

There was a pungent yet good smell, attributable to that place. +

The lady, ( doctor) was a craft, a finesse . I would want to imitate her style of holding a pen, or crossing her legs and rocking in her chair...

She wore these chic bengali cotton sarees and was always , always sounding so pleasant.
Like lata mangeshkar singing to you.
+

There hung a huge poster of a spanish bullfight, a bull running and a man holding this red tar piece of cloth, trying to destabilise the bull.
Ithe felt material of this poster, felt so good.
And then...
Then there was ram babu. The compounder in the clinic. +

He used to mix the medicines like a live counter, fill the syrups in bottles and pack them for us.
For me, specially, he gave those freebies ,extra measuring cups, that i would add to my kitchen set.
Sometimes, if i were lucky, i would get colored ones.+

And then the world famous, bengali lal awshad. The best remedy for all open wounds. The burning sensation gave a trickle to the inner jaws of the teeth and yet, that medicine healed every wound.

24 years later, i went to calcutta this summer, and i went to this same clinic. Could not find this man and heard that the doctor had flown abroad.
But then, the pungent smell of the clinic remained intact.
What memories go faded in color, come back through the nostrils!
Fin.