In the smoking room at the Kathmandu airport, there were no matches or lighters to be found. People stood around lighting up from other cigarettes, passing the torch, as it were, and keeping the flame alight. It reminded me of a story in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated where a group of smokers, the Wisps of Ardisht, are exiled to the rooftops. Under attack during the World War, the smokers turn hysterical as their matches run out, until a child realises that one cigarette can be used to light another and they get a schedule in place. Perhaps this is too sentimental an analogy for the situation in Nepal, but it aptly comes with an “injurious to health” warning.

Ever since New Delhi imposed an informal economic blockade on Nepal in September to coerce the country into making concessions in the new constitution for the Madhesis who live in the Terai region bordering India, the Himalayan country has found rough-hewn ways to function.

A black market has emerged to supply fuel and cooking gas to those who can afford the steeper prices. Hospitals have reportedly cut down on surgeries due to a medicine shortage. And as winter sets in and daily power outages last up to 18 hours even in Kathmandu, the main source of hot water, besides the weather-dependent solar geysers, are LPG cylinders.

The cold is looming like a dark cloud over the economically underdeveloped country that is yet to find its footing after the deadly earthquake in April. Outside of Kathmandu, many people are still living in relief camps and medicines are still running scarce.