The gifted Indian English poet Sharmila Ray from West Bengal visited Kerala and took part in Vishva Malayala Mhotsavam, a three day literary and cultural mega event conducted jointly by the Kerala Ministry of Culture and Kerala Sahitya Academy on 30th and 31st of October and 1st of November. Her program was in the Olympia Champer, Chandrasekaran Nair Stadium along with the veteran Tamil novelist Indira Parthasarathy. In her talk she said that the sense of smell has an appeal to her as a poet. Every individual and even every city has a smell and according to her Thiruvananthapuram has a ‘tangy’ smell. She stole the hearts of Malayali literary lovers with her passionate and coulourful talk on poetry. She was also down-to-earth and friendly with everyone. Sharmila had already earned several writer friends in Kerala and she could be spotted along with them in Thiruvananthapuram cherishing poetry and life. They said that they had savoured every bit of the time spent with Sharmila, a great human being and poet and of course friend of Kerala.