Like the nutritionists keep saying, breakfast is the most important meal for man - a meal that is supposed to provide him with the most essential energy to see him through the rest of the day. What was that old school saying? 'Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dine like a pauper'. Something like that.

Now when you have the most important meal of the day, one must treat it with some respect, right? As appealing visually as it is to the taste buds, breakfasts should be served with élan, a panache, with a flourish that would want the rest of the house to be eagerly asking for more. Whatever the contents of breakfast might be, a spic & span dining table neatly arranged with food items- starting with light warm milk may be, progressing to toasts & butter, lots of fruits cut into little pieces and put up in white bowls, juices... at least a couple of them, omlettes, may be a couple of dosas, all washed down with lovely Assameese tea. Aaah, such heaven...

Oh wait.. that's the ideal situation. The actual situation is more like mom yelling from the kitchen "breakfast is ready, come have it", and the rest of us sleepily getting out of our rooms to the kitchen, dragging our plates, whining about there being no idlis but only dosas today, or how we've been having idlis for three weeks in a row, or how I hate the 'appams' now because they made me have lots of it when I was a kid ("Appam for breakfast today?? God, there goes the rest of the day! I hate this stuff!! Mommmm!!!"), or something or the other. TV is switched on, channels flipped from Cartoon Network to Nat Geo to Discovery to History Channel to Surya TV. Newspapers are lazily glanced through, and by the time Mom scurries with tea cups as we finish, the most important meal is finished as if it was yesterday’s junk food that was otherwise going waste.

Food must be visually appealing ("that's why we tigers like our food fast and running" - Hobbes, from 'Calvin & Hobbes'). Food must be tasted by the senses long before it hits the mouth - the sights, the smell, the ambience, you get the picture? But well, when will a university level MSc. Statistics rank holder ever comprehend that? Mom ought to be watching some good shows - like that one called ‘The Great Chef' on AXN. Probably then she would realise how to cook a good breakfast for discerning taste buds.

Mom's out in Kerala for a few days. If Mom's cooking was the pits, then Dad's cooking was absolute Hades-level (Dad's another university level MSc rank holder). And if I'm made to have tasteless matter that seems questionably suspended between solid/ liquid state, I'm going to puke. May be it is time I taught them how breakfast ought to be cooked. A master cook at work. A master cook dishing out a power breakfast that would have them wanting for more. Love and dedication to the work at hand, that’s the way things ought to be done.

A good beginning is half the work done. A trip to Big Bazaar the previous night, to pick up that toast maker that I saw the other day. Bread, butter ready. Tomatoes & cucumber bought afresh from the grocer first thing in the morning. Capsicum & onions, ready. The kitchen is not a room, it is a place of creation. Stand back as a master cook takes over the show.

I-Pod is switched on. Song for the moment? "Flying Without Wings". That's how my breakfast's going to be. Top class.

Tomatoes. Aah, these red little things, they ought to be sliced into the thinnest of flakes.. only so much that would give the taster just a hint of tomato in the toasted sandwich. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. Beautiful. Twenty four thin slices of tomato. Cucumber next. Ummm... cucumber? Cucumbers are a staple part of the sandwich when the neighbourhood sandwichwalla makes it, but how good does it really taste? Okay, rather think of that some other time. Slice, slice, slice, slice. Cucumber beautifully sliced. Onion. Skin it first. Wow, I think all of us are like onions. Layers and layers under each of us that we discover as we go along in life. And when we reach to the core, the very essence of being, will there be something left to us or would there be nothing - as in the case of this onion? Oh hell, philosophy later. Cooking now. Cutting onions make one's eyes water. Damn.

Queen sings "Radio Gaga" in my ears. Capsicum to be cut. Hmmmm.. capsicum provides spice to the sandwich. But let me think, do people want spice in their breakfast in mornings? Now that's a thought. Oh well, this is the first time for me. Might as well stick to the norm. Cut, cut, cut.. DAMN!! That was my finger! A trickle of blood oozes out. Wash the wound, it is not too deep. Ouch! Water stings when it hits the wound! So hold it in a way that water would run over it. Yeah that's the way it should be. Oh cool, see.. nothing to it.

Back to cutting capsicum. A bit of capsicum slush hits my wound again making it burn like hell. I curse as I listen to Elton John singing "Your Song". Occupational hazard. We all learn.

Where's the toast maker? Hmmm... now how does the sandwichwalla do it? Let me think for a moment. Okay, he spreads butter on the walls of the toast maker. Where's the butter gone? Okay, in the fridge. I'm in a slicing-mood, I slice the butter into thin slices and dab it on the sides of the toastmaker. Bread slices are arranged (against a white plate.. the cook should get some colour stimulation too). Tomatoes first, cucumber later, capsicum follows, and onion slices last. Oh no wait.. tomatoes give a hint of sweet, cucumber is largely tasteless, capsicum & onion add spice. Should that be the order that I should follow?  Or should it be the spicy capsicum & onion interspersed with tomatoes & cucumber? Ummm... well.. oh great, this is quite a confusion. Grunts from the living room remind me of hungry mouths that I have to feed. Oh hell, they'll probably not realise what goes into their mouths. The arrangement stays the way it is for now. Ronan Keating sings "If tomorrow never comes" on the I-Pod, reminding me that I don't have much time for these finer nuances.

Stove's on. The toastmaker is loaded. And here goes the first launch! Hurray!

The Corrs sing "So Young". By the time they reach the second iteration, the toastmaker's smoking. Okay, so I'll turn it over. I peek at the contents within, just like the sandwichwalla does it. Wow, a delicious looking golden brown. This was just as I wanted it. Top class.

U2 sings "Walk On", a song that takes me back through time. The song reminds me of grit, of determination, of never looking back no matter how bad the situation is. ("I know it aches/ And your heart it breaks/ And you can only take so much/ But walk on.../ You gotta leave it behind...") DAMN! More smoke from the toastmaker. I think the toast has been over done on one side. Oh, perfidy! This one didn;t come out the way I wanted it to. I'll have to make another one. Grunts from the living room again. I'm doing it, I'm doing it! Wait a while, won't you?

Ouch! I scald my hands against the toastmaker. The next sandwich is loaded. "Better Man" by Robbie Williams plays. Another song that transports me through time. But I'm alert. The golden brown of this piece is more or less same on both sides. And we have success! A masterpiece of a sandwich! I dump it on the plate. The next one is loaded up.

It is hot. And a bit smoky. The exhaust fan is turned on, and I look at how the white smoke from the toastmaker is sucked up by the fan. It makes an interesting piece to gaze at on an idle morning. A fluffy cylindrical cloud that pulsates and sways, curling upwards and then being swept away by the rotating blades of the exhaust fan... like a little dinghy being sucked by maelstrom in the Norwegian coast. DAMN!! The toast! The next piece is not golden brown, it is earth brown. Sheesh, I was hoping to populate my table with toastpieces of uniform colour. Too many colours confuse the mind. The next piece goes into the toastmaker. Only three pieces made yet? A hungry critic comes into the kitchen to enquire. And I'm standing there - feeling hassled with the ingredients, feeling confused about the ideal time a toast should stay on the stove, the white smoke, my cut finger... I yell - "If you don't go away, I'll have YOU for breakfast, understand??? The food critic scurries away.

Sandwich number four. U2 sings "Beautiful Day". I really hope it is. I turn up the volume. Next time I'm going to get an electronic toastmaker. With these manual ones, there's not tellling how long they should be on the stove. Sandwich number five, six, seven and eight. Different colours, and slightly different shapes as I cut them up into four pieces. I can't afford to waste time on details like that any more. I have mouths to feed. A lawyer friend calls up to ask a doubt. I tell him I'm at church and I can't talk and he's disturbing my prayers. He hangs up quickly. Commandment #1 of the ten commandments rings in my head - "Thou shalt not use the name of thy God in vain". Okay, okay.. I'm trying to feed people over here alright?? And it's getting to my nerves! I think of that incident where Jesus Christ feeds the milling crowd once with just five loaves of bread and fish. Would he have faced what I'm facing? No time for specifics. I've got cooking to do.

Sandwiches nine, ten and eleven. My in-born quality checker gives up and shuts shop. People will just have to do with what they're served. Sandwiches twelve, thirteen and fourteen. My patience gives up. Three people can easily have fourteen sandwiches between them, can't they? A tired master cook stops cooking.

Cleaning up is as important a step as is cooking. When the person leaves the kitchen, it should remain as spotless as it did when he first entered it. A master cook must be like the ninja, not giving evidence of his presence. Invisible and unseen, his fame growing solely on the basis of the taste of his creations.

Tea is put to brew. Cooking is a thankless job. One tries so hard to make the best of things for the others, but none of that effort is ever recognised. Like my sandwich number six for instance, it is the most perfect sandwich in the whole lot, but no one is going to realise it. A tinge of sadness crosses my heart. Tea is brewed, and now for arranging the breakfast in a visually tantalizing manner.

Pieces of toast are arranged in a diamond pattern around the bowl that I’ve filled up with sweet & sour tomato ketchup. Against the white of the plate, the red does look good. The browns of the toast and the red of the ketchup, wish I had something green to sprinkle around as well. But hell, there are hungry hogs in the living room – they’ll probably eat anything. Even burnt rubber. And I’m a bit hungry too.  Tea is served in glass cups & saucers, going well with the white plate with brown toasts.

And my grip slips splattering the contents of the plate onto the kitchen platform. I grit my teeth and curse. I take the other two plates and walk on to the living room. Folks are reading newspapers, a bit cross at being served breakfast at a time which is a shade later than the usual. No one even sees the colour combination that the master cook has served up - white plates and brown toast with golden tea. Sandwich number six is now as indifferent as sandwich number three. No one notices the look on the master cook’s face. And that gets me thinking, how many times have I noticed the look on mom’s face as she serves us breakfast? Even I don’t look at sandwich number six now. They can eat it up, or throw it to the dogs. I don’t care anymore. Cooking for the family is a thankless job. All cooks are so unappreciated in life.

I retire to my room, feeling a bit defeated at my efforts at serving up a master breakfast, and also thinking of how wasted all one’s efforts feel, unless they’re appreciated by others.

I have a piece of toast. “Not bad, but the butter had been dabbed a bit too much on this one while cooking. The salt of the butter hits your tongue first before the sweet of the tomato or the spice of capsicum”, an inner food critic gives some sound byte.  Oh beat it and just eat it, I tell him.

Three more days for mom to come back from Kerala. May be we’ll have good breakfasts then.

Cooking is such a thankless job.

“If you got arrested for kindness, would there be enough evidence to convict you for it?”

- ((I forget where I heard it from))

“No matter what they tell us, no matter what they do

No matter what they teach us, what we believe is true

No matter what they call us, however they attack

No matter where they take us, we'll find our own way back

I can't deny what I believe, I can't be what I'm not

I know I'll love forever, I know no matter what...”

-  "No Matter What"

Boyzone