A child dressed as Santa Claus, distributes sweets during a school function. Pic/AFP

After a month of relative despair, I found myself on the verge of excitement again. It had something to do with the feast of Christ the King, which is Catholic code for “Christmas is coming”. This Sunday will mark the beginning of Advent, which translates to my father beginning his subconscious foraging through markets on the hunt for the scent of plush, ripe guavas. I can imagine him opening the door when he returns home with his loot. My mother will comment about their size and texture. She will crib if they’re smaller than expected. But she will boil them nonetheless so that they swell to the point of bursting. Then she will make pulp of their flesh and strain for seeds. My father will soon take over, measuring ghee and sugar before the eventual slow churning over the stove in an oversized vessel, his hands zealously stirring the sweet smelling mass until it thickens. My mother will intervene to relieve him, until the guava pulp starts to show signs of hardening. An hour later, dada will scoop out the mixture into trays and leave them to dry. The warm, comforting, scent of ripe guavas will hang over the apartment for the rest of the month. For my household, it symbolises the very essence of Christmas. If the season could be bottled up, this would be its fragrance — the luxuriant trace of pulped Guavas sweating over a fire.