Every year around April, the Great Indian Summer arrives, and the country gradually transforms into a furnace. The gentle morning sunshine of winter is replaced with a sweltering heat that sends thirsty street dogs scurrying for shade, their tongues lolling.
In such times, a cooling sherbet is almost like manna from heaven. A refresher once common in Indian homes is the khus sherbet, made from the vetiver grass leaves (Chrysopogon zizanioides).
One of nature’s best coolants, the leaves of khus, or vetiver, bring down body heat and are packed with natural antioxidants that reduce inflammation in the body. As for the roots, the essential oil extracted from them via steam distillation is an important base ingredient in perfumery.
Long before Zara and Dior used vetiver in their luxury perfumes, Indians had been using this aromatic grass in their everyday life.
According to historical records, India has been exporting vetiver for thousands of years.
Excerpts from ‘Periplus of the Erythraean Sea’, a first-century travel tome written by a Greek navigator, reveal that India shipped vetiver in large quantities. Ancient Sangam literature, written more than 2,000 years ago, also mentions vetiver as an ‘omaligai’ ingredient used to enhance the bathing experience.
In medieval India, the Mughals set up a department dedicated solely to developing scents for luxury and culinary purposes. Under their royal patronage, the ancient city of Kannauj emerged as India’s perfume capital — built atop the rich alluvial flood plains of river Ganga, the town was particularly suited to cultivating perfumery essentials such as rose, jasmine and vetiver.
Ever since, Kannauj has been concocting all sorts of evocative attars from vetiver, including the world-famous ‘Mitti attar’ that captures the exquisite scent of raindrops quenching parched soil. Read more about it here.
Kannauj’s vetiver ‘ruh’ is today prized in the world of international perfume business and is the base for iconic perfumes like Armani’s ‘Vetiver Babylone’ and Tom Ford’s ‘Grey Vetiver’. Interestingly, in her book ‘In The Scent Trail’, artist-journalist Celia Lyttelton writes that “scientists have isolated 150 molecules from vetiver, and there are still more mysteries to be unearthed from its roots.”