Breakfast was poha —flattened rice tempered with mustard seeds, curry leaves, and peanuts. They ate on banana leaves (a biodegradable plate Kavya would later compost in the backyard) while sitting cross-legged on the floor. Meera had read somewhere that eating while sitting on the ground improved digestion. But the real reason was older than science: it kept you humble. No one sits on a throne to eat in India.
Afternoon arrived with heat that made the air shimmer. Lunch was a tiffin box of leftover roti and bhindi (okra) that Meera had packed with a small plastic bag of salt—because in Indian summers, you lose salt through sweat before you lose patience. www desi tashan com
The first hint of dawn over Varanasi was not a glow but a sound: the low, resonant chime of a brass bell from the Kashi Vishwanath temple. Seven-year-old Kavya heard it in her sleep, and her body knew what to do before her mind fully woke. She slipped out of the cotton quilt her grandmother had woven on a handloom twenty years ago, and padded barefoot to the kitchen. Breakfast was poha —flattened rice tempered with mustard