Back to reminiscence

So much for the digression into the Dels....just feltl like it...where were we? Oh yeah, Free School Street: that dappled neighbourhood of Jesuit preaching and whorehouses, seedy beer bars and sportsgoods shops, roadside junkies and NA meetings. Have you ever wondered how much the smells of a particular area define its character? I picked up that scent pretty early. Free School Street would give off the aroma of cheap kebab shops, the slick smell of automobile lubricants from its various garages, the pungence of attar from its mehendi-laden Muslim salesmen, the dusty, warm smell of bidi factories. It would all mingle to form a single, heavy musk....