After my morning walk, I sit for an hour on my terrace garden, savoring my pot of delicious coffee. All around me I hear the sounds of birds and squirrels, as the peepul tree towering over me provides a home to them and peace for me. As I sip away, different smells start drifting up to me; that of breakfasts being prepared by loving hands. There’s the aroma of aloo paratha, the whiff of an omelette, the crisp smell of a dosa, there’s bacon and eggs rising somewhere, and all the pleasant odours drift upto me, and enhance the beautiful mood I am in.I feel a stillness.

And as I drift into this time of sheer tranquility, I wonder whether I’ve ever heard one smell cry to another, “Hey, you’re intruding into my space!”

“You’re smelly please tone down!”

“Stop crackling while you’re frying! You stink. You’re too noisy!”

No, all these different smells from different kitchens, go through their many chimneys, then joining together in friendly harmony float to the sky as one perfumed fragranceof love!

But then come people; leaders who feelsome particular smells are not needed: They look at loving hands that make the dosa, fry theomeletteor place the potato in the paratha, then scowl as in another kitchen a different smell, tells of another breakfast being made?

“Hey!” say the different aromas sadly as they drift up into the sky the next day, “One of us is missing?”

“He’s been banned!” says the dosa and the others drift up in silence.

Time goes by and same leaders ban one or the othertill only two remain. Slowly all the chimneys start giving out the same smell, as loving hands make the same food, till one day, the same aromasdrifting up from different kitchens see something amiss, “Looks like two chimneys have no smells coming from them?”

“They’ve been banned!” say the others sadly.

“Why?”

“Because they used an inferior oil!”

And the next day only one smell remains, the otherbanned as it came from food cooked by hands from the south. But even that one smell remaining shivers, as it sees same leaders coming with a ban notice, and then it sadly sings:

First they bannedBeef And I did not speak out Because I was not Beef,

Then they came for the Omelettes And I did not speak out Because I was not an Omelette.

Then they banned the Dosa And I did not speak out Because I was not aDosa

Then they came for the Aloo Parathas And I did not speak out Because I was not anAloo Paratha,

Now they’re coming for me And there is no one left to speak out for me!

There are no birds, no squirrels, nothing but the stench of fear from the chimneys..! 

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