Pigeon8217;s egg omelette

We all relied on money from home, which used to arrive by post. A postal delay often meant begging and borrowing to keep ourselves above the poverty line. As we did our own cooking, no credit often meant simple food. However, we usually got along all right.

The month would start with sta-cked shelves and stoves full of ke-rosene, and perhaps chicken If the previous months creditors weren8217;t queuing up. By the 25th, we8217;d be down to boiled potatoes and achaar. But we had enough rice, and we8217;d be hungry enough for it to taste better than the five-star stuff I often eatnow.

Only once did things go really wrong. All three of us had somehow managed to overspend in a fit of buying. Raja, as usual, bought utterly useless things for twice what they were worth, and then went around showing them to everybody. No amount of criticism or leg-pulling would convince him that that he had been had.

As for Ranjan and me, I don8217;t remember how we8217;d managed to get so financially derelict8230; but there we were. That morning, I woke late and went to the kitchen. The stove was nearly empty, there was no rice or cooking oil, and for vegetables we had only half a rather dry onion. Spices and suchlike were luxuries we generally didn8217;t use much, so that was OK. The hassle was with the rice. What were we going to eat that day?

Raja was pretending to be engrossed in his studies. The exams were near, but Raja studying anytime other than the night before had to be a passing fit or acting. Ranjan was downstairs, sitting at our neighborhood chaiwala8217;s. When I got there, I saw that the topic ofdiscussion was the square meal. The chaiwala was offering him a roti. He might have taken it, but my arrival at that critical moment obviously skewed the equation a bit. He refused.

8220;You got any cash left?8221; I asked him. He hadn8217;t. We went back upstairs for a full war council. Raja didn8217;t have any money either. The lousiest rice came for Rs 12 a kilo. We decided to try and rustle up that handsome amount somehow. A pocket search was started.

Unwashed clothing never stood us in better stead. At the end of the quest, I had unearthed four rupees, Ranjan had one and Raja who had more unwashed clothing than us but got broke faster had one. We8217;d ma-de our day. The hassle was, we ne-eded kerosene too, and cooking oil, not to mention vegetables. All that in six rupees would be a bit tough to get anywhere without the services of a time machine.

So, sadly, we prepared to swallow rice and salt as best we could. Ranjan went into his cooking with-out the usual verve. Raja was shaking out an old shoe in thestore-room before coming in to help, when suddenly he shouted. Hey, a pigeon8217;s egg8217;. It lay there in his shoe, a tiny thing about three quarters the size of a ping-pong ball. Normally we8217;d have left it alone, but that day it looked mighty tasty.

The next problem was cooking oil. Then I remembered some coconut hair oil I8217;d bought and never used. So, with half an onion and a pigeon8217;s egg, Ranjan rustled up an omelette of sorts. We all had our lunch with this for support. And nobody believes me when I say this, but it tasted great. I still water at the mouth when I think of it. And we had eaten up half-a-kilo of rice at one sitting.