In Winter — Ooty

By afternoon, if you are lucky, the mist lifts for an hour. The sun is weak, a pale coin in the sky, but it turns the frost on the grass into a thousand tiny diamonds. This is the time for a hot cup of kaapi —the strong, sweet filter coffee of the Nilgiris—cupped in both hands for warmth. The air is so still you can hear the distant cry of a brahminy kite.

The Nilgiri Mountain Railway chugs into the station, its brass whistle muffled by the thick air. From inside the carriage, the world outside is a watercolor painting: blurred tea bushes fading into a pale, white nothing. You press your palm against the cold windowpane until a ghost of your handprint appears on the glass. ooty in winter

Then the sun dips behind Doddabetta peak, and the cold returns with a vengeance. The mist rolls back in, thicker this time, swallowing the roads. Pine needles are frozen stiff on the ground. The shanties selling chow chow and roasted corn light their kerosene lamps, and the flames look soft, haloed in the fog. By afternoon, if you are lucky, the mist lifts for an hour