My sincerest apologies but I really can’t choose. In my opinion all five go hand in hand and it is extremely sad that many people are not gifted with all five. I myself have terrible eyesight. My glasses are extremely thick but thank heavens for the genius who invented glasses (inventor of bifocals is Benjamin Franklin) and super-genius who developed contact lenses (Adolf Fick in 1887)! Without them many of us would have lost out on experiencing the beauty of this world.

The world’s beauty can only accurately be described as an experience, because it’s not something you just see or hear, you know. I mean a walk through a park would be incomplete without the sounds of birds playing in the pond, the faint aroma of the flora wafting through the air, the varying range of colourful flowers, the scorching heat of the sun of on your back and the delicious taste of ice-cream on your tongue!

Let me take you on a journey to demonstrate the magnificence of our senses:

You are in Delhi, India. As you enter the local market, the pungent smell of spices hit you. You close your eyes and inhale the magnificence: the chilli powder, the turmeric, the ginger, the pepper…it tantalizes your taste buds! When you open your eyes you see the hunched old lady with her worn-out grey sari, and amid the chants of the thousands of traders she screams:
“Masala, hardee, manja! Aao, aao, mein achchee price banaoongi! ” (Curry powder, tumeric, ginger! Come, come, I’ll make a good price!)  You notice the heaped bowls of coloured powder that sit on her shabbily assembled table with Hindi written signs sticking out of them. The colours are amazing, each very slightly different from the next: orange, mustard, red, golden yellow. You head towards her stall and as you move, the achchara (part that hangs over the shoulder) of a young girl’s sari brushes your skin. The material is unbelievably soft and silky and a waft of the girl’s perfume lingers in the material. It slides of your arm with the grace of running water. You move on and when you reach the stall, temptation gets the better of you and you dip your finger into the deep red mountain of powder. You raise your finger to your mouth and taste the fine, grainy powder, whose sign reads ‘Bhooth jalakia powder’ (bhooth jalakia is the name of the most pungent chilli in the world – hotter than the habanero). As you swallow, your ears grow hot, your tongue grows numb and your throat feels like you’ve just swallowed hot coals... You hear a scream: “Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggggggghhhhhhhhhh!!!” You look around to find the source of that excruciating noise only to realise that it’s coming from you. A young lady sashays past you with clay pots on her head and in her arms and you notice the drops of water on its side, and before you can think you grab the pot out of her hands, knocking the one on her head off in the process and pour the ice-cold water into you mouth. When you look up again the relieved expression on your face quickly disappears replaced with fear as the old lady from the spice stall yells at you to “RUN!!!” You turn around to find out why: the lovely lady, drenched in water, has a demonic look in her eyes and judging from the monstrous roars of the gigantic men behind her your only choice is to RUN!    

Now imagine that ‘experience’ without any one of your senses… No sight and you would never have seen the beautiful coloured powders or the look on the lady’s face after you drenched her. No sound and you would never have heard the old lady’s warning or the enormous growls of those demented muscle men. No feeling and you would not have felt the silkiness of the sari or the fine granules of the powder. No smell and you would never have enjoyed the aroma of the fragrant spices or the scent of the girl’s sari. And lastly, no taste and you would never have enjoyed the blood-boiling flavour of the Bhoot-jalakia powder! Okay so we could have done without that sense but then where’s the fun in that? Ciao!