You will need:

1 tablespoon sunflower oil

1 teaspoon mustard seeds

1 teaspoon carom seeds

1 onion, finely sliced

3 cloves of garlic, muddled

Coriander leaves, finely chopped

1 cup Greek yoghurt

Heat oil in a pan.

Splutter mustard and carom seeds.

Add onions and garlic and fry till they become slightly brown.

Add coriander leaves and fry them.

Add salt, turmeric powder and chilli powder.

Keep the flame low and let it simmer for a while, finally add the yoghurt.

Cook on low flame for two minutes.

Serve over a warm bed of rice and warm your face in the steam.

It is too cold for everything

It is too cold to go out and play in the streets

It is too cold to bring out the jump rope

The earth is hard with frost

The cold will bite through the skin

Toes will freeze in the crocs

The cold seeps into the layers we wear

We blow steams into the air

“Look, I’m smoking a pipe,” giggles the twelve-year-old

You can hear the cold in her lungs

Wheezes between laughters

Red cheeks and broken lips

“CHAMPA”, a voice calls out

Champa runs inside the house

“Mamu* made sollar today,” Champa calls behind her,

The kitchen is rich with the smell of sollar

Toasted garlic, carom, mustard

The slight rancidity of yoghurt

Curdled in the wooden pot tucked beneath the shadows

“Wash your hands,” mamu tells Champa

The water is ice

Champa wets the tips of her fingers

Climbs on top of the dinner chair, her hands folded between her legs.

Grandmother has her cotton stack out

Rolling and pulling them between her fingers into wicks

She has a pile next to her already

Surely, for the evening prayers

Where the lot of them will be dipped into ghee and burned on the altar

Champa likes to cup her hands around the flame

When no one is looking

Cupping her palms close just a little shy from a singe

The flame burns bright yellow and orange

The colour of sollar.

If yellow had a flavour

It would be warm and cold

Like teeth on metal

Like tongue on hot milk

Yellow tastes cold, and it will chase it away

Happiness and sunshine

In a town grey with 20 degrees of frost

A bed of rice and yellowed buttermilk

You will need:

A town shrouded in fog and smoke

A day when the cold seeps through the cracks and crevices

An interruption in ritual play

A morning of prayer and bells

A hand of dice in your favour.

*Mamu is Nepali for mother; most commonly used by children.