BY RASHMI PATANI

The Olfactory Memory of a Konkan Summer

For generations, the first true sign of summer for many of India’s old families is not the calendar, but the arrival of the aapus—the Devgad Hapus mangoes—from their ancestral groves. It is a scent memory so potent, so deeply woven into the fabric of childhood, that it defies description. Until now. Master perfumer Neela Vermillion, in her most personal work yet, has captured this elusive nostalgia in a bottle she simply calls ‘Aamras’.

This is not a literal, sweet mango fragrance. That would be too obvious, too crude. ‘Aamras’ is a story in three acts. The opening is the prelude to the harvest: the petrichor of the first monsoon showers—a sharp, clean, ozonic crackle—hitting the sun-baked, laterite-rich soil of the Konkan coast. It is the smell of anticipation, of dust settling and life reviving.

The heart note is the journey into the orchard. Here, Vermillion uses a revolutionary headspace technology to capture the scent of the Alphonso mango’s skin—green, slightly bitter, resinous from the tree’s sap, and kissed by the sea-salt air. It is a vibrant, chlorophyll-rich greenness that makes the final act all the more breathtaking.

The dry-down is the reward. This is the creamy, voluptuous, and impossibly sweet flesh of the mango itself. But instead of relying on sugary notes, Vermillion conjures it through a blend of opulent sandalwood oil from Mysore (recalling the old sandalwood boxes the mangoes were once packed in), a touch of coconut milk, and the barest hint of saffron. It is warm, lactonic, and profoundly comforting—the scent of the aamras served on a grandmother’s silver vati.

Limited to 50 decanters per season, priced at ₹4,50,000, ‘Aamras’ is less a perfume and more a wearable heirloom. It is for the man or woman who carries the legacy of their land with them, a private, golden-hour memory of a Konkan summer, lingering on the skin like a cherished secret.