A rotting durian in an Australian city library

‘Gas’ leak: A durian vendor waits for customers at a market in Bangkok. Firefighters were called to the RMIT university campus in Melbourne after a ‘gas’ smell was reported in a library. — Reuters

HUNDREDS of people were evacuated from a library in Melbourne’s city centre last Saturday after a rotting durian sparked fears of a gas leak.

OK, it’s bad. But is it that bad? Well, apparently. The writer Anthony Burgess who taught English at the Malay College, Kuala Kangsar in the 1950s wrote a magnificent book The Malayan Trilogy where he compared eating a durian to “having sweet raspberry blancmange in a lavatory”.

And he meant “Malayan lavatory in the 1950s” too. Privately, he told friends that it was like “rotten, mushy onions”.

The travel writer Chitra Divakumari once described a morning with great panache. “Each new day,” she observed, “has a colour, a smell.”

Unfortunately, what wafted to the nostrils of the good citizens of Melbourne last Saturday morning had more to do with disturbing sulphur compounds associated with skunk spray, rotten eggs and dirty socks.

Firefighters were called to the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) university campus on Latrobe Street just after a “gas” smell was reported in a library, the city’s fire department said in a statement.

They weren’t particularly effective at first because they used the usual method. They first attempted perfume on the grounds that it could be used to douse an even worse smell.

When a student complained, an old-timer grumbled that these present-day kids were “spoiled rotten”. To which a wag replied: “All kids smell that way these days.”

Who said Aussie fire-fighters didn’t have a sense of humour.

Even so, almost 500 students and teachers were evacuated by the police while dozens of intrepid firefighters donned breathing apparatus and investigated the source of the smell. The building is known to store potentially dangerous chemicals, the fire department added.

The firefighters eventually tracked down the stench to a durian that had been left in a cupboard.

“After a comprehensive search, firefighters identified the smell was not chemical gas, but gas generated from rotting durian, an extremely pungent fruit which had been left rotting in a cupboard,” the Metropolitan Fire Brigade said.

The smell had permeated the building’s air-conditioning system, it added. That was precisely what convinced some teachers that they might be under chemical attack.

Following the discovery, firefighters gave the all-clear and reopened the building by 6pm.

The local Environmental Protection Agency concluded that it had been the work of some absent-minded or forgetful South-East Asian student. So they put up signs at the university that proclaimed: “Watch for durians.” Most Malaysians thought it was a fair trade.

In truth, the humble durian isn’t so humble at all. Its prices have sky-rocketed, no thanks to the Chinese who seem bent on littering the Road on which the Belt is located with durian rind.

It has become a test of sorts for Western chefs hitherto given to assuming that blue cheese had been the only Smell that could Stun Skunks.

Even the great Bobby Flay broke down and ran off screaming into the night upon being pointedly confronted by a solitary durian. It ended sadly though: when told that some Malaysians considered it the King of Fruits, he began laughing so hysterically that he’s been confined to a sanatorium in the cooling confines of Cameron Highlands.

Scientists have also developed a new-found respect for the spiky fruit. Bottled and concentrated, its essence has been found to strip bark from trees, paint from walls.

It may have also catalysed evolution, even propelled the emergence of homo sapiens into Indonesia where durians are known to be plentiful.

Remember Java Man?