MALA ° PERFUME OIL

New Delhi] haunts and scents of the little Gold Leaf cigarettes I smoked, tea, spices, garlands of rose, carnation and marigold dangling from the wedding shops, so I recreated that place in this perfume, Mala, as in, a garland of flowers, beads, and stories; in Spanish, a bad woman. I use a single drop of scent of a loose woman°—choya nakh oil—to fix the perfume, so it lingers.” —Tanaïs, “Mala,” In Sensorium: Notes for My People °medieval Indian double entendre for roasted seashell oil, perhaps because of the long fingernail like shape of this mollusk