The Smells and Sounds of Ramadan

I have always associated smells and sounds with home. When I lived with my parents in a rented house in Malabar, it was the charming smell of bleach, drifting across occasionally from the treatment plant across the bay, something always seemingly accompanied with sporadic rifle shots from the shooting range nearby. Later on when we moved to Fremantle it was the more pleasant smells of salt air, citrus and olives that got me thinking of that home, or the screech of my bike as I would skid into the driveway. For my current home, the smells are Turkish coffee brewing on the stove and wood smoke from fires lit on autumn evenings with my parents, the sounds a myriad of birds; doves, mynas, magpies and kurrajongs, singing outside my windows.

I discovered that I was Muslim in Ramadan of 2006 and it was a kind of homecoming. So now, every Ramadan, I get that same sense, on that first night of tarawih, that first suhoor; that I am home again. This is triggered by the senses as much as remembrance of how I came here, the smells and sounds of Ramadan tell me I’m home. So in that light my reflections on Ramadan shall be an olfactory and aural tour of my Ramadan.

Suhoor

Suhoor smells like porridge and sounds like mobile phone alarm. Probably the most abrasive hallmark of Ramadan is the alarm that wakes me for suhoor, however, horrible as it is, for the month at least; it has with it some positive connotations. Chief amongst these would be porridge! Ever since my first Ramadan, porridge has been a suhoor staple, in small or large amounts, sweetened with honey or brown sugar or dried apples or sultanas and spiced with cinnamon or nutmeg… or made up of a mash all of those combined. Nothing says suhoor more than the smell of porridge and the klaxons of phone alarm.

Fasting

I have to be honest, fast breath is probably the most overwhelming signal of fasting to me. I am very self conscious about making sure I smell nice. One could tell I was coming by the jangle of mints in my pocket, and I have been known to wear more than a little too much itr on occasion. So in this sense, I spend much of my time talking into my hand, desperate not to offend with my breath. Funnily enough, it is a lack of sound that reminds me I am fasting more than a specific one. I have the bad habit of talking too much, yet in Ramadan, at least during the day, I find myself inclined towards quiet.

This may be due to the aforementioned fast breath, but I think there is something else there too. Ramadan makes me feel calm, and the constant stream of conversation that I normally spout seems like so much agitation. This may mean that for my wife, not being barraged with my inane prattle is her ‘home sound’ for Ramadan.

Iftar

Now I think there is no one reading this blog, who has ever been to an iftar, that can pick any other smell than that of dates. That sweet, sticky, glorious smell wafting up from dates clutched in a hand at a Uni iftar, or from a plate at a Muslim friendly restaurant, a platter in a Masjid or a box in the kitchen. Truth be told I disliked dates before I became Muslim, but after my first Ramadan, I came to love that glorious smell with a passion.

The sound on the other hand would be the crackling of the radio in my in-laws living room as we await the adhan. As maghrib draws near, my mother-in-law will pass out dates and my father-in-law will turn on this small radio that will come through to us sitting in the kitchen. The reception is always a little off and so the adhan will come through crackled but still audible. Tis a good sound! Of course it is not one only heard at my in-laws house. That same crackled adhan plays from Thai restaurants in Randwick to Turkish kebab shops in Auburn, letting the restaurant goers know that those dates will go from smelling to tasting in a moment.

Tarawih

It was during tarawih that I was caused to come up with this tour. Sitting in between rakat, I realized how during the prayer two senses stood out. Deprived of stimulus, staring at the same blue piece of carpet and corner of the minbar, my mind would seemingly amplify my sense of hearing and smell in response. In terms of sound, this is certainly a positive. The specific sound being a man named Imam Shameem, who is the Imam at Surrey Hills masjid. His recitation is more my Ramadan home than anything else. It is gloriously familiar to me now, his soft spoken discussion of the verses recited, his way of pronouncing Arabic and the rustle of the woolen vest he often wears is like one of Pavlov’s bells for my tarawih.

Funnily enough, tarawih also has a distinctive smell, a mix of the pleasant and the distracting. Tarawih smells like the musk I wear for prayer, and the perfumes of my neighbours. It also smells a little bit like feet, and there are echoes of the biryani served for iftar, wafting up from the floors below. It is still good though, familiar and comforting.

I am oft caused to reflect that becoming Muslim has given me a heightened sense of the little things. What I mean by this is that, amongst the pious people I know, there is always an attention to detail. The Sheikh that I took shahadah with would always tell people as they ate that his Sheikh had the habit of reciting ‘Look at your food’ as people would gather to eat. We would be caused to reflect upon all that went into that apparently simple meal in front of us, the hundreds of hours of labour from field to plate, the energy from the sun that allowed the vegetables to grow and the complex biology that turns food into sustenance.

This sense of the little things, like the smells and sounds that surround us in this blessed month, can be a great source of shukr, for to all of them to the Creator do we owe our due. So on that note my tour ends. Ramadan Mubarak to you all :D I hope to see you all about my own home, either metaphorical or literal.