Breakfast...

Thanks to Anubha I have started eating proper breakfast now a days. Before this I have never been much of a breakfast person. I always start feeling hungry after noon. But Anubha gets hungry early on in the morning and makes something. So by default I eat with her or just bring the food to office and eat it while starting work. I am told it is a good habit, lets see how long this can go on.

We usually eat poha, sabu dana (this cooked with peanut masala or just crushed peanuts is my latest obsession, I think in my old age I am turning Maharastrian), parathas, egg, chicken saussages and bread (this is my contribution to the breakfast menu). Sometimes when I am feeling indulgent I walk to Janata Bakery and pick up their mushroom patty. In the winter Jayshree and me, we eat a lot of kachouris. These are not the bong kochuri. We have a favourite shop who serves them pipping hot with equally pipping sabji, mirchi and chatni.

When Anubha is not making the effort I generally stick to cereals with yogurt or my other usual-- papaya.

At home my mother refused/refuses to cook any breakfast, so whoever felt/feels hungry would toast a bread, maximum there would be cheese or peanut butter or marmalade during winters. Sundays were/are different, along with milk in the moring, kochuri with cholar dal and jilipi would come. Sunday Telegraph and this breakfast while Rangoli being broadcasted in DD1 was a great combo to start the day. I look forward to Sundays at home. I always used to get up at 7.30 a.m. eat, read the interesting bits of the paper and then go back to sleep. What bliss.

I remember the breakfasts we used to eat as kids in mamarbari-- kochuri, shingara and jilipis. This was before television had started broadcasting in the mornings. The radio would be on full blast, there would be mostly some Rabindrasangeet playing, and each page of the Sunday newspaper would be floating around among my four mamas/uncles. There would be inevitable tussle over the sports page, my eldest mama would be walking behind my didima/grandma reading her the football/cricket news, praising Mohunbagan and crusing East Bengal. While the other mamas would try to prise it away from him. Soon a huge discussion would start off, while Ma and me would sit and eat. This was even before my brother was born. Suddenly the entire scene from my childhood came back so vividly.