MALA: Blooms & Bad Women
MALA is a podcast that unravels the notion of a "bad woman", the Spanish definition of MALA, a garland of flowers in Sanskrit, or in this podcast, Memory As Living Art. The first season of MALA features a house of formerly incarcerated women living in Queens, NY. The women interviewed for this project spent decades in the criminal justice system in New York State. We wanted to render their lives, before & after their convictions, as perfumes. Each fragrance is a composition of the scent memories amassed throughout their lifetime. These are notes from their childhood, of solace, of yearning, of trauma & escape. The act of releasing a scent from a vessel into the air is akin to their newfound freedom, to a life now outside. We welcome you to experience their stories. *Please note that each episode deals with intense themes that may be triggering for some listeners*
Episodes
“In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse.”
This episode explores the Dream House as Perfume, fragmentations of memory experienced as transitory olfactory notes.
In this final, harrowing episode of MALA, we meet Claude, who spent 25 years in prison for a crime she did not commit. Claude's dresser is covered in about thirty perfumes, and she wears a different perfume for the time of day, her mood at that moment. There are designer and celebrity perfumes, like Perry Ellis to Katy Perry. Scents lock themselves into our memory, and perfume is a chance for ascension of our social class, ou...
Mary Bennett, a Marymount College graduate and counselor. Mary’s warm and inviting, she hugs me right away, and we sit on her bed for our chat. Her room smells like fresh laundry and traces of powdery, floral notes, or as Mary calls them, her old school perfumes. On her altar she’s arranged photographs of her kin and a vase of artificial roses nestled among plants. Within minutes, we’re transported into the most emotional memory of...
Nikkie is the daughter of Greek immigrants. She fell in love with a fellow Greek-American man who admitted his violent past just before their wedding night. They were so deeply in love she took a chance. His abuse worsened and Nikkie’s life had become a nightmare, which led to the traumatic event that would send her to prison for 23 years. According to the Correctional Association of New York, 82% of incarcerated women are survivor...
Tasha grew up in Runyon Heights, a predominantly black suburb in Yonkers, not too far from where I grew up in Rockland County. Tasha’s story and olfactory memory bring her back to the scent of cotton linen, fresh air, being outside, far from home. It’s something I notice in myself, when I’m in my lab, or writing fiction. What we gravitate towards is often right at the edge of our traumas. Cleanliness and fresh air juxtapose against...
A podcast founded by novelist & perfumer Tanwi Nandini, the MALA podcast is where extraordinary women retell their stories of survival and reimagine them as scents. We’re here to unravel the notion of a bad woman, which is the Spanish definition of MALA, and means a garland of flowers in Sanskrit, or, in this podcast, Memory As Living Art.
This season centers on a house of formerly incarcerated women in Flushing, Queens. Our fir...
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