Anuradha Sansar sprays from a bottle on a paper blotter and hands it to us, nudging us to take a whiff. It’s a fruity, honeyed fragrance. “What colours does it remind you of?” Warm orange, honey peach and bright pink, we say. Something in there brings back a memory 
from college.

She seems pleased. Mumbai-based Sansar thinks that to create a good fragrance, you must have a grip on the human psyche, have the patience to dive into people’s memories and be open to cultures. “My work involves knowing people and understanding their world. A perfumer must learn how to smell and identify the possibilities. Someone will say they want a scent that smells like the beaches of Goa, but everyone has a different aroma and memory they associate with a Goa beach. My job is to recognise the boundaries and know how to push them.”