They heard al the Indian evening sounds, sounds that were alien to him, utterly homely and familiar to Harriet: the gongs beating far off in the temple in the bazaar, the creak and knock of the ferryman’s paddle as the ferry came near the bank; the sound of cooking pots being scoured with mud and of a calf bellowing while its mother was milked. There was an evening smell of cooking too, pungent, too raw for their noses with its ghee and garlic and mustard oil; there was the smell of dung fuel burning, and, as they came near the house again, they smelled the cork-tree flowers on the air.” (93)

I love this description of an Indian village in The River, a coming of age novel by Rummer Godden. The novel was made into a beautiful movie in 1951 by Jean Renoir.