The narrator recalls a scent at Man Mo, an ancient temple tucked among Hong Kong’s soaring towers in the financial district. This small sanctuary honors two gods named, in a playful contrast, for man and war. In days past, when notaries were scarce, deals were sealed in ritual ways: a chicken’s head might appear, signed contracts were left to burn with incense sticks. Today, perhaps mortgages aren’t burned, yet the site remains a place where students and administrators hoping for a little extra from the payroll gather, drawn toward the hereafter. The temple still drifts in a dense cloud of smoke.
In the Muslim quarter of Benaras, one notices the coppery tang of blood from a lamb, red streams tracing the ground, as stray dogs move with a patient reverence. They do not seek praise or promises; they wait for someone to notice them or to toss a small mercy. It is a simple, stubborn watchfulness that persists.
Nearby, the ghats echo with the scent of cremation. The author imagines telling many untold stories about death in India, about the rituals that blur into a kind of living memory. When the deceased is wealthy, the drums and thunder echo with an extra layer of ceremony, and fresh ghee is smeared along the rites as the ritual music swells.
There is also the memory of the first weekend sheets of grown children who have already left home, a quiet ache that persists as new routines form.
Then there is the memory of the popcorn that was once prepared by a father, a scent that mingled with the cold air. The recollection goes beyond the kitchen, beyond simple sustenance, touching the very texture of language. A reader might assume popcorn smells as it is imagined in a movie theater or in a mall, yet the writer insists that such assumptions miss the truth. Even now, the popcorn is bought and enjoyed, not merely for flavor but for memory itself.
Science, too, offers an explanation for these experiences: olfactory memory intertwines smell with emotion inside the limbic system, creating memories that feel immediate and complete. They are not merely remembered; they seem to relive the moment, and sometimes they simply arrive with no choice in the matter. What remains enduring is what moves a person.
Given a preference for memory that outlasts war and words, the writer shares a clearer interpretation. The sense-memory, better known as the Proust Effect or the Proust Madeleine Effect, describes memories triggered by the earliest pages of monumental novels. In a famous moment, a character dips a freshly baked cake into tea while his mother once served it. The joy feels extraordinary, bound to more than taste alone.
One wonders where such a joy truly comes from. It seems linked to the taste of tea and a muffin, yet far deeper than mere sustenance. The passage asks how such a memory is held, and whether it can be captured or is forever elusive. The truth, it suggests, lies not in another person but within the self. This insight resonates with a father’s longing for simple pleasures, a longing tied to the warmth of popcorn and the memories that accompany it.
Questions of whether the corn comes from a home garden, or arises from a desire to preserve cherished memories, surface through this reflection. The narrator is not asserting moral judgment about parents or family, yet admits that some family dynamics can be deeply flawed. The memory of washing dishes, a gendered memory of labor, surfaces with a quiet sting, and a brother’s dismissive term echoes the pattern of a childhood marked by unequal treatment.
If there is a wish to send a question through incense smoke, it centers on whether cold and rain are linked to popcorn in the speaker’s memory,Or whether the original spark came from someone else. Perhaps the conditions of childhood converged into a single, radiant memory, or maybe the creator of that memory carried it from the start.