What Makes Us Human?

Petrichor! Probably the primal smell that still exists.

I don’t particularly like the word personally; it somehow takes away from the sensuality of the beautiful smell of rain falling on the earth. Is there a word for what the smell does to me? It brings a smile to my face, makes me pause, take a deep breath and look up at the sky. It moves me — makes me feel!

Certain smells have that quality — to remain in our memories, to make us feel. Remember how mogra flowers smell on a summer morning? Or the smell of fresh-cut grass and freshly dug earth? Or the sweet smell of madhumalati flowers on warm summer nights? The smell of cork tree flowers spinning down from tall trees on misty winter evenings makes me stop and pick them up. Have you done it? Picked up a bunch of these flowers and smelled them deeply?

The smell of smoke in villages early in the morning. The distinct smell of a stinkbug. Mango flowers as they fall and begin to decay. Crushed lemongrass. Moist leaf litter…

And then there is the sweetest smell of Buddleja asiatica in flower! A palmful of parijaat flowers takes me straight back to the summer mornings spent in my grandmother’s garden.

The smells remain with us. They belong so completely to a place that encountering one years later can bring an entire landscape back almost instantly. A place that we thought we had forgotten suddenly becomes present again — not as an image, but as a feeling.

Possibly this is what makes us human.

As landscape architects, we spend most of our professional lives drawing landscapes, creating spaces through drawings, sketches, materials and plants, revising them to the very last detail, hoping it will all come together. And yet, ironically, what stays with us is something that we cannot draw.

The smell of a blooming rose. The song of a bird. A vibrant butterfly flitting from flower to flower. A frog sitting in the leaf litter.

Fleeting moments that we can’t necessarily document or photograph when we conclude a project. And yet these instances are precisely what make a space what it is — landscapes that touch our soul.

Our professions are important, but before we become professionals, we are humans first. We walk into a profession carrying our experiences, memories, senses and aspirations. Probably, that is what makes us distinct from one another.

A landscape is ever-evolving. When we complete a project, it is only just the beginning — a canvas, a stage on which nature’s moments unfold. Moments that make us pause, observe…

Feel....

August 2026