India, Oct. 18 -- A city perfumed - that is what two weeks of October smell like now. Delhi has many smells: food, spices, streets, sewers. But in October all smells bow down to the olfactory invasion of the saptaparni - heady, sweet like cardamom, but allergenically heavy on the senses. It is polarising, dense and layered.

The city is filled with these trees, and most corners of New Delhi will have one. It was heavily planted in the 1940s around the Golf Links area, but originated in a moist Himalayan region. It is a tough tree, resistant to pollution and rich in medicinal properties. But let us go back to the many personalities of this tree and its strange early association with alluring women.

The older the story, the more occult the...