Tanwi Nandini Islam: Weaving stories with words and smells 

We often associate fragrances with our memories and emotions. Inside a perfume bottle there is a portal into another time, place or memory.

The musky-sweet smell of fallen leaves reminds us of winter, whereas fallen leaves give us the nostalgia of petrichor. Using the power of fragrances to unfold integral histories, Bangladeshi-origin Tanwi Nandini Islam has written her autobiography 'In Sensorium: Notes for My People'. The book was published in February 2022.  

The memoir won an award in the nonfiction category of the 2022 Kirkus Nonfiction Prize. According to the judges, Tanwi's In Sensorium won for its daring, inventiveness, vision, and lyrical eloquence.

Perfume frames the narrative of the memoir, provides the structure to the story, and weaves in and out of the pages to intrigue and educate readers. Certain smells remind us of certain memories. We love a particular smell because we associate it with a fond memory.

In a conversation with the Business Standard, Tanwi spoke about the part of the memoir where she mentioned her last memories with her late grandmother. She lost her grandmother during the time she had covid, when her powers of smell were diminished. She could not smell her grandmother for one last time.

Now, every familiar smell she associates with her grandmother reminds her of the good times they shared. 

"Her breathing, her cries for her son who died, her sleeplessness, her prayer, and, of course, her will that we should practice Islam, were as familiar to me as the scent of her body, one of the first sensuous cartographies in my memory—jasmine attar, violet talcum, paan juice, crushed rose powder, coconut oil, Pond's cream, Tabasco sauce, canola oil," she wrote in the memoir.

In Sensorium: Notes for My People is getting overwhelming appreciation worldwide. It has a 4.29 rating (at the moment of writing) on Goodreads. Although, many people mistake the memoir as a reflection of Bangladeshi culture, the writing, in its truest sense, presents a critical, alternate history of South Asia from an American Bangladeshi Muslim female perspective.

Alongside the author's personal history, the memoir also explores violence of caste, rape culture, patriarchy, war, and the inherited ancestral trauma of being from a lush land constantly denuded, a land still threatened and disappearing because of colonisation, capitalism, and climate change.

Tanwi, popularly known as Tanais, is an American fiction writer and perfumer. She has her own cosmetic line 'Tanais'. She believes that she is a born storyteller. Making perfumes or writing novels are her ways of telling stories.

Tanwi was born in Illinois when her father was doing his PhD. Later, she moved to New York. Tanwi completed her bachelor's in Women's Studies from Vassar College, and MFA from Brooklyn College. She first learnt about the process of making perfumes while she was doing her master's. She has been fascinated with it ever since.

Made of ethically sourced natural essential oils from flowers, fruits, tree resins and absolutes; 'Mala' was her first commercial perfume. Later, she released 'Mati, 'Mojav', 'Namaka', 'Nymphea', etc.

Even though both of Tanwi's careers are flourishing parallelly, she resonates more with being called a writer, which has been her profession for more than two decades. The 40-years old writer made her debut in 2015 with her critically acclaimed novel 'Bright Lines'. The book was a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, and the Brooklyn Eagles Literary Prize.

Even though she was born and brought up in the US, Tanwi  feels a deep connection with her roots. To her, her face, her complexion, her language and every other fundamental part of her is a constant reminder that she is a Bangalee, a true South Asian.